Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Commons^™

Exploring Engineering Technology: A Multi-Year, Multidisciplinary Project-Based Engineering Technology Workshop, Benito Mendoza, Angran Xiao, Muhammad Ummy

Publications and Research

Many students enter engineering technology programs with a limited understanding of disciplinary differences, curricular expectations, and career pathways, contributing to early dissatisfaction and attrition. To address this challenge, we developed Exploring Engineering Technology, a multidisciplinary, project-based workshop that introduces students to Mechanical, Electrical, and Computer Engineering Technology through a shared robotic systems project. This paper presents a multi-year design-based educational research (DBER) study documenting the iterative refinement and sustained implementation of the workshop across three consecutive summers (2023–2025) at a large urban public college. Using a consistent post-workshop survey administered across cohorts and aggregate student progression indicators, we examine …

Pedagogy Of Care: Exploring Climate Justice Frameworks In Cuny Undergraduate Courses, Ismerlyn Gonzalez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Climate justice centers the human rights of communities most impacted by the climate crisis rather than solely focusing on the scientific aspects of environmental challenges and disasters. Higher education institutions play a key role in advancing climate justice education, but research shows that frameworks are not consistently defined across institutions. The IRB-approved study that produced the findings in this capstone sought to explore how climate justice frameworks are implemented at the CUNY undergraduate level and learn more about the instructors delivering these courses. From February to April 2026, instructors from different CUNY undergraduate campuses were surveyed, interviewed, and asked to …

Building Engagement And Bringing Joy: Ungrading An Online, Asynchronous Course, Stephanie M. Margolin, Margaret Bausman

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Recognition Of Service: Information For Faculty Seeking Tenure, Certificate Of Continuous Employment (Cce), And Promotion, The Center For Excellence In Teaching, Learning, & Leadership, Soniya Munshi, Elena Sigman

Open Educational Resources

Service is an important element of the faculty experience at Queens College. In Spring 2025, the Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Leadership (CETLL) convened two panels about fulfilling expectations for service activities for QC faculty at various stages of tenure and promotion. Each of the panels was comprised of deans, department chairs, and faculty members, including a Provost’s Faculty Fellow.

The panels aimed to address recurring faculty questions about service, including:

• what activities are recognized as faculty service

• how to document service activities

• how service activities factor into tenure, promotion, and CCE decisions

This informational document condenses the …

Generative Ai In The Classroom: Best Practices, A Cetll Guide, The Center For Excellence In Teaching, Learning, & Leadership, S E. Hackney, Brandon K. Jeffries Mr., Emily Drabinski, Joshua Rogers, Holly Weisberg, Yael Neumann, Ashlyn Cavitt, Claudia Brumbaugh, Lindsey Albracht, Robin Naughton, Annalee Roustio, Amy Wan, Soniya Munshi, Jean Kelly

Open Educational Resources

In 2024-2025, in collaboration with Amy Wan, Professor of English and Special Assistant to the Provost for Writing, CETLL hosted a Generative AI in the Classroom Faculty Fellowship, through which an interdisciplinary cohort of thirteen faculty members were supported to critically engage the different concerns and opportunities that generative AI presents for our work as educators.

From our discussions with the Faculty Fellows and other resources, we have developed Generative AI in the Classroom: Best Practices, a CETLL Guide. This guide includes step-by-step guidance about how to engage with questions of generative AI in your classrooms, sample syllabus statements, …

Growth Mindset And Generative Ai, J. Elizabeth Clark, Casandra Silva Sibilin

Open Educational Resources

This module expands the CUNY Learning Mindsets framework—originally developed with the University of Virginia’s Motivate Lab to support student motivation through growth, purpose and relevance, and sense of belonging (GPS)—by introducing a fourth module focused on generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI). Designed in spring 2025 by CUNY Learning Mindset Ambassadors Casandra Silva Sibilin and J. Elizabeth Clark, the module integrates growth mindset principles with emerging research on Gen AI to help educators and students engage with these tools as opportunities for learning and development rather than shortcuts or sources of academic misconduct.

The module provides an introduction to …

Evidence-Based Shared Agendas For Scholarship On Teaching With Primary Sources: Reflections On A Bibliometric Analysis, Jen Hoyer, Anne Bahde

Publications and Research

This article explores how scholarship about teaching with primary sources (TPS) has evolved over time and what future directions past work might suggests. Using bibliometric analysis and visualization tools, we examined how TPS work has grown; what fields and disciplines focus on this work; key themes and issues; and what scholarship has been influential to the field. These insights led to reflections on disconnects across the field, considerations for publishing about TPS, and the potential of pedagogical standards and guidelines. Finally, this article concludes with recommendations on how this analysis points to possibilities for shared education, space, conversation, and products.

