The seminar is at the heart of the Teach@CUNY Summer Institute, with small, interdisciplinary groups designed to build community centered around the experience of teaching as graduate students in CUNY. The seminar introduces and models teaching strategies and tools that participants can adapt to their own needs and contexts, and which are applicable across modes of instruction. The seminar begins broadly with core principles of teaching and then explores ways to enact those commitments in course design and planning. The overall goal of the seminar is for participants to explore a variety of teaching strategies, materials and modes; synthesize what they have learned across the seminar and institute to their own needs; and apply this knowledge and skills practically toward their future courses.

The seminar is designed to help participants:

• • Build community and support around teaching during the institute, online and beyond
  • Address the challenges of, and ways to navigate, teaching online during a pandemic
  • Reflect on various pedagogical approaches as experienced in the seminar
  • Adapt and apply pedagogical approaches for use in their own courses, disciplines and contexts
  • Develop teaching materials for their fall courses

The seminar’s curriculum is built in dialogue with the TLC’s Teach@CUNY Handbook.

2023 Seminar facilitators: Luke Waltzer, Chandni Tariq, Luis Henao Uribe, Oriana Mejias Martinez, Laurie Hurson, Pedro Cabello del Moral, Şule Aksoy, Fernanda Blanco Vidal, Cristine Khan, Kristi Riley Ana Flávia Bádue, Shima Houshyar.

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Seminar Schedule & Topics

Seminar One | Principles & Introductions

Tuesday, May 30, 12:30 – 2:00pm

Our introductory meeting will provide an overview of the seminar. Attendees will have a chance to get to know their peers and the TLC facilitator(s). Together, we will reflect on our past teaching and learning experiences and discuss our hopes and anxieties for teaching in Fall 2023. We will begin diving into the TLC’s Teach@CUNY Handbook, which serves as the core text of the seminar, and identify areas of individual and collective focus for the week and the summer.

Goals

• Meet each other and TLC staff
• Reflect on our own education and experiences (both at CUNY and outside), including online during COVID-19
• Articulate needs in the institute based on where participants are in their course planning, teaching experience, etc.
• Explore and discuss Principles from Teach@CUNY Handbook, and make connections to our goals for the fall

 

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Seminar Two | Course Planning

Wednesday, May 31, 12:30 – 2:00pm

In the second meeting, we will turn to the practice of backward design and work together to develop learning goals for our course. In this meeting, we will critically examine the syllabus as an instructional artifact. We will consider the positions of our courses in the context of our disciplines and the CUNY curriculum and discuss the intersections between course policies and student success.

Goals

• Examine the structure and the role of the course within their disciplines and broader context.
• Critically examine a syllabus, course objectives, and how they support student engagement.
• Reflect on learning experiences and needs of students in changing social contexts

 

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Seminar Three | In the Classroom

Thursday, June 1, 12:30 – 2:00pm

On this day, we will continue to connect teaching principles to structures that facilitate student engagement through in-class activities. We will reflect on our vision of a classroom community and environment encouraging active, student-centered learning. We will explore how to build a toolkit of pedagogical activities that links your class sessions to your course goals, and that could be adapted and applied to different teaching modalities. Finally, we will examine and craft lesson plans that help us organize our class sessions.

Goals

• Critically consider how to develop a classroom culture that empowers students
• Develop strategies to promote active learning
• Identify active learning strategies for your course and build a toolkit of activities
• Develop methods for combining synchronous and asynchronous work
• Prepare activities ahead to have a planned class, paying particular attention to scaffolding and activity sequencing

 

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Seminar Four | Assignments & Scaffolding

Friday, June 2, 10:00-11:30am

During the morning of our final day, we will focus on concrete design practices that allow you to achieve your course’s learning goals. In particular, we will explore diverse types of assignments, practice scaffolding assignments, and explore the use of culminating assignments throughout courses.

Goals

• Reflect on your own experience as a learner focusing on what has worked and has not worked for you when completing assignments
• Identify low and high stakes assignments that are common in your field
• Read and discuss Chapter Five, “Creating Assignments” and Chapter Eleven, “Assignments.”
• Begin developing a final assignment; identify components to scaffold

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Seminar Five | Assessment and Principles

Friday, June 2, 12:30 – 2:00pm

The final meeting will be dedicated to strategies for assessing the achievement of learning goals. We will discuss grading student work, and reflecting about our experience teaching the course. We will revisit the principles from earlier in the week, and identify work that remains to be done prior to the start of the semester.

Goals

• Consider methods and practices for student assessment
• Define spaces for self-assessment
• Revisit the principles
• Identify what needs to be done before fall semester