Teaching and Learning at John Jay College -- Podcasts from the TLC

 In this conversation, Kim Liao, John Jay Lecturer and Co-Director of the Writing Across the Disciplines Program, models a multi-step (scaffolded) technical writing assignment, discusses the value of learning through teaching someone else’s curriculum, and the need for students to become revision diagnosticians. Liao provides multiple examples of connecting real-world needs with student writing activities and reminds that our own student personas stay with us throughout lifelong learning engagement.

Credits: Casino Blue, Guitarista (album), Mr. Smith (composer/performer), 2023

In this interview, John Jay Lecturer and Director of the First Year Writing Program Christen Madrazo shares her approaches to writing to learn, outcomes assessment, SSQ methods of generating student research questions, and decolonizing the hybrid classroom. Throughout the conversation, Dr. Madrazo reminds us that stories are always with us and defining us.

Music credits: Credits: Casino Blue, Guitarista (album), Mr. Smith (composer/performer), 2023

In this episode, Jerry Lim, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Art & Music, asks "How do you get past the surface?” as he reflects on his own teaching and learning experiences and his journeys with students. Listen as Lim explores wrestling with biases in terms of content and style and the idea of permission in responding to student work and asking for their feedback. “I want to be as vulnerable as possible in the class,” he says, because “I have a feeling that my students can ask me anything." Join Jerry Lim in getting past the surface to immerse yourself in great student-centered teaching.

In this episode, Madhura Bandyopadhyay, Doctoral Lecturer in English and 2023 Winner of the John Jay College Distinguished Teaching Prize, shares her experiences in learning from colleagues, keeping a teaching journal, discovering reciprocity from students during the pandemic, digital writing and the impact of AI, and the importance and practicality of continuing to learn while dealing with trauma. “It’s good to wander a little,” advises Bandyopadhyay, with a further reminder that “Teaching is not individual.”

In this episode we celebrate the teaching of Nina Rose Fischer, Assistant Professor of Social Welfare in the Interdisciplinary Studies Department. Teaching at John Jay for seven years, Dr. Fischer came to John Jay having spent twenty years as a licensed social worker supporting adjudicated and incarcerated youth, among other things. She explains her teaching as focused on facilitating student discovery and collaboration, and talks about how to maximize the strengths of technology-enhanced teaching for leveling the classroom. A TLC Faculty Fellow in Social Justice Pedagogies, Dr. Fischer also shares the work she and the other social justice faculty have been doing that truly embrace John Jay's Seven Principles for a Culturally Responsive, Inclusive and Anti-Racist Curriculum.

In this episode we celebrate the teaching of Marie-Michelle Strah, Adjunct Assistant Professor of International Crime and Justice. Teaching at John Jay for just three years, Dr. Strah brings a wealth of military and private sector experience to her teaching about international cybercrime, cybersecurity, and complex financial crimes. She explains her teaching as focused on working from student strengths, building skills in collaboration, and encouraging fierce advocacy for algorithmic, data and design justice. A TLC Faculty Fellow in Online Teaching, Dr. Strah also focuses on how discrimination is embedded in online systems and can be avoided through universal design principles. She is particularly attuned to ensuring visual communication as an essential 21st century skill.

In this episode we celebrate the teaching of two-time winner Gregory Donaldson, Associate Professor of Communication and Theatre Arts. Greg Donaldson has been teaching for 54 years and he has more than a few things to share, like how to motivate students to be present, how to structure a course so you have the ability to pay attention to the students within it, and how important it is to value what is unique in a student. He wouldn’t use these buzz words, but his teaching is student-centered, strengths-based and culturally responsive.

In this recording, John Jay Teaching & Learning Center Director Gina Rae Foster reads an original poem commemorating the legacy of 9/11. Written in 2019 at the invitation of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the poem explores the connections between the experiences of that day and our memories and assumptions now as we continue to grieve and to work with our students to develop more responsive and empathetic lives.

Please see http://johnjay.jjay.cuny.edu/911memorial/pdfs/Remembering_What_Matters_9_11_poem.pdf for the full text of the poem.

In this episode, Teaching & Learning Center staff Durkel Dalrymple and Sherley Paulino interview John Jay students Erika Pacio, Hanna Yeum, and María Plata about their experiences of feeling respected and disrespected in their remote classes during the pandemic. Each student offers her own perspective on how instructors manage culturally responsive, inclusive, and antiracist teaching in ways that support or interfere with learning. This is the first of two episodes dedicated to the DEI Faculty Initiative project at John College of Criminal Justice, which will create and offer workshops on antiracism and other forms of social justice this coming year.

In this podcast, TLC members share their thoughts about working at the TLC and how it connects to their academic and professional lives and plans in the future, they also discuss the mission and values of what they do at TLC and how it plays an important role in their lives.