The Library Is Open: Making The Case For Academic Libraries As The Planning Hub For Frederick Douglass Day, Shaina V. Anderson

Urban Library Journal

This case study showcases the value of having a library act as the central planning and event location at a public, land-grant university. Frederick Douglass Day is a hybrid day of “…collective action for Black history” (Center for Black Digital Research, n.d.) that was founded by Dr. Jim Casey, an African American Studies faculty member at Pennsylvania State University. It is a day where students and community members from higher education institutions, archival institutions, and museums from around the world log onto a transcription program and participate in transcribing historical documents. Some of the participants are assigned to be “transcribers” …

Nurturing The Student Voice And Its Creative Power In Mathematics Teaching And Learning: Research With Students On Emotion, Imagination, And Understanding., Luis Adolfo Zambrano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research in mathematics education explores the teaching and learning of mathematics at the high school and community college levels, integrating diverse research methods to examine how educators can cultivate a dynamic, collaborative, and responsive classroom climate. Framed by K. Tobin and K. Alexakos’s authentic inquiry education research framework (2020), the methodology actively engages students as co-researchers, valuing their insights and experiences as integral to the learning process. This approach fosters a meaningful dialogue on managing emotional and cognitive challenges faced by students of mathematics while identifying strategies to support and enhance students’ innate imaginative and creative capacities.

Grounded in …

A Seat At The Schoolhouse Table: Reimagining Education Through Afrofuturist And Womanist Theory, Natasha M. Capers

Student Theses

“A Seat at the Schoolhouse Table: Reimagining Education Through Afrofuturist and Womanist Theory” critically examines how curriculum, even when well-intentioned, can perpetuate harm by excluding the lived experiences of marginalized communities—especially Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQIA+ students. Using a real middle school immigration assignment given to the author's son as a case study, this capstone deconstructs the structural biases embedded in curriculum design and proposes a radical reimagining through the liberatory lenses of Afrofuturism and Womanism. Blending scholarly inquiry, personal narrative, and community-based interviews, this project offers a restructured assignment that centers joy, identity, and speculative storytelling as tools for educational …

Institutionalizing Normality: Disability, Productivity, And Higher Education, Ashley Dirzis

Student Theses

This thesis examines how capitalism and neuronormative domination shape the structures and values of academic institutions, affecting faculty, students, and research subjects alike. By privileging productivity, conformity, and efficiency in the pursuit of income, universities often marginalize those who diverge from normative standards of thinking, behavior, and embodiment, particularly disabled individuals. Drawing on Marta Russell’s Disability and Capitalism and the shaping of disability by capitalist systems, Robert Chapman’s notion of the "Empire of Normality" and Jay Dolmage’s concept of the retrofit from Academic Ableism, this paper analyzes how academia reinforces ableist norms. It explores the realities and barriers that …

Ethical Ai Use And Classroom Integration Training Modules, Daniel Boudon

Open Educational Resources

This project focuses on developing comprehensive training modules to equip students and faculty with the knowledge and skills necessary to ethically and effectively use AI tools in academic settings. The training consists of interconnected modules that cover a wide range of topics, including the ethical use of AI, evaluating AI-generated content, integrating AI tools into curriculum design, and creating AI-enhanced classroom activities. Additional modules emphasize fostering digital literacy, staying updated with AI advancements, and collaborating on best practices for AI in education.

Designed for flexibility, the modules cater to diverse academic disciplines, making them suitable for undergraduate and graduate courses, …

Collaborative Ai: Oer Materials For Exploring Ai As A Partner Rather Than A Tool, David Smith

Open Educational Resources

The Collaborative AI Open Educational Resource (OER) explores how artificial intelligence can act as a creative and analytical collaborator rather than a tool. Centered on the Balanced Blended Space (BBS) framework and the philosophy of the Center for Holistic Integration (CHI), the OER includes curriculum materials, theoretical models, and live research environments. It offers an interesting approach to blending physical, virtual, and conceptual spaces through shared human–AI agency and invites ongoing participation in interdisciplinary meta-projects.

