On Friday, August 28, the Futures Initiative kicked off its first workshop event in the University Worth Fighting For series that will run in the 2015-2016 academic year. All photos from the event are available here.
Featuring the voices of members of the Futures Initiative team, an invited guest speaker, and audience participants, this workshop was an interactive session of tool-sharing to ensure equality in the university classroom. With over 114 participants, counting both those who attended the session in-person at the Graduate Center and those who watched the livestream, and 400 tweets with the #fight4edu hashtag, this was a great and engaging commencement to our workshop series.
The editable and collaborative resource bank of tools, methods, and techniques discussed at the session are available here, and the conversation is invited to continue through Danica Savonick’s HASTAC forum.
Participants signing in.
Futures Initiative Director Cathy Davidson contextualizes the discussion with welcome remarks.
Associate Director Katina Rogers talks to participants about the University Worth Fighting For workshop series.
Futures Initiative Fellow Danica Savonick discusses some methods she uses in her classroom, including all hands raised and taking stack.
Andrew Lucchesi, an English doctoral candidate, talks about universal design in the classroom. His site on teaching, Disability Writes, is available here,
Anna Stetsenko, a professor of Human Development and Urban Education, explains how important it is to allow students to see that knowledge is social process in which their agency and contribution can play a profound role in shaping it.
Evan Misshula, a doctoral student in Criminal Justice who teaches Computer Science at John Jay, explains how he prevents certain students from overpowering classroom discussions.
Ofelia Garcia, Professor of Urban Education and Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Languages, goes through some of the techniques she uses to ensure that human capacity is widely distributed in the classroom.
Anthropology Professor Donald Robotham makes note of the importance of students realizing what they bring to the table due to their distinctive backgrounds.
Doctoral student Janet Werther explains how she comes out to her students over and over again in different ways, and highlights the importance of how she learns from students.
Professor of Nursing, Steven Baumann and Professor Ofelia Garcia discuss the multi-lingual classroom.
Timothy Griffiths, a Teaching Fellow at Brooklyn College, uses music in his classroom and talks about different ways that it can be implemented in a course.
Theater Practitioner Raquel Almazan discusses utilizing the space in education.
Professor Carmina Makar highlights the significance of students seeing themselves in their courses and takes a class photo to include on the syllabus.
NYU PhD student sava uses Twitter in the classroom, and how students may use it as their own backchannel.
Ryan Donovan, a doctoral student, poses the question: “How do you use the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house?” Cathy Davidson responds that structural inequality must be overturned by structured equality, and ensures that every student participates.
Jade Davis of LaGuardia Community College, uses workshop days in-class to ensure that she is not the primary audience for their work.
The session wrapped up with questions and conversation among the group, with great discussions continuing as the workshop ended.
Please see the full album of the event here.
