Writing Assignments as Stepping Stones for Student Career Readiness

Presenters: Kim Liao, Alison Perry, Madhura Bandyopadhyay, Tim McCormack

Description: According to the NACE (National Association of Colleges and Employers) 2022 Job Outlook Survey, employers prioritized critical thinking, communication, and teamwork as the most important competencies for student career readiness. In this workshop, we’ll investigate how writing assignments within specific academic disciplines can offer stepping stones to develop these competencies. Specifically, we’ll demonstrate how we build these competencies into disciplinary writing assignments using genres encountered in professional career settings–such as reports, case studies, memos, proposals, applications, or presentations–in courses offered by the Vertical Writing Program from ENG 201 to “Writing in the Disciplines” courses such as Writing for Criminal Justice, Business Writing, Technical Writing, and others. Participants will be encouraged to consider what types of career competencies they would like students to develop in their courses, and to participate in generative activities towards the creation of successful disciplinary writing assignments to further these goals of career readiness for John Jay students.

Please find the resources for “Writing Assignments as Stepping Stones for Student Career Readiness” here.

Please click here for the Zoom recording.

 

The Legal Disruption Project: A Student-Driven Participatory Action Project in the Law & Society Major

Presenters: Michael Yarbrough, Jean Carmalt, and student/alumnx presenters

Description: The Legal Disruption Project (LDP) is a student-led initiative in which Law & Society majors conduct research with other students on the ways that law disrupts people’s lives in their families and communities. Using Participatory Action Research methods, the LDP challenges hegemonic forms of sociolegal knowledge production by putting students in the driver’s seat, designing research themselves for the benefit of their own communities. For the past few years, student researchers have conducted focus groups with other students on themes of place, belonging, and displacement, building a rich qualitative data set about these themes throughout the NYC region. In this session, students and alumni will share how their experience in LDP has shaped their understanding of law and society, and faculty will discuss the LDP’s history and pedagogical implementation. We hope to open new visions for research and teaching at John Jay and to explore ways of adapting this model for other programs.

Please find the resources for “The Legal Disruption Project: A Student-Driven Participatory Action Project in the Law & Society Major” here.

Please find the Zoom recording here.

 

Understanding Bias in Student Evaluations of Faculty

Presenters: Jessica Gordