Using the Commons to Teach African American History in the Community College Classroom By Prithi Kanakamedala In Spring 2017, thanks to a generous CUNY Academic Commons (CAC) Faculty Fellowship, I was able to combine a number of scholarly and pedagogical interests in my HIS 37 African-American History class. HIS 37 is a one-semester survey […]
Professional Development and Academic Life (When You’re Mentally Dis/abled) By Jenn Polish For the final installment of this series on mental health in college classrooms, I’d like to shift the focus to ourselves as instructors, and consider how those of us with dis/abilities navigate both the classroom and the professional spaces surrounding it. I […]
Assessment as a Process, Not an Event: Anti-Ableist Strategies for All Students By Jenn Polish This post will focus on developing anti-racist and anti-ableist modes of assessment, and how things like contract grading can be a way for students to create their own forms of success in classrooms (instead of being held unfailingly to […]
Final Projects and Research Papers: On Anti-Ableist Assignment Design By Jenn Polish Throughout this series, I’ve argued that anti-ableist practices in our classrooms should begin before the first day of term: before we’ve met our students, before students are forced to either “out” themselves as having dis/abilities, so that we can minimally “accommodate” them, […]
Different Fields, Similar Strategies: The Value of Group Work By Inés Vañó García and Naomi Lewandowski Being part of The Open Teaching Initiative’s Class Visit Exchange Program has been an opportunity to reflect on teaching and learning strategies from a brand new point of view. Although as Ph.D. students and adjuncts we deal with […]
To Call on Students, or Not to Call on Them? On Structuring Class Participation By Jonathan Kwan and Iris Strangmann Though every class is different, each generally entails a spectrum of student participators, from the very talkative to the somewhat talkative, to the completely silent. Building on our conversations and experiences as a part […]
Assessing Active Learning Praxis: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue By Kristen Hackett and Ryan Donovan The conversation below is based on our visits to each other’s classes, which was facilitated by the Classroom Visit Exchange program, part of the TLC’s Open Teaching Initiative. Breaking Down the Binaries Kristen: At the core of my teaching philosophy is […]
Teaching (the Humanities) at Community Colleges: Thoughts from CUNY Faculty By Elizabeth Alsop Last Fall, I attended a talk by Kingsborough Community College professor Lourdes Follins, who presented her research on the experience of historically underrepresented faculty at CUNY’s community colleges. Her findings were illuminating, and often alarming. But one of the most memorable […]
