CUNY Academic Commons

thank you Mark. Couldn’t agree more.

I am really excited to try out a mapping activity asking students to think about their career/grad school plans (I work primarily with seniors) in very specific terms and actively connect the concepts in the course to the specific job activities or grad school requirement, helping them build those connections and see the value of the course content.

One of the projects I assign asks students to develop a research question and use themselves as a research subject to collect data. That way, they get to use course material (statistical methods in psychology) to learn something about themselves and hopefully recognize the relevance of the course to their personal and professional lives.

In high school, I struggled with the preparation for the standardized math test (non-US context). After weeks of procrastination and self-doubt, I remember committing to a set of study sessions and actually being able to complete them. One of the reasons that helped me stay motivated was recognizing that I did pretty well on some of the topics…[Read more]

The purpose of higher education is to broaden a person’s informational horizon, widen their imagination, stimulate their curiosity, and deepen their expertise. Taking classes outside of one’s chosen field of study, in my opinion, is valuable and shall continue to be required. However, the content of the courses and their pedagogical structures…[Read more]

In the upcoming semester, I intend to implement the SMART goal strategy as well as activities aimed as helping students evaluate, use, and prune resources available to them as they move through the course. Additionally, to encourage deliberate practice, I intend to design a grading system that rewards practice alongside outcome.

I employ a few strategies to help emphasize and cultivate growth mindset in my students. First, I explicitly state in my syllabus that I firmly believe that every one of my students is able to meet the challenges of the course (statistics). Second, I employ a flipped-classroom format emphasizing deliberate practice in class that allows students to…[Read more]

Modeling growth mindset involves not only sharing personal experiences of failure and growth, but also being willing to admit lack of knowledge or expertise in real time. For example, when confronted with a question outside of ones expertise, an instructor should candidly admit that they lack knowledge of this particular subject/area/topic but…[Read more]