Do you need a push to get through the rest of the semester? Join us on April 18th for the first OpenLab co-working session!Â
The last few weeks of the semester are hard not only for both students but also for faculty members, and we believe we can go through this together. Join the OpenLab team and other colleagues to work together on whatever is still on your plate on April 18th. The Zoom room will be open from 1:30 P.M. to 3:30 P.M. Drop in for a little while or stay for the full 2 hours: use the space as you need and enjoy being supported by faculty members who are also working to push through and finish the semester.Â
We will have spaces available for small group discussions if anyone wants, while the main room will stay open as the silent co-working space.
“Crocuses” by Peter Stenzel via Flickr CC BY-ND 2.0
The CUNY-wide group of leaders from the centers for teaching and learning, call CITA (CUNY Innovative Teaching Academy) shares the following upcoming events for the month of March. If you attend any and want to share information or ideas with colleagues here at City Tech, please consider adding them to this Open Pedagogy on the Open Lab site.
You’ve likely seen this call for abstracts in your email and in other places you see announcements:
CUNY will be hosting its next Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access Conference on March 30 and 31, 2023, the theme of which will be The Illusion of Inclusion – Collaborative Solutions for Performative Diversity. The conference is seeking an array of solutions within the CUNY context. Proposals may be based on research, teaching or practice, and designed to spark engagement and discussion. Proposals that include collaborations with CUNY staff and/or students are encouraged. Topics may include: From Data to Action; Disability Inclusion; Designing Inclusive Pedagogies; Organizational Equity – Systems, People, Culture; Physical and Mental Health Pre- & Post-Quarantine: Our New Syndemic Normal.Â
Completed proposals must be submitted by January 4, 2023.Â
Are there ways you see your engagement with open pedagogy as the basis for a proposal for this conference? Does your work on the OpenLab grapple with the conference theme? Would you be interested in sharing your abstract or presentation materials on the OpenLab, either here on Open Pedagogy on the OpenLab or in your portfolio or other space? The OpenLab team is committed to prioritizing inclusion, diversity, equity, and access, and we hope to amplify this work here at City Tech, at CUNY, and beyond.
The OpenLab participates in a vibrant education-focused community on Twitter, and we invite you to join us! You can follow @CityTechOpenLab.
We can also bring some of that vibrant community here to our Open Pedagogy site to share ideas and expand the conversation. Here are a few recent tweets and twitter threads that offer useful insights as we approach the start of the semester:
About PDFs and accessibility:
If you tweet a flyer image for an event and don't add alt text, blind people won't get the details they need to know to come to the event. But if the alt text simply say "event flyer," they still won't know to come. The alt text needs to give them information to be able to come.
About classrooms and classroom furniture being inaccessible–and finding advocates:
A student I don’t know approached me and told me they were embarrassed to tell me something. They finally admitted that they’d left their second class of the day because there wasn’t a desk they could fit in.
I tell this story for a few reasons:
— The Madwoman in the Classroom (@heymrsbond) August 16, 2022
About college students as adults, not children:
Professors: stop calling your students "kids" – treat them like grownups (since they are, afterall, grownups)
The OpenLab is hiring! Please help us to spread the word.
The OpenLab team seeks to add a Digital Pedagogy Fellow to our enthusiastic team.
City Tech’s OpenLab (https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/) is an innovative, open digital platform for students, faculty, and staff at New York City College of Technology, CUNY (http://www.citytech.cuny.edu/). Built using the open source blogging and social networking software WordPress and BuddyPress, the OpenLab supports teaching and learning, enables connection and collaboration, and strengthens the intellectual and social life of the college. The project is driven by a community and access-focused ethos, flexible infrastructure, and commitment to openness, and is proud to partner with many initiatives across campus (e.g., First Year Learning Communities, General Education, Open Education Resources) and across CUNY. Since its launch in Fall 2011, the OpenLab has helped to foster openness and experimentation, supporting a growing community, now 39,000+ members strong.
