Facilitator: Michelle Johnson, mjohnson2@gc.cuny.edu
When: Non-colloquium Thursdays, 4:15-6:15pm
Where: Room 7395
Readings:

• On Course: A Week-by-week Guide to Your First Semester of College Teaching * James M. Lang One copy of this is available in the Linguistics Office by asking Nishi. If you decide to scan a chapter, please post it to the course website for others to use as well. Thank you!
• What the Best College Teachers Do * Ken Bain One copy of this is on reserve in the library.
• The Chronicle of Higher Education Some articles are not open access, these are available by accessing the Chronicle through the library using your GC login:
  • Prof Hacker
  • Tenured Radical
  • Advice: Graduate Students
  • … more from blogs and opinions

Description:

Teaching at the CUNY Colleges can prove to be one of the most re- warding and motivating experiences or one of the most frustrating and discouraging experiences in your graduate school career. Participation in this practicum is designed to help you make that experience more of the former and less of the later. There are a wide variety of tools, techniques, and approaches that can make teaching undergraduate courses across the CUNY system a much more fulfilling and less stressful experience. Participants in this practicum will be guided towards the materials already created by other students and introduced to a wide variety tools, techniques and approaches to help make your life as an adjunct or GTF more fulfilling (and time-efficient). Examples and resources in this practicum will be focused on Linguistics tools, but the underlying principles and theories are applicable to all courses and disciplines. Regardless if you are brand new to teaching or have a few semesters/years underway, the methods, techniques and tools presented here will be helpful in your teaching life. Coming out of a class well-taught is likely one of the most re-energizing, inspiring and sustaining feelings you can have while in graduate school.
Participants will:

• Plan and develop a syllabus with clearly defined learning outcomes and student responsibili- ties.
• Efficiently find resources for classes they plan to teach using SHARE-LING and other open, freely available archives.
• Apply learning theory to course, lesson and assessment design. Develop a plan to use class time effectively to provide feedback on low-stakes assignmentsthat will increase the quality of the high-stakes assignments (scaffolding efficiently). • Find your style and dealing with student issues
  • Classroom management
  • Lateness
  • Plagiarism
  • etc.
• Discover and analyze technology tools to make your life easier. • Design low stakes, collaborative assignments that will help your students learn and get feed-back without spending hours with a red pen!
• Choose and then plan an organization system and get it set up in advance.