The artifact I propose to modify is a class project I have assigned in the past for other courses. I intend to use it for a course I will teach in the Spring on Communist Political Systems.

1. Current artifact: Research Project to be presented orally in class.

I currently require students to carry out a “research project” on a topic of their choice.  The project can be done individually or as a group.

For this project, students are expected to give an oral presentation in class using PowerPoint or similar software. The presentation lasts about 10 mn and should be followed by a Q&A session. As part of this project, students are also expected to deliver an early draft of their work7 days prior to their presentation date forwhich they receive feedback.

• Problem with this current artifact:
• Though students tend to do a good job researching for this project in terms of content, I have found that their oral presentations have not led to much students engagement.
• As a result, students attending the presentation are not engaging with the materials that is presented.

• Proposed Modifications of the artifact.

Option A:

• Students present their artifact through VOCAT
• Students are asked to comment on each other’s presentations.

Option B:

• Students send the draft of their presentations to a platform that can be accessed by all other students (maybe a discussion board on BB?) so that all students will comment
• Students still present their draft orally in class (maybe with the option of using VOCAT for those who prefer??)

• Remaining questions:

For Option A: One of the goals for oral presentations is to give students the opportunity to develop their competence in presenting their work in front of others.  Using VOCAT obviously does not allow for this.  Could any of these discussions take place in class (zoom or in person)?

For Option B: (1) will this solve the problem of lack of engagement during the oral presentation?  (2) should the option of presenting with VOCAT be offered?

Annex: Artifact as it is currently presented in the Syllabus:

Individual or group project (20%): students present a topic of their choice orally in class.  They can decide to do this project individually or as part of a group.  For this project, students are expected to give an oral presentation using PowerPoint or similar software at some point during the semester. The presentation should last about 10 mn and the class will have 10 mn to provide feedback and ask questions.  As part of this project, students are also expected to deliver an early draft of their work for which they will receive feedback.  No credit will be given for late submission.  

Admittedly, I have a number of aspects of and materials from my async section of ENG 2150–research and genre–that I want to revise for next semester’s sync section. I’m going to focus on an activity that I ask students to perform as they transition from their annotated bib to the research project, itself, which currently exists as a DB in Bb, and follows is the text from that assignment:

This week, we’re working in small groups to move into P4. First, reread the project description in our syllabus (the revised syllabus has been uploaded here in Bb). If you have any questions for me, email them or drop in during office hours to talk.

Second, posting individually, answer the following:

1. Remind us: what’s your topic/situation?
2. Which approach are you taking in P4, an argumentative approach to persuade your audience of your position or an investigative approach to inform your audience about your topic? Why?
3. Which genre are you contemplating composing for P4? This could be anything from creating a news article to a personal blog to a podcast or short documentary. I once even had a student create an app. (Reminder: You have personal blog examples from [redacted] and [redacted]. I have to dig through some old folders to see if I have other genre examples and the permission to share them.) I’m not looking for technical perfection in your project, only that your attempt is logical in terms of the genre and its audience, purpose, design, and inclusion of research sources.
4. With that genre in mind, which technolog/ies do you anticipate possibly using? For example, if you want to write a news article (a timely example here: https://www.newsweek.com/family-9yearold-killed-astroworld-sues-travis-scott-1649126), do you want to compose it online in a website or in a program like InDesign? If you want to record a podcast, how do you want to record it and where could you host it? (Options here: https://discoverpods.com/best-free-podcast-hosting/)

Third, group members, reply to each others’ posts, doing the following:

• Comment on the author’s decision to be persuasive or informative: does it feel logical, given the topic and the author’s reasoning?
• Does their choice of genre seem appropriate, given the topic and above goal?
• Does their choice of tech seem realistic and manageable in terms of time left in this course?
• After you’ve done the preceding, answer this: what’s the “So what?” of the author’s described project, as you understand it? Authors, pay attention to these responses: if what you have in mind and what your group members are perceiving are drastically different, where is the confusion coming from?

One of my goals in revising this is to enhance student engagement. My students right now are tired and multitasking, and it seems like each group of 3-4 students has one or two members who simply never interact with the others. Another goal is to continue to foster community so that students have their small groups to work through ideas that we can’t really work through f2f in a classroom in small groups. To these ends, I want to switch to Discord next semester, and I also want to rename the “small groups” “writing pods.” I do have a question about when to put students into small groups: this semester, I waited a couple weeks to get a sense of students’ (online) personalities and, in conjunction with their introductions from week 1, I sorted them into groups. Now I’m wondering if I should just have randomly put them into groups from the start.

I will incorporate Kahoot! in my synchronous Social Psychology course (thank you so much Kaitlin Busse for the suggestion!). I plan on using Kahoot! in two ways. 

