Greetings! Learning@Lehman offers a glance at recent perspectives in teaching and learning, posts reminders of this week’s faculty development opportunities, and describes a teaching strategy to increase student success.

Teaching and learning perspectives:

How Do You Measure a Good Teacher, Anyway:

http://chronicle.com/article/How-Do-You-Measure-a-Good/233904

The Uses of Ignorance

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Uses-of-Ignorance/233858

Increasing Student Engagement and Assessing the Value of an Online Collaboration Tool: The Case of VoiceThread

https://jitp.commons.gc.cuny.edu/increasing-student-engagement-and-assessing-the-value-of-an-online-collaboration-tool-the-case-of-voicethread/

Faculty development activities:

Refugee Lives at Risk/Citizen Rights Denied: Frontline Stories from Greece, Uganda, Central America, and the Dominican Republic

Wednesday, November 4, 11-2, East Dining Room

Academic Works: Repository for Lehman Scholarship and Creative Work

(sponsored by the Leonard Lief Library)

Wednesday, November 4, 12:30-2 p.m., Leonard Lief Library

“Cultural Racism in the Obama Era” (sponsored by African and African American Studies)

Thursday, November 5, 12:30-2 p.m., Speech and Theatre

Thinking through Quality Questioning workshop

(please RSVP to gina.foster@lehman.cuny.edu)

Friday, November 6, 10-2, Carman B81

This week’s teaching strategy:

Empty Outlines: An empty outline provides the learner with a handout or screen document in which the organization of knowledge for a particular concept, skill, chapter, or course has been pre-determined by the instructor. Some of the information in the outline is deliberately omitted so that the learner can complete the outline using notes, text or other references, and memory, thus reinforcing what has been learned and the structure in which the instructor wants the learner to retain.

Questions? Comments? Stop by Old Gym 118 for more resources and discussion or email Gina Rae Foster <gina.foster@lehman.cuny.edu>

Greetings! Learning@Lehman offers a glance at recent perspectives in teaching and learning, posts reminders of this week’s faculty development opportunities, and describes a teaching strategy to increase student success.

Teaching and learning perspectives:

Make Your Office Hours a Requirement

https://chroniclevitae.com/news/1167-make-your-office-hours-a-requirement

Lecture Me. Really.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/opinion/sunday/lecture-me-really.html?_r=1

Transforming a Course…

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-beta/transforming-course

Faculty development activities:

Teaching with Your Mouth Shut brown bag lunch discussion

Tuesday, October 27, 12:30-1:30, Old Gym 118

“Writing with a Burning Pen,” Marie Celie-Agnant lecture

Tuesday, October 27, 3:30-5, Carman C-36

Associate Faculty Funding Forum

Thursday, October 29, 3-5, Music 330

Thinking through Quality Questioning workshop

(please RSVP to gina.foster@lehman.cuny.edu)

Friday, October 30, 10-2, Carman B81

This week’s teaching strategy:

Think Break – Ask a rhetorical question, and then allow 20 seconds for students to think about the problem before you go on to explain. This technique encourages students to take part in the problem-solving process even when discussion isn’t feasible. Having students write something down (while you write an answer also) helps assure that they will in fact work on the problem.

(from Kevin Yee, “Interactive Techniques,” 2007)

Questions? Comments? Stop by Old Gym 118 for more resources and discussion or email Gina Rae Foster <gina.foster@lehman.cuny.edu>

Join your faculty peers at this year’s CUNY IT Conference…

Lehman College is well represented at this year’s conference and yours truly along with the following colleagues will be presenting Friday morning December 6- See attached document for more detailsLehman Flips-PRINTED MATERIAL FOR CONFERENCE-FIN:

• Esther Wilder, Professor, Sociology: Numeracy Infusion Course for Higher Education (NICHE)
• Limor Pinhasi-Vittorio, Associate Professor, Literacy Studies: An ‘un’Common Writing Collaboration: Writing Workshop in the CUNY Commons
• Rena Quinlan, Doctoral Lecturer, Biological Sciences: Purposeful blending in the sciences: iClickers in the Biological Science Classroom.
• Diane Auslander, Adjunct Assistant Professor, History: VoiceThread and Blackboard Meet: Blending Web 2.0 into online course delivery
• Polo Merguzhis Adjunct Lecturer, Economics and Business: Using Camtasia as Lecture Capture for Increased Student (and Faculty) Engagement
• Barry Murdaco, Adjunct Lecturer, Political Science: Blogger, VoiceThread, Wikis! Not just Web 2.0 hype
• Guest: G.D. Peters, Adjunct Lecturer, English Department: Using PoetryGenius in the classroom (Poetry Genius, Rock Genius, Rap Genius, News Genius)

