2.10 Discussion Board IV: Connections (Required to earn certificate)

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  Posted by CUNY Mindset Initiative on March 11, 2024 at 10:57 am

  💬 Discussion:

  • In your course(s), how can you assist students in connecting the course content to their current & future personal lives?
  • How will students connect what they care about to what they are learning?
  • How will they actively engage in the process of making these connections?

• Sherouk Alzeory

  Member

  September 30, 2025 at 10:16 am

  Since I teach microbiology as a capstone course, I always make connections with the content I teach to students’ lives. This allows students to understand the importance of microbiology and its relevance to their personal and professional lives. For example, one of the exercises I developed entails students to use their own gum sample in order to study bacteria, and asses their gum health status. This introduces a fun way to learn about bacteria while allowing students to make a connection to their health.
  This module and its discussions have sparked ideas that I would like to integrate to foster building connections. In the beginning of the course, I would like to ask students to write down 15-20 qualities/skills that they wish to develop for their personal and professional lives. They will also be asked to reflect on how this course can help them cultivate these qualities/skills. For the rest of the semester, I would ask them to add a reflection paragraph at the end of each assignment. The purpose of the reflection paragraph is to make a connection between what they learned in the assignment and the qualities/ skills they wish to develop. To assist them in the process, I plan on providing feedback to the reflection sections and assessing how their connections improve throughout the semester.