Fellows will join a creative, collaborative Community Team invested in fostering community through open pedagogy and open digital technologies. Team members gain experience in curriculum development, teaching, professional development, the implementation of a variety of digital tools, testing and functionality, and help-documentation creation. Fellows have used the experiences gained as Digital Pedagogy Fellows to successfully apply for full-time faculty and alt-ac positions.
Digital Pedagogy Fellow responsibilities include providingprofessional development, supporting the OpenLab community, and project development. Weekly responsibilities include OpenLab team meetings and email and open-hour support for faculty, staff, and student members with varied experience with technology. Fellows develop and lead workshops, seminars, and class visits, and create help documentation. They also teach OpenLab members about best practices for developing OpenLab content, how to incorporate technology in the classroom, and what it means to have an online presence. Fellows maintain an active presence on the platform, test new features and fixes, and provide feedback on OpenLab functionality. Fellows also have the opportunity to represent the OpenLab team in campus and external venues.
Ideal candidates will possess the following qualifications:
familiarity with the OpenLab or other WordPress/BuddyPress installations (e.g., the BMCC OpenLab, CUNY Academic Commons, Macaulay ePortfolios, and Blogs@Baruch)
teaching experience, including expertise in digital pedagogy
experience with developing and leading workshops for a variety of users
strong organizational skills and attention to detail
willingness to work collaboratively with a team
communications skills for responding to support requests with speed, empathy, and creativity
good understanding of socially networked online spaces and a variety of digital tools
knowledge of information architecture, usability, and the user experience
the ability to create visually attractive, informative, and well-written blog posts, help documentation, and screencasts
graduate degree or enrollment in a graduate program
Hours and Pay: This is a year-round position, 12-15 hours/week. The starting rate is 37.74/hour with annual increases.
Start Date: Fellows will begin the position with limited hours for training in August 2022, and shift to 12-15 hours/week for the start of the Fall 2022 semester. Currently work will be done remotely, with in-person responsibilities anticipated in the future to align with the needs of the college community.
Application: To apply, submit a cover letter, CV, and representative samples of your digital work to OpenLab Co-Directors Jonas Reitz (jreitz@citytech.cuny.edu) and Jody R. Rosen (jrrosen@citytech.cuny.edu). Please note any other employment within the CUNY system or for the Research Foundation of CUNY for August 2022 and the 2022-23 academic year. Applications should be submitted by Wednesday, June 22, 2022. Please reach out with questions to the email addresses above.
On Behalf of the Queens College Center for Teaching and Learning & Queens College Project Reach (QCPR)Â
Please join us as we embark on another journey of our continuing discussion revolving around Universal Design Learning.
Over the past decade, there has been a substantial increase in the number of Autistic College students (ACS) enrolling in postsecondary education. However, there are distinct challenges faced by ACS and neurodivergent students in their path to graduation. We will discuss learner variability and some of the difficulties that may be experienced by students and instructors. We will also describe how both knowledge of neurodiversity and use of principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) may create a supportive, inclusive learning environment for all students, which may improve student outcomes.
This event will be virtual (via Zoom) from 12 noon to 1:00 pm on June 15th, 2022. Register for the session here: https://forms.office.com/r/erfdvUU05N
A message from the Hispanic Serving Institution Committee and the Faculty Commons:
Dear City Tech Community,  The Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) Committee is preparing for the celebration of HSI Week (September 12-18) and City Tech’s 25th anniversary as an HSI this fall.  We are seeking Hispanic/Latinx faculty and staff to be highlighted in a series digital posters during these events. The digital posters will be displayed across the college and on the HSI OpenLab site.  If you are interested in being featured on a poster, please fill out this google form by June 10, 2022.  Questions can be directed to Melanie Villatoro (MVillatoro @ citytech . cuny . edu)Â
Sincerely, HSIÂ Steering Committee and Faculty Commons
“Bubbles” by Pierre Anquet via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
From the Faculty Commons:
Join us next Faculty Friday Show & Tell – teaching tips! May 6, 2022 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm Stop in for a short take or stay for the hour. Share your favorite success and take away something new to enhance your teaching. Representatives from WAC, READ, OpenLab, and others will be there to share tips, too.