Moderators:
Alyson Vogel, Associate Director, Online Education alyson.vogel@lehman.cuny.edu
Steve Castellano, Online Teaching and Learning Technology Specialist steve@lehman.cuny.edu

A reminder that this year’s CUNY IT Conference is this Thursday & Friday, December 5th & 6th, 2013.

LOCATION: 
John Jay College
899 Tenth Ave.
New York, NY 10019

TIMES:
DAY 1 – Thursday, December 5th
12:00 PM – Registration *Located in the gymnasium*
1:00 PM – Sessions Begin
4:30 PM – Awards Ceremony
5:00 PM – Adjourn

DAY 2 – Friday, December 6th
8:30 AM – Registration *Located in the gymnasium*
9:30 AM – Sessions Begin
12:15 PM – Lunch
3:30 PM – End-of-Day Drawing

PARKING:
There is no parking available on campus. There are several pay parking garages along 59th Street between 9th and 11th Avenues.

Transportation and Map

To register additional attendees, please visit our online registration form.

Thank you for registering and we look forward to seeing you.

 Our new issue of the fall 2013 newsletter is available here and it’s packed with information on the instructional technology topics we hope are most useful to faculty – comments or suggestions for upcoming newsletters or workshops are cheerfully accepted!

And don’t forget to register for the 2013 CUNY IT conference registration is popular and often fills up if you don’t get to it early.  (It usually sells out fast since it’s not only a great day but it’s free! Join us at 9:30 on Friday December 6 at 9:30 am for our Lehman Flips: Techniques for a Hybrid Classroom presentation.

Day/Date: Conference Thursday December 5 and Friday December 6.
Location:
John Jay College
899 Tenth Ave.
New York, NY 10019

Lehman College is fully represented this year and many of our fellow Lehman faculty members are presenting along with Steve Castellano and me. Here’s the description:

Lehman Flips: Techniques for a Hybrid Classroom
In Lehman’s “flipped” classrooms, exercises that used to be ‘homework’ have shifted to the classroom, leaving faculty free from the lecture approach to offer personalized guidance and interaction. Lehman faculty are flipping instructional methods, reversing roles and changing minds: developing podcast video lectures using Camtasia and VoiceThread, utilizing CUNY Commons docs, Web2.0, e-discussion boards and audience response iClickers to heighten and stimulate collaboration, engage students and help determine levels of retention.

Moderator: Alyson Vogel, Associate Director, Online Education,
Lehman College
Moderator: Steve Castellano, Online Teaching and Learning Technology Specialist , Lehman College

Diane Auslander, Adjunct Assistant Professor, History, Lehman College
Polo Merghusis, Adjunct Lecturer, Economics and Accounting, Lehman College
Barry Murdaco, Adjunct Lecturer, Political Science, Lehman College
Limor Pinhasi-Vittorio, Associate Professor, Literacy Studies, Lehman College
Rena Quinlan, Doctoral Lecturer, Biological Sciences, Lehman College
Esther Wilder, Professor, Sociology, Lehman College

Looking forward to sharing the day with all of you!

Registration Link: http://forms.erepublic.com/cde-event-registration-step1-default?contentID=201274161&r=EV-2384

Agenda link: http://www.centerdigitaled.com/events/CUNY-IT-Conference-2013.html#Agenda

Now through June 11th, we have openings available for CUNY faculty interested in our two upcoming faculty development workshops, “Essential Instructional Design for Faculty” (June 17-24) and “The Art of Feedback” (July 15-22).  Each workshop is delivered entirely online and is 8-days in length. There are no real-time or face-to-face meetings required.

