Tuesday, May 27 | 2:15 – 3:15pm

Who Am I When I Teach? Creating a Teaching Persona

Oriana Mejías Martínez | Room 3207

The version of yourself that you bring to class each day is your “teaching persona.” In this workshop, we will examine the diverse roles of instructors in the classroom, considering our positionalities, who we want to be, and who our students are likely to be. Let’s think through how to build rapport to foster deep and meaningful teaching and learning experiences in and out of the classroom.

Equity-oriented Teaching

Kristi Riley | Room 3306

Graduate Center students teach CUNY undergraduates with diverse and uneven levels of preparation for and understanding of the public higher education system. This workshop will explore equity-oriented teaching in the CUNY context and share instructional practices for mitigating systemic barriers to learning that adversely impact CUNY undergraduate students. Participants will leave with concrete examples for implementing equity-oriented teaching in their syllabi, assignments, assessments, and interactions with students.

Critical Approaches to Grading: Part 1 – Standards based grading

Jenna Queenan | Room 3309

What do we grade, and for what purpose? Grading can be a painful experience – for both students and professors alike. In part 1 of this workshop on grading, we will explore ways to make grading more transparent to students and aligned with the learning outcomes (standards) of the course. In particular, participants will have a chance to create their own rubrics and checklists for several sample assignments.

Crafting Community Agreements

Jeff Voss | Room 3307

“Every class should be about the class!” The relationships we create within the classroom often end up being more important to students than the content we teach. Community agreements offer an effective method for building a sense of mutuality, trust, and shared commitments between students (and between students and instructors). In this workshop we will go over how to use the first part of the semester to craft a set of “community agreements” with your class.

Social Annotation and Open Web Learning

Zach Muhlbauer | Room 3212

Join us in this workshop on social annotation and open web learning using Hypothesis. Together, we’ll consider how social annotation can make learning more visible and exploratory, enabling students to collaboratively discover, tag, and build knowledge from diverse online sources. Through hands-on activities, we’ll practice ‘meeting in the margins’ to help anchor the reading process and immerse students in the social life of documents as they navigate the open web.

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Tuesday, May 27 | 3:30 – 4:30pm

Boredom Busters: Designing Low-Stakes Activities to Build Engagement in the Classroom

Varnica Arora | Room 3212

Teaching for the first time—or even the fifth—can be overwhelming, leaving little time or energy to design creative, engaging activities. Sometimes, the idea of adding “one more thing” to your lesson plan feels impossible. This workshop is here to help. Boredom Busters introduces easy-to-implement, low-stakes strategies to increase student engagement, focus, and/or participation—without adding extra stress to your teaching load. Whether you’re looking to spark reflection, check for understanding, or energize a sleepy classroom, this workshop offers a chance to workshop and design your own engagement activities tailored to your course.

Critical Approaches to Grading: Part 2 – Ungrading

Jenna Queenan | Room 3309

As CUNY instructors, we are required to give grades but are there ways to make grading less painful? This workshop will explore critical approaches to grading and feedback that can foster student agency, transparency, and engagement in learning, including contract grading and ungrading. In these approaches, grading becomes less top-down and more of a conversation between student and professor, which has the potential to deepen relationships and increase transparency about why we grade.

UDL 3.0: Centering Accessibility & Learner Agency

Janelle Poe | Room 3305

How do we celebrate and center the learning and lives of our diverse students in our course design and classrooms? How do we lower barriers to learning for students with disabilities and for all of our students? The CAST UDL guidelines provide a thoughtful and engaging framework instructors can activate in a variety of ways across weekly schedules, a semester, and a lifetime of teaching to emphasize learner agency, equity, diversity, and inclusivity in the learning communities.

Equity-oriented Teaching

Kristi Riley | Room 3306

Graduate Center students teach CUNY undergraduates with diverse and uneven levels of preparation for and understanding of the public higher education system. This workshop will explore equity-oriented teaching in the CUNY context and share instructional practices for mitigating systemic barriers to learning that adversely impact CUNY undergraduate students. Participants will leave with concrete examples for implementing equity-oriented teaching in their syllabi, assignments, assessments, and interactions with students.

AI in Teaching and Learning

Luke Waltzer, Laurie Hurson, Şule Aksoy, Zach Muhlbauer | Room 3207

The rise of commercial generative Artificial Intelligence applications has created both challenges and opportunities for college instructors. In this session, TLC staff who have designed the Critical AI Literacy Institute will share key insights to help new college teachers articulate policies and practices to help ensure that AI use in their classes is purposeful, transparent, and in the service of learning.

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Wednesday, May 28 | 2:15-3:15pm

Open Pedagogy & CUNY’s Open Publishing Platforms

Laurie Hurson and Robin Miller | Room 3212

Open pedagogy and open educational practices allow instructors to use OER materials and digital tools to host course materials, facilitate student engagement, and foster students’ digital skills and literacies. This workshop will introduce the CUNY Academic Commons and Manifold, two open teaching platforms at CUNY, and share teaching strategies to enact open pedagogy in your course.

Who Am I When I Teach? Creating a Teaching Persona

Oriana Mejías Martínez | Room 3309

The version of yourself that you bring to class each day is your “teaching persona.” In this workshop, we will examine the diverse roles of instructors in the classroom, considering our positionalities, who we want to be, and who our students are likely to be. Let’s think through how to build rapport to foster deep and meaningful teaching and learning experiences in and out of the classroom.

“A” is for Accessibility

Janelle Poe | Room 3305

Recent data indicates that nearly 1 in 5 college students has a disability, visible or invisible, undiagnosed or diagnosed, temporary or long-term, yet most students will not officially report this to their colleges and often suffer from a lack of support in college classrooms and on campus. This workshop presents strategies for supporting students with disabilities and designing accessible courses and materials.

Crafting Community Agreements

Jeff Voss | Room 3307

“Every class should be about the class!” The relationships we create within the classroom often end up being more important to students than the content we’re teaching. Community agreements offer an effective method for building a sense of mutuality, trust, and shared commitments between students (and between students and instructors). In this workshop we will go over how to use the first part of the semester to craft a set of “community agreements” with your class.

Questions are the Answers: A Pedagogical Tool for Interactive Classrooms

Şule Aksoy | Room 3207

Asking questions is useful for uncovering student thinking and generating instant feedback in classrooms. This workshop will provide practical tips to promote student engagement and help instructors design effective questioning strategies that lead to increased participation. We will experiment with and explore the effective use of questions for inquiry-based learning and develop strategies to bring questions into our classes.

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Wednesday, May 28 | 3:30-4:30pm

Teaching as an International Student

Jessie Stein

This workshop offers international graduate students practical tools and insights for teaching in U.S. college classrooms. We’ll cover classroom norms, questions around grading, teaching in a second language, and strategies for inclusive, confident teaching.

Exploring OER in your Teaching and Scholarship

Elvis Bakaitis

If you’re interested in utilizing Open Educational Resources (OER) to lower the course costs for your students, come to this session to learn more! We’ll also talk about how OER can help amplify your own scholarly work, and other ways to publish with an open license.

Office Hours

Institute attendees can meet with TLC staff and fellows to discuss their courses and teaching related questions.

Office hours will be held in room 3317 on Friday, May 30th from 2:00 – 3:00pm.