City Tech Openlab Oer Checklist With Help Links, Andrew Mckinney, Bree Zuckerman, Cailean Cooney

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Developing Mathematical Maturity By Solving A Given Quadratic Equation, Armando A. Amador, Nieves Angulo, Juan B. Lacay

Publications and Research

This article explores the instructional challenges faced by mathematics educators when addressing students’ limited background knowledge and underdeveloped mathematical maturity, two critical barriers to success in college-level algebra. Using the quadratic equation 2x2+x−3=0, which is reducible over the field of rational numbers ℚ ⊂ ℝ, we analyze how diverse solution methods—factoring, completing the square, and the quadratic formula—can support learning. An additional strategy, “Slide and Divide,” was introduced to promote procedural fluency and conceptual flexibility. To gain insight into students’ evolving mathematical maturity, an online survey was conducted to students at various levels of mathematics. The survey captured their perspectives …

Oer Faculty Fellowship, Leila Walker

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Developing A Digital Portfolio: Professionalizing Your Digital Identity, Christina Katopodis

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Leveraging Ai Tools In University Writing Instruction: Enhancing Student Success While Upholding Academic Integrity, Daisuke Akiba, Rebecca Garte

Publications and Research

The emergence of AI-powered Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini, presents both opportunities and challenges for higher education, particularly regarding academic integrity in writing instruction. This exploratory study examines a novel pedagogical approach that integrates LLMs as required feedback tools in a university-level psychology writing assignment. The exclusive online approach emphasizes improvement through revision, requiring students to obtain AI-generated feedback on ungraded initial drafts based on an instructor-provided rubric, with final assessment focused on the quality of subsequent revisions. Analysis of survey data from 39 undergraduate students, incorporating both quantitative measures and qualitative responses, revealed several …

Using Computational Thinking To Explore And Support Equity And Social Justice, Leslie Keiler, Sherone Smith-Sanchez, Zena Cooper, Natasha Cox-Magno, Lisa Dunn-Lockhart, Kara Hudon, Clare Pawson, Xin Bai

Publications and Research

Brief summary of presentation, suitable for inclusion in our conference program.

We explore the experience of teacher candidates who went to schools much like where they are preparing to teach. We investigate the implementation of Computational thinking-based (CT) learning experiences and examine the social justice implications. We investigate the impacts on their thinking about social justice and the faculty’s reflections on CT integration.

A Guide To Assignments For Open Pedagogy And The Seven Principles For A Culturally Responsive, Inclusive And Anti-Racist Curriculum, Gina R. Foster, Wynne Ferdinand, Michael Schoch, Bruce Shenitz, Jacob Moses, Florentina Lonati, Atharva Orpe

Open Educational Resources

As we identify and nurture the pedagogies that align our students’ understandings and our own on their learning and pre-professional needs, many of us find ourselves weaving together elements from various teaching models in place of relying on a sole framework, such as problem-based learning (PBL) or Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Our selection and application of these concepts and strategies manifests our current beliefs as well as our experiential lessons to date. These include teaching and learning and also social justice, evidence-based research, and our understandings of who we are as both human beings and instructors. At John Jay …

Teaching, Learning, & Research On The Cuny Academic Commons On The Cuny Academic Commons, Laurie Hurson

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Thinking Blue / Writing Red: Marxism And The (Post)Human, Stephen C. Tumino

Publications and Research

Thinking Blue/Writing Red interrogates contemporary culture across a range of texts, from the pandemic (‘Covid’ and ‘Trump Speak’) to high theory (Melville's narratives) and popular culture (Beyoncé's ‘Formation’ and Super Bowl performance, Twin Peaks , metamodern ‘cli-fi’ films). Inspired by Derrida’s idea of the secret, Tumino examines the significance of social movements (Black Lives Matter, Occupy, alter-globalization) and naïve art (Darger, Ryden) to argue that these texts speak of the secrets that capitalism cannot speak. Contending that the cultural surfaces narrate only the ‘nonsecret,’ that to see the social logic of the culture one must dig into what Bruno Latour …

Identifying Graduate Students’ Instructional Strategies And Approaches Towards Teaching Employable Skills, Elizabeth S. Che

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

College instruction tends to focus on imparting disciplinary knowledge rather than employable broad-based skills emphasized by undergraduate guidelines. The lack of emphasis on broad-skill development may leave many undergraduate students unprepared for the workforce. Graduate students who are future professoriate, are teaching undergraduate courses with various attitudes and strategies. This dissertation comprises three published studies that used data from two surveys identifying graduate students’ instructional strategies and approaches to teaching employable skills in their courses.