For a description of each workshop and a link to register, please see https://spsfacworkshops.commons.gc.cuny.edu/

Susan S, Ko, PhD
Director, Faculty Development and Instructional Technology
CUNY  School of Professional Studies
Office phone: 646-344-7267

Congratulations faculty on making it through another graduation day! Summer vacation may have just started, though not for some who will be hard at work in our in-person Summer Boot Camp workshops and online workshops!

We have two exciting training opportunities for you this summer:
IN PERSON: June 18-20 and August 20-22

This summer lineup of hands-on workshops focus on the tools for developing active students through engaging online content… and offer you the time and personal attention to put them to good use in your classes.

These in-person workshops will cover some of the best freely available software tools: Blogging, Wikis, Voicethread (now in Blackboard!), Camtasia and much more! Give a half day a try or register for all six… those faculty participating in at least 4 of the 6 workshops will receive a FREE copy of either Mac or PC versions of Camtasia! Yes, you read it right, free. This offer is limited to the first 8 who sign upto  attend at least 4 workshops so register now to reserve a space.

Please find more information in our attached flyer or visit our website for details:

Register for June dates (JUNE 18, 19, 20) at:
http://www.doodle.com/a688i5b4buta4u83
Register for AUGUST dates (AUGUST 20, 21, 22) at: http://www.doodle.com/vwm5xhv7ecpi4kpc

ONLINE

Registration is now open for June and July sessions of the  online workshop, “Preparation for Teaching Online: A Foundational Workshop for CUNY Faculty,” sponsored by the School of Professional Studies.

This intensive, 2-week online workshop is intended for faculty who will be teaching an upcoming online or hybrid class. (June and July sessions give priority to those teaching Fall 2013—additional sessions are offered throughout the year.)

Faculty must have the approval of their academic supervisors and school to participate in this workshop and should already possess basic Blackboard skills.

The detailed description on the registration page at https://cunyonline.commons.gc.cuny.edu should answer most questions, but you or your faculty or academic directors should feel free to contact Susan Ko, Director, Faculty Development and Instructional Technology at  646-344-7267 if there are any questions.

Registration is open for both till filled, so faculty should sign up as soon as possible to get their preferred session dates. Thanks!

The Office of Online Education welcomes you to the start of spring with several invitations to join us!

Read all about it in our newsletter then view all the details at our conference registration site CUNY.is/bronxedtech…
-and be sure and write and tell me what you think!

The Lehman College Technology Demo event of the year is coming in less than 10 days… Twitter says so! Register soon…

Lehman College Technology Day is in 10 days! register @ http://tinyurl.com/7f5wh2c #lehmantech

This summer, Stefanie Havelka, Assistant Professor and the Electronic Resources-Web Services Librarian at Lehman College, visited Costa Rica to work with the library at the Monteverde Institute in Monteverde (MVI), Costa Rica. She worked with the library in increasing the number of local Costa Ricans’ access to and knowledge of relevant health topics via a community built digital health collection.

With its easy access to the rainforest, Monteverde is a popular ecotourism and research destination.  The digital library project was started by Laurie Kutner, Associate Librarian from the University of Vermont, who had recognized the need to make locally produced research reports available for free online. In 2007, Marlene Leiton Cambell and Laurie Kutner, (who was at that time on sabbatical at the MVI Library) started the first Digital Library collection: MVI State of the Water Collection.

In summer of 2009, while a graduate student at the University of Syracuse, Havelka spent two months building the Community Health Digital library collection. Being actively involved in building a digital collection was an exciting project for Havelka, who was pursuing an Advanced Certificate in Digital Libraries. The Community Health Digital library collection uses locally produced research reports generated by graduate students enrolled in the Community Health course offered by two professors from the University of South Florida at the MVI each summer. The collection focuses on such topics as HIV, exercise, nutrition, mental health issues, and menopause.

The goal of this summer, and Havelka’s return visit, was to focus on outreach to the Monteverde community because many people weren’t aware of the services provided by the digital library. Strategies soon emerged to make the library more accessible to the public. First, brochures were created to address imperative health issues commonly faced by this population. These were simple, yet full of information for readers to comprehend and utilize. Additionally, there were bilingual tutorials on how to use the digital library. Doctors and nurses were taught how to use the library’s services in order to print out information for their patients as well as guide them in using the digital library.