Register here and a ZOOM link will be sent immediately to your inbox.
Questions:Â ssmith@citytech.cuny.edu
We hope you’ll consider participating in this week’s Faculty Friday focused on quick examples of teaching successes, and when you do, that you’ll share a examples that feature the OpenLab!
Can’t make it to Friday’s virtual event? Feel free to share teaching successes here on Open Pedagogy on the OpenLab in a comment on this post!
The OpenLab is a great place to host a website for an event, taking advantage of its openness to make it available to members of your group both inside and outside of City Tech and the public in general.
Today’s EcoFest 2022 Conference is a great example of this. You’ve probably seen the EcoFest site pop up in the Projects section of the OpenLab. If you want to learn more, attend their conference today! Please also share with students, colleagues, and friends!
Here’s what the conference organizers shared to welcome everyone to the EcoFest conference today:
Greetings City Tech community,
EcoFest has been the College’s Earth Day-centered event for the past 7 years. It is an opportunity for faculty, staff, and students to celebrate environmental successes and educate each other concerning the huge challenges we face.
The theme of this year’s EcoFest Conference is Crisis: It’s Time to Take Action. The event will have a hybrid format: there will be live panels and presentations in the Academic Building lobby and theater, and it will be shared synchronously as a Zoom webinar. Last year’s conference had 140 viewers and more than 50 participants. We are planning on even more viewers for EcoFest 2022. The conference schedule is designed so the panels coincide with the times college courses are taking place. Faculty are encouraged to bring their classes. Join us in person in the New Academic Complex Theater or, if you cannot attend live, join via Zoom webinar(registration required). See the full schedule or download the full schedule.
We look forward to seeing you on the 28th!
Thank you, City Tech Campus Sustainability Council
Dr. Zeemont wanted to discuss the process of putting together a collaborative article including NTT and precarious academic workers alongside students for the article, while Adjunct Assistant Professor Stella discussed the importance of including citations in her own course syllabi, both to help explain ungrading policies to students, but also to stave off any potential conflicts with administration. Including citations provides scholarly context for ungrading and demonstrates that an instructor practicing different forms of ungrading is not a rogue agent, but rather part of a larger movement towards equity and anti-racism in higher education.Â
Zeemont closed the co-authors’ discussion by reminding attendees that ungrading is not reserved for expensive private colleges, and that incorporating understanding of students’ material conditions is necessary for liberatory pedagogy.
One of our discussion questions for this event asked participants to consider the connection between ungrading and open digital pedagogy, which is really the focal point of all the OpenLab Open Pedagogy events we plan each semester. While we did not come away with easy answers, we were better able to understand how material inequalities impact our students. Unstable wireless, shared and out-of-date devices, and other technological deficits impact student access to their online courses, while unstable housing, surging inflation, and exploitative working conditions all impact our students’ ability to focus on their studies, and also impact precarious academic workers such as adjunct classroom instructors, non-teaching adjuncts, and college assistants.
In short, expecting learning to take place seamlessly because we have an engaging and flexible platform like the OpenLab does not impact the material conditions that may block student access to the site, and open digital pedagogy cannot be framed as a utopian cure-all. Instead, we learned to focus on student-centered learning, which requires really listening to students’ needs and concerns.
![New York City College of Technology presents EcoFest 2022 Conference: IT'S TIME TO TAKE ACTION! CRISIS
April 28, 2022
8 AM - 5 PM
Register Here [QR code linked to Zoom registration link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__ed4gDXVRF6G732_oHKFEw]](https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/openpedagogyopenlab/files/2022/04/image.png)