The first study asked whether graduate students teaching undergraduate courses (N = 114; 70.2% women, M age = 30 years) aim to teach employable …

Toward Otherworlding The Teaching-Learning Of Psychology With Community College Students, Francisco Medina

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation reimagines a different relationality to teaching-learning psychology in the community college classroom through a series of three separate articles. Each article draws on quasi-ethnographic, autoethnographic, and group discussions elements to wonder about the types of theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical dimensions that might make psychology courses more attuned and accountable to younger generations and the end of the world as we know it. The first article explores the metaphysical inseparability, interdependence, and co-constitution of teaching-learning, theory-making, and collective world-making in the psychology community college classroom as an invitation to the end of psychology as we know it. I argue …

Pltl Develops Scholars For Majors In The Built-Environment​, Shpat Halili, Calvin O. Walters Jr.

Publications and Research

The National Science Foundation S-STEM program at NYC College of Technology (City Tech), Developing an Ecosystem of STEM success for Built Environment Scholars (Award Number 2150432), focuses on supporting and developing scholars in the majors relating to the Built Environment. The proposed project includes the expansion of Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) at City Tech. The PLTL model creates a supportive learning environment and supplements the faculty-centered classroom with student-led and student-oriented workshops. At City Tech, existing workshops provide curricular support in statics and mathematics. The PLTL program benefits promising first-year STEM students, and the S-STEM program utilizes the PLTL model …

A Model For Embedding Nature-Based Learning Across Disciplines: A Pilot Study At An Urban Community College, Nicole Kras

Publications and Research

Nature-based instruction offers students the benefits of experiential learning while spending time in nature. Research supports nature-based learning (NBL) with younger students (Pre-K–12), yet there is a dearth of research focused on students in post-secondary education. To advance research in higher education, an NBL project was launched with 16 faculty members (two cohorts) from different disciplines at a commuter community college in New York City to pilot the implementation of NBL into the curriculum. This paper offers a model to guide the implementation of NBL in a variety of disciplines. It is hoped that this model may be used by …

Using Formative Assessment And Feedback From Student Response Systems (Srs) To Revise Statistics Instruction And Promote Student Growth For All, Grace Pai

Publications and Research

Instructors are increasingly using interactive student response systems (SRS) to foster active learning and deepen student understanding in statistics education. Yet most studies focus on either the benefits of SRS or on how students can receive and use feedback, rather than on how instructors can use formative assessment data to inform instructional revisions for the purpose of enacting inclusive pedagogy to reach more learners. This article draws from a case study of an introductory statistics course at a community college to detail a framework for how an instructor can engage in what I call a reciprocal formative assessment and feedback …

Using Poetics And Technology To Inform Pre-Service Educators’ Transformative Pedagogy Via Innovative Sociocultural Interactivities, Lindamichelle Baron, Xin Bai

Publications and Research

Using Poetics and Technology to Inform Pre-Service Educators’ Transformative Pedagogy via Innovative Sociocultural Interactivities

During the HICE workshop my colleague and I will demonstrate and engage HICE participants through learner centered practices we developed and studied during the Covid pandemic. We embedded oral and written poetic expression with a variety of technological practices to offer pre-service educators creative opportunities to learn and participate in the course through unique expressive movements, music, and media during on-line instruction. These approaches will show how to create a culture of care and Social Justice in a synchronous online classroom.

Baron, Lindamichelle –— York College, …

Herding Cats: The Benefits And Challenges Of A Large Research And Development Team, Xin Bai, Leslie Keiler

Publications and Research

We explore the journey of a nine-member-and-growing research team that is collaborating to develop, implement, and study a Computer Integrated Teacher Education (CITE) program at an urban commuter college. Team members have a range of subject area expertise and research training, as well as full-time jobs in the education field. The multi-member team has learned from each other and enriched the final products while facing challenges resulting from the composition of the team.

Motivation, Learning, And The Workplace: A Study Of Community College Student Affairs Professionals And Continued Professional Learning, Joseph M. Ginese

Theses and Dissertations

Continued professional learning is a consistent focus of attention for the field of student affairs within higher education. Yet, very little research has been conducted on the factors that influence the motivation of student affairs professionals to pursue continued professional learning, especially professionals within community colleges. This study utilized a quantitative research design to examine the physical and psychological factors of the work environment that can influence a community college student affairs professional’s motivation to pursue continued professional learning. Through the theoretical lens of Lewin’s Field Theory and Eccles’ Expectancy-Value Theory, I designed a 58-item survey (N = 41) …