Despite these improvements, Havelka had further goals but unfortunately didn’t have enough time. She realized that women’s needs in particular were not being met. In Costa Rican culture, women don’t necessarily have a voice in expressing their concerns. Havelka pointed out that in the United States, anyone, regardless of gender or sexual identity, can typically use the internet to research health issues, even before seeing a doctor. However, the internet is very expensive in Costa Rica compared to the U.S. (approx. $50-60 year out of an average income of $500). Havelka therefore proposed developing a special class for women, in which they could find and share general health education resources, via internet and other sources, by utilizing the digital library. While this is a positive beginning, she believes it is important to do more outreach and to get to know the Costa Rican women’s needs in Monteverde. You can visit the digital library here to get a sense of its progress and the accomplishments of those who worked on the project.

Havelka also provided advice for faculty working abroad. First, she suggested being extremely patient. Being in another country means learning about new cultures and their customs. In South America, the atmosphere is less hectic, and things may not get done as quickly as in other cultures.  Therefore, being persistent yet respectful is a useful tactic in seeing projects through fruition. Also, Havelka encouraged obtaining grant money to pay for this type of work: most of her trip was paid out of her own pocket. Lastly, she recommended doing collaborative work for international projects because you can learn from others and incorporate insightful perspectives, as she did in working with with librarians from Maine, Vermont, and, of course, Costa Rica.

As part of a new series of profiles on faculty research at Lehman, I recently met up with Dr. Devrim Yavuz, a Lecturer of Sociology, to discuss his summer research experience in Turkey. Dr. Yavuz’s research focuses on economic changes linked to shifts in political regimes. His most recent work concentrates on business’s attitudes towards democratization and authoritarianism in the Middle East.

In July and August, he conducted interviews in Istanbul, Turkey with owners of small and large businesses to answer the question: Under capitalism, what would lead a business toward supporting democratization instead of authoritarianism?

In investigating his project, Yavuz focused on businesses associated with two organizations:  1) TUSIAD, which stands for Turkish Industry and Business Association, and 2) TUSKON, the Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists of Turkey.  The former organization is secular, representing larger businesses with fewer members included than TUSKON, while the latter is religiously affiliated, represents many small companies, and provides voluntary membership with an emphasis on gaining sponsorships within the government and political sectors. Both share a striking similarity in that each association tends to serve as a civil society organization. Yavuz explained that this indicates that business lobbies take public opinion into account.

Democratization is the transition into becoming more politically democratic. Authoritarianism is the support for regimes that limit the participation of various social groups. In Turkey, family ownership is important; however, it is through business lobbies that businesspeople press for change and not one’s own family business. Regardless, there are a few large corporations in Turkey that are managed by the wealthiest Turkish families. Since the early 1990’s, entrepreneurship and growth of smaller businesses surfaced due to an open economy and free trade. There is a new phenomenon occurring in the Turkish business sector, in which these smaller businesses are economically dynamic and religiously affiliated. Through his research, Yavuz recognizes that religiously affiliated companies express views more in line with the Turkish government’s ideology, such as being practicing Muslims. As a further investigation, Yavuz also intends to illuminate whether or not improvements to economic policy will follow this linkage and whether or not trade missions significantly contribute to the Turkish economy.

Yavuz also offered advice for faculty pursuing qualitative research. He suggests that when attempting to make contact with elite people of society, it is best to plan ahead and begin the process early. Second, he advocates for scheduling interviews with the “bigger fish” of the organization, since they often have more time on their hands. Lastly, when speaking with a person who has a high level of experience, one should not go into the meeting unknowledgeable of the circumstances/topic. Yavuz offers the journalism technique of “triangulation” which references someone else’s work to construct probing questions that the interviewee will find relevant.

With recent news regarding the Arab Spring, Yavuz’s research ties into these acts of pro-democracy. Advocates of democracy in the Middle East have rebelled against corruption and the government’s neglect by protesting in various manners. Yavuz stated, “…some commentators show Turkey as a model of democracy for Middle Eastern countries.  One aspect of Turkey is that it has business associations that seem to have embraced democracy in recent past.  Perhaps Middle Eastern business associations can be advised to adopt some of their practices.” Utilizing business lobbies as a force to transition into a democratic society in the Middle East has the potential for both positive and negative outcomes, but conceivably also makes this shift easier.