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Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Publications and Research

First year experience

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Full-Text Articles in Education

"Our Stories" Developing A Virtual Community Of First-Year Voices, Sandra Cheng, Jennifer Sears, Karen Goodlad, Ashwin Satyanarayana, Mery Diaz, Philip Kreniske May 2019

"Our Stories" Developing A Virtual Community Of First-Year Voices, Sandra Cheng, Jennifer Sears, Karen Goodlad, Ashwin Satyanarayana, Mery Diaz, Philip Kreniske

Publications and Research

First Year Learning Communities (FYLC) at City Tech is structured to provide first-year students in linked courses an interdisciplinary learning experience. This approach creates opportunities for students to form bonds within the college community. A shared belief among faculty leaders in the potential for writing to transform the student experience led to the development of the “Our Stories” digital writing project. “Our Stories” offers FYLC students the opportunity to express their experiences in classes, seminars, lectures, study groups, and labs on the OpenLab, a digital platform for teaching, learning, and sharing. Through this project, students shared their stories and revealed …


Using Visual “Bait” To Hook, Engage, And Empower New Community College Writers, Nicola Blake Jan 2018

Using Visual “Bait” To Hook, Engage, And Empower New Community College Writers, Nicola Blake

Publications and Research

This reflective article focuses on a series of semester-long activities conducted with developmental writers in an urban community college classroom. It builds on the research of John Berger (1972) and Sondra Perl (1994) who highlight seeing and perception as key components of self-composition. The article showcases assignments where students created photo journals as a way to share their lives, thoughts, and experiences. The use of structured prompts allowed students to actively engage with their neighborhoods -- a sort of text to be read, captured, and ultimately decoded through written explanation. The examples will be useful to practitioners who may be …


Crowdsourcing As An Approach To Customer Relationship Building In Academic Libraries, Lisa A. Ellis, Aisha Pena Oct 2015

Crowdsourcing As An Approach To Customer Relationship Building In Academic Libraries, Lisa A. Ellis, Aisha Pena

Publications and Research

Library initiatives to first-year students not only present an opportunity to offer information literacy instruction for student advancement but they also serve a key marketing function by communicating the library’s ongoing value and building customer relationships. Library orientation tours are an example of how to effectively market to first-year students. Combining peer-to-peer learning and user-generated content via social media known as crowdsourcing, Newman Library sponsored a contest challenging first-year students to create a video sharing a useful library tip. The contributions and benefits of this co-creation approach to fostering relationships are examined and the implications to strengthening other library-user bonds …