First, I will use it as a platform for the weekly short quizzes. In my in-person Social Psychology course, students took a short quiz when we started a new topic at the beginning of class. The short quizzes were solely based on the textbook chapters. I would hand out a piece of paper with five multiple choice questions, and students had approximately 5 minutes to complete the quiz. The purpose of the quizzes was to encourage students to read the textbook chapters and to track attendance. Students could miss three quizzes without any repercussions. When I first started teaching Social Psychology, I used PollEverywhere and students loved it. Unfortunately, there were a lot of technical issues with the website, which is why I decided to switch to paper-and-pencil tests. I hope that Kahoot! will be a good replacement. I plan to review the answers immediately after all quizzes have been submitted.

Second, I plan to use Kahoot! for polls throughout the lectures to keep students engaged. I am still trying to decide how many polls would make sense in a 2.5 hour class. 

If any of you have used Kahoot! in your courses, I would love to hear about your experiences!

The artifact I have chosen to revise is my course syllabus for Business Fundamentals (BUS1011) Recitation. Currently, I am teaching a remote course, but I would like for the syllabus to be flexible as I am teaching in-person for Spring 2022. Furthermore, most of the syllabus content was provided to me by the department, and I imagine most of the descriptions are not read by students. I have modified some aspects of it after taking an Online Teaching Essentials course at Baruch, but would like to modify it further so that it is less contractual and more student-centric with components like expectations, learning goals, helpful resources, etc. I would also like to include a section with guidelines and tips for students to encourage engagement and ensure students get the most out of this course.

In terms of engagement, I would like to foster an environment where students are comfortable reaching out to me as well as their classmates. I have found it challenging to foster proactive communication, particularly in a remote setting.

You can check out my teaching artifact below.

MY ARTIFACT – The Blog Technique Team Analysis Activity

The course that I intend to use my artifact will be a Hybrid Class of @76 students, The class will then be divided into 12 teams of 6 students. You could refer to them as “Breakout Groups; however they will be permanent and required to meet -at least weekly -with instructor involvement (or not) and their BLOG session will be recorded. Essentially, the students will be responding to an Asynchronous Activity presented to them as a link to view and discuss in their Blog Session – to be recorded. Learning objective will be to determine understanding and comprehension of the Topic/Concept. Second will be to reflect upon how the topic is handled in their current/ or last organization of employment experience, Third, what new strategy based upon the new “Evidence-Based/Information” might/may be considered by the students as alternative options to consider for more effective/efficient function in their current or past -or for a future organization of employment.

Hi everyone!
1. For my teaching artifact, I’d like to redesign a very classic essay assignment I give my students in ENG2850 – Great Works of Literature. It is a 1000-word essay on Candide, by Voltaire, which gives them four prompts (including a develop-your-own-topic one). There is no use of external sources for this essay; it is a rhetorical analysis only. The results on this assignment hasn’t been great, and students seem to have felt lost as to how to approach an academic essay, even though they are sophomores.

2. I would like to scaffold that assignment into more steps that help them break down the task and develop a good writing methodology that they can take beyond my course.
I am also condiering giving them more choice as to which book they choose to analyze, among the ones we have studied. The trouble is that there are few texts we read in full, hence my assigning this text and giving them only a choice of prompts on the same text. I did get sick of reading essay after essay on the same text, and no one chose to come up with their own prompts, so I may still offer more liberty next time and require them to do more research on texts we haven’t read in full.
Some tools I could use to scaffold this assignment are:
– StoryMap (they can build a visual map of their background research on the author and literary movement, or use it to trace a character’s journey);
– Slack channels (for peer-reviewing one another’s drafts and brainstorming ideas);
– A Google Doc (for building a group essay together maybe, though I’m unsure about that one, as we already use a Google Doc every week for presentations on the readings, and I’m not sure a group essay would really give students the opportunity to develop their individual writing skills. They do get another short essay in the semester, so maybe I could give them one essay to write in groups of 2-3 and one individual essay).
– I also want to reduce the amount of instructions on the essay pages of my website and give them advice more efficiently.
– Finally, I want to consider “ungrading” for this course (giving only feedback, but no grades, except the final grade required on the Baruch transcript. I have done that fro my ENG2150 and ENG2100 courses before, and it has removed a lot of pressure off both the students and I.
To determine their final grades, students keep track of their own work (just as I do keep my own records, where I suggest letter grades) and they fill in a self-assessment form. The letter grade they suggest for themselves is rarely very different from the one I suggest. Often, students underestimate themselves.

Here is my assignment sheet as it currently is (it’s quite rigid, and admittedly, it testifies to my French academic education…):

Short Essay #1

Date due (via TurnitIn, on Blackboard): Friday, October 15th by 11:59pm EST.
Please use the assignment template provided below and write your essay directly into it. Kindly save your document as ENG2850_LastName_FirstName_Essay1.ENG2850-Assignment-TemplateDownload

Instructions

Your first essay will be on Candide, by Voltaire (1759). It should be 1000 to 1250 words long. You should organize your argument in two or three parts and choose specific examples to illustrate your point, duly presenting your quotes in quotation marks and indicating the page number in parenthesis.

Here’s a tip: divide up the word count into your two or three main points. You can title each part of your essay if you wish, or simply lay out your page so that the different parts of your analysis are clearly discernible, but don’t forget to write transitions for your reader when you switch parts.

In any case, you should have a separate paragraph for your introduction (in which you will explain your topic, formulate the questions you will attempt to answer, and outline the structure of your analysis) and another paragraph for your conclusion (in which you will reiterate your point and open up towards further questions your analysis will have prompted).

Very important: Give a clear outline of your essay structure in your introduction. Clearly state what are the different parts of your essay, and you arrive at your argument or thesis. There should be a clear thesis statement in your introduction, and it should be clear in your conclusion as well.  You can even say plainly: “this essay will argue …”; “first, I will analyze…”; “second, I will analyze…”; “Ultimately, this essay finds that…”

Please choose one of the following prompts to guide your analysis:

1. Analyze the concept of optimism as depicted through the story of Candide (the character).
You may choose to focus on the character (characterization), on plot, or on any other aspect through which you read the text. How is optimism pictured in the text? Can you associate this depiction of optimism to any political or philosophical position? How can you tie it back to the historical context of Candide, which was published in France in 1759? Make your analysis as specific as you can by focusing on one particular aspect of the story which conveys a depiction of optimism (character, plot, etc.). Note that “optimism” does not merely refer to a way of thinking positively, but to a dangerous theory of Voltaire’s time: the Church was using the theory that all is part of God’s plan (aka. optimistic determinism, by Gottfried Leibniz) to justify evil done in the name of God (e.g. burning people at the stake and other persecutions). To avoid psychological or philosophical flat statements in your essay, focus on the specific literary devices through which the text criticizes optimisic determinism. Analyze some of these devices’ effects on the audience, in relation to the specific historical context of the novel.  Organize your argument in two or three parts and choose specific examples to illustrate your point, duly presenting your quotes in quotation marks and indicating the page number in parenthesis.

2. Discuss the use of satire as a literary device in Candide. How do you recognize satire in the text? What are specific examples of it, and what effect do these passages produce? What is their intended audience? How can you relate those satirical passages to the whole plot, and more broadly, to the historical, social, and/or political context of 18th-century France?

3. Discuss the representation of religion in the passage below. Closely analyze the passage below through the lens of religion. Relate it to the whole chapter, the wider plot, as well as the wider context of Candide. Two or three points should emerge from your reading of this passage: make them the different parts that structure your essay. What does the passage suggest about religion? Additionally, is there anything the text suggests about the female gender, in this passage?

Candide fled quickly to another village […] The orator’s wife, putting her head out of the window, and spying a man that doubted whether the Pope was Anti-Christ, poured over him a full…. Oh, heavens! to what excess does religious zeal carry the ladies.’ (Chapter 3)

This is how the passage begins and ends: please analyze the whole passage contained within the […].

Tip for close text analysis: Read the passage a first time without taking any notes. Pause at the end and listen to your thoughts. What does it make you think about? How does it make you feel? Why? Take note of where your head takes you, and read the passage again, now influenced by your particular perspective. You now have your topic angle, and from a second and third reading should emerge some subpoints to structure your analysis.

4. Formulate a question of your own, which you will first discuss with me to ensure it has the potential to yield analysis. This is a good option if you read Candide through a perspective you do not see represented in the prompts above.

*No other texts than Candide are required for this essay, but if you would like to use any additional sources, please feel free to do so, as long as you acknowledge them. Please note that the rubric does not take into account any use of external sources for the calculation of your grade.*

Rubric

This assignments counts for 25% of your course grade.

Here is how I will assess your essay:

• Clarity of Argument: 30%
• Organization of Argument: 20%
• Support of Argument with Specific Examples from the Text: 20%
• Attention to Reader (clear transitions and multiple formulations of the points addressed): 15%
• Language, Grammar and Layout: 15%

Please use this rubric as a checklist before you submit your work.

The points gathered out of 100 will determine your letter grade as presented in the table (cf. syllabus). You will be given a letter grade for this essay, but it is your score out of 100 which will determine the 25% of your final grade that this essay represents. At the end of the semester, the points gathered in essay 1, essay 2, participation, and the final exam will give a total score out 100, and you will see the corresponding letter grade on your transcript.

 

I’m still back and forth about what I want to revise but here are the following options:

1) my behavior modification project, which is a scaffolded assignment where students use a motivation theory and learning theory to help them set a goal/track their behavior/develop an intervention. While I do think it is student-centered, I want to see if there’s any way I can help modify it to make it engaging for students (relevant ways to engage)…but also help reduce some of the load on me with giving feedback. I find that the way it is formatted, students are limited in the type of goal they can have. With that, I want to work on changing the directions, providing them resources for it, and editing the rubric.

2) the other option I am considering is modifying my personal control beliefs lecture. This is a really important lecture because it focuses on a lot of meaningful topics to students (e.g., learned helplessness, self-efficacy, personal control, motivation frameworks), but I find that it is very lecture heavy. Because it is so relevant for students, I want to make it so they can actively engage in the class and be able to apply the concepts in their lives and reflect on them. I would want to provide class activities, polls, discussions, and maybe break this up into 2 different days to discuss.

I completed both asynchronous activities to help me better design them. Because I teach a motivation class, I do have students that openly talk about barriers to motivation (e.g., their own psychological distress, work-life issues, mental health), and I’ve found this to be apparent in-class lectures and in their behavior modification project. With that, I took the Kognito training to help better design these materials with an idea of how I might address student issues/topics that come up in the project or in-class discussions. I also took the training on student body engagement, which is also relevant for both possible artifacts. For the class lecture, I can work on implementing breaks and well-being techniques to help the focus. For the behavior modification project, I can also help them with positive visualization during the presentation part of their project.

Hi everyone! I am planning to revise an existing assignment for my PSY 4181 (Advanced Organizational Psychology) course. The assignment is a “class facilitation” which requires students to pair up in teams of 2-3 (depending on the class size) and to lead the class discussion for the week. The goal is for the team to act as the subject matter experts (SMEs) for the week by presenting the major themes in the readings to the class and integrating. I have emphasized to students that the goal for this assignment is for them to also identify current trends on the topic they are assigned and integrating them into their presentation. The point of this assignment is not to summarize everything in the readings (that’s what my lectures). Instead I tell them to really focus on the “bigger picture.”

Currently, I feel that the assignment is quite vague from a student’s perspective. I’m struggling with findings the balance of how much guidance I should be providing because I don’t want to limit student’s creativity by providing them with strict parameters. While at the same time I don’t want to overwhelm them by providing vague instructions.

I would like to change the assignment by providing more instructions to students. This could be done by providing a structured rubric for students to show examples of the items I will be looking for in their presentation. If possible, I think it would also be nice to incorporate the use of some new tool for students such Blogs@Baruch or the Vlog tool. I also want to incorporate feedback from their peers into the assignment as well, so I’d like to develop a way or system for their peers to give constructive feedback for each presentation. I would imagine this would require a) the use of Qualtrics or some other platform to streamline the process, and b) giving students a “mini-training” on how to provide effective feedback.

If anyone does anything similar for their course or has any additional ideas, I would love to hear them!

Directions for the teaching artifact as currently stated on the syllabus:

For each week, 2 students (possibly 3) will be responsible for presenting the relevant pre-assigned readings, presenting the class with discussion questions, and leading these discussions. This should be an integrated 30-minute presentation that presents an overview of the major themes for the week. In other words, you will act as the subject matter experts (SMEs) for the particular topic of that week. Your role is to present the “big picture” emerging from the assigned readings, not present on every single detail. Successful presentations will use the following strategies:

• Present the topic in a formal way using PowerPoint, Google Slides, etc.
• Engage in active learning instructional strategies that emphasize audience engagement (quick activity, asking broad questions that stimulate class discussion, etc.)
• Gather from sources outside of the assigned readings.
  • External scholarly articles.
  • Information from contemporary mainstream media (e.g., a clip from a news outlet) related to your topic.
  • Case studies related to your topic from real-world organizations.
• Multiple types of media (e.g., videos, handouts, etc.)

In your presentation you should focus on major themes, arguments, contradictions, practical challenges, etc. However, please feel free to be as CREATIVE as possible while also providing the class with the “big picture.”  Presentations must be submitted via Blackboard in advance of your presentation by only one member.

The artifact I am planning to work in is the composition assignment for my Elementary Spanish classes. In my experience and from what I heard from other professors, students trend to use google translator or to copy their writing assignments from somewhere. My solution to this problem is to create an structure that their composition needs to fit in, using certain structures and vocabulary. This way the students have to be original. Something that would help this goal as well student engagement is to make the assignment interactive with the other students.
The objectives for the long composition are:

-To improve grammar and vocabulary skills in Spanish in writing that show a proper use of this elements at a basic level.

-To improve student communication at an oral level.

-To provide repetition about the components of the assignment, fostering retention.

-To reflect on ones writing. Metacognition.