This seminar is an opportunity to collectively explore the choices we’re making as educators. While its focus is on “student engagement” and is an online course about teaching courses, it is first and foremost a course about teaching and learning in general.
The theoretical underpinnings for this seminar are based in an active, critical, social constructivist view of learning. You can learn more about social constructivism here. We don’t do a lot of lecturing, and we won’t spend lots of time walking you through the specifics of using a particular platform (i.e. Blackboard or Blogs@Baruch). But if you’re looking for more guidance on the technology we are using in the Seminar (i.e. Blogs@Baruch and Vocat) you can join us for one of the training sessions in our synchronous workshop catalog. We are also happy to work with you one-on-one. You can set up an appointment here.
In this seminar, we ask you to ….
Experience being a student in the seminar.
- Since this is an online seminar, you will be expected to complete assignments, attend supplementary synchronous workshops and/or asynchronous activities, interact with participants online, and come to each synchronous Core Session fully prepared. This prep work should generally not take you longer than 1-2 hours per Session outside of the synchronous time.
- We introduce a number of new technologies in the seminar and provide tutorials to guide you through figuring out issues on your own, but also feel free to reach out to us for help. If you get frustrated with the tech at times, that’s normal; it’s part of the learning experience.
Actively participate.
- We design activities to facilitate extensive participant interaction, reflection, and collaboration. We may ask you to join in on discussions, do reflective writing and thinking, annotate texts and videos digitally, and other active learning activities that rely on participants having done their homework.
- A key success factor is everyone’s engagement. Therefore, we expect participants to attend each Core Session in its entirety and participate as fully as possible. That said, what we mean by “participation” is not always the same thing as “talking a lot.”
Interact across disciplines.
- The seminar is designed to bring together instructors from all three of Baruch’s schools, so you can learn about approaches to teaching and learning that may be unfamiliar to you from peers outside of your own department.
Challenge your assumptions.
- We ask you to articulate — and sometimes to challenge — your values and assumptions as a teacher. We may ask participants to read challenging or controversial material. Our hope is that you can take this as an opportunity to reflect on why you do what you do (a process that we also undergo very frequently at the CTL!).
Try out new things.
- You will be introduced to a lot of new technologies and pedagogical practices throughout the seminar. No one expects you to use all of them in your class, and in fact, an effective course (whether fully online, hybrid, or in-person) can be a course that uses very little technology. We just want you to know your options.
- We ask you to keep an open mind and to sit with the ideas in the readings, the activities, and the other seminar content, even if you don’t agree or if these things don’t feel immediately relevant to your context.
One last thing….Please take our stuff!
- We set up the format for this seminar as a way to model what we are asking you to do in your own classrooms. Please feel free to take and build on anything you like about the seminar and use it in your own classes (this includes session and workshop activities, instructions or documentation that we use, readings we assign, or any resources that we provide during the course of the seminar). All of our materials carry open Creative Commons licenses.
- Or improve the things you don’t like about the seminar. And tell us how it goes! We’re also always trying to improve what we do.
- Please note: If we ever use your work, we will ask for your permission first. We are teachers, too, and we feel strongly about asking (and compensating) faculty for their labor.
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