Q: What would help?!

We’re all juggling so much this semester: As we’re learning all these new platforms, we’re finding new ways to use them to advance the pedagogical goals we bring to our classes, now and forever.

And then there is the fire that’s raining from the sky on so many fronts.

The English Department knows that these stresses fall disproportionately on our part-time colleagues, and we want to diminish that effect however we can. First Year Writing has some ideas about how to do that, as you’d expect.

We’re also wary of inviting you to more workshops and things when you already have so much to do.

So we want to hear from you. What would help?

As you ponder this question, it might be useful to know, too, the the department has a new committee on online teaching, and First Year Writing will be in touch with its members as they set their agenda for the semester. We want to foster a department-wide discussion that will prove beneficial to part-time faculty.

What would you like to discuss, and how would you like to discuss it? What resources could the department provide to support you through this @%@#*! time?

Here are some things we’ve discussed:

  • Set up discussion boards for all of the various platforms (Google Classroom, Blackboard, Academic Commons, Zoom, Slack, etc.) where faculty could go to share ideas and ask/answer questions.
  • Make more use of this site as an asynchronous discussion board to talk about whatever’s on your mind.
  • Hold office hours to meet with you synchronously about whatever’s on your mind.
  • Organize workshops (which could be synchronous or asynchronous) with faculty who have expertise in one or more of the platforms.

Which of these ideas appeal to you, if any– and what other ideas should we consider?

You have also have just the germ of an idea, and we’re interested to hear that, too. That is, you may know you want something without knowing quite what it is that want. In that case, you might also use the space below to describe the kind of support you’d like to have, and we can try to figure out how to provide it.

We are in solidarity with you, and we’re eager to hear what you think, Please tell us in the comments below!

 

New resources for teaching online!

A zoom screen on a laptop with a coffee cup next to it

We’re working on a lot of materials to support our collective transition to teaching fully online. Some are up now, and others will appear in these locations in the days to come:

  • The Disability Guide, which includes a page of resources for making sure your online classes will be accessible to students with disabilities (up now);
  • A modified assignment sequence, proposing some ways that you might adapt the scaffolding of your writing/reading assignments for teaching online– though you’re also free to stick with your usual syllabus if you prefer, obviously (up now);
  • Low-stakes assignments tailored to teaching online, with videos that explain how they’re scaffolded to support the writing assignments (up now, with more to come);
  • Shell versions of the ENG 110 syllabi in Google Classroom, Blackboard, and Academic Commons (which works exactly like QWriting but has more resources behind it), along with short videos that explain how each syllabus is set up digitally (these will be up by August 1);
  • Examples of how to organize synchronous and asynchronous work, posted in lesson plans (up now, with more to come);
  • Advice about specific technologies to use to teach writing online, with examples of how to use them (posted in the FAQ under resources); and
  • More resources! Posted, obviously, under resources.

We know it’s a lot to think about! And we know also that it’s a lot to prepare, especially while we’re all challenged and distracted in so many news ways at once.

But we know also that this will be true for our students, too. They may come to us in the fall with needs that are even greater than usual– because they’re living through a pandemic as they’re also adjusting to this remote learning environment and learning as they always do how to thrive in college.

We want to make it work for them and for you as well as we can.

Watch this space!

Looking ahead to fall 2020

As of late April, we’re preparing to teach our fall classes in a *hybrid* format. That’s to say, we’re planning to teach partially online but also with some face-to-face meetings. We’re devising these plans under the advisement of our administration as well as our local and state officials, but we understand them to be provisional, since nobody can know yet what the fall will hold.

We hope that we will be able to meet safely with our students in person, because it’s hard to have a responsible writing pedagogy in a class that is entirely online. If we do have to teach entirely online for the sake of our public health, we will. And we’ll use the best practices we learn from scholars of digital/writing pedagogy.

As you know, the college is offering workshops in Blackboard and Google Classroom through the Center for Teaching and Learning. Those workshops will run asynchronously online over the summer to help us all prepare to teach online as necessary in the fall.

First Year Writing is also developing faculty development workshops of our own as a supplement to those workshops run by the CTL. Our workshops will run in Google Classroom, with the aim to convert our ENG 110 syllabi and lessons plans into course materials you can use to teach online.

More info to come!

 

Online Library Workshops for Spring 2020

Dear Colleague,

I hope this email finds you well in this stressful time! As promised, we have created a LibGuide for library instruction for English 110: https://qc-cuny.libguides.com/english110. This will also be linked as an announcement on our English 110 website for instructors. (This guide might also be helpful for teaching/reviewing research in other courses.)

The guide includes videos (with transcripts), detailed text-based guidance, three short research exercises tied to the learning objectives for each topic, and a chat box on every page that students can use to connect with a librarian. During the time of the instruction session as it was originally scheduled, the chat box will be staffed by the librarian originally assigned to the class during the time of the instruction session as it was originally scheduled. At other times (Mon-Thurs 11am-8pm and Sat/Sun 12-4pm) another librarian will be available to chat.

This is definitely a work in progress, and we will continue to make adjustments and improvements as we get a better sense of how students (and faculty!) engage with these materials. Please do let us know if there are changes we can make to better support English 110 instruction!

With all best wishes,
Leila.

—————————————————————-
Dr. Leila Walker
Emerging Technologies and Digital Scholarship Librarian
Queens College, CUNY
leila.walker@qc.cuny.edu

Schedule for Library Workshops in Fall 2019

As you create your English 110 syllabus for Fall 2019, use the Library Workshops Schedule to include your assigned workshop date and location into your course schedule. This is a change from how this has typically been managed but we expect that it will become standard practice going forward. This new approach will reduce the administrative workload that typically happens in the thick of the semester and also will allow instructors and librarians to know their workshop dates well in advance and plan accordingly. Therefore, we ask that you try your best to work with your assigned date. If you absolutely need to change your assignment, please contact Mary Santora at mary.santora@qc.cuny.edu or 718-997-3747. 

You will also see in the spreadsheet that librarians have not (yet) been assigned to sections. Rosenthal Library has recently hired a dedicated English 110 instruction team who will co-facilitate the majority of these classes — you will be informed of your assigned librarian in the first few weeks of the Fall semester. Furthermore, this team will work closely with the Library’s Instruction Coordinator (Digital Scholarship and Emerging Technologies Librarian, Dr. Leila Walker) and FYW to continue reviewing and revising the pedagogy of these workshops to make sure that they are student-centered, interactive, and memorable. Ideally, students’ introduction to the Library should not only inform them about the value of the library as a resource but also inspire them to continue using the library throughout their academic careers. If you have any ideas or sample lesson outlines for the 110 library workshop, email FYW (fyw@qc.cuny.edu). Our goal is to share model lesson plans and interactive classroom activities for the library workshop in the Fall.

Thanks for your continued hard work at QC. See you all in the Fall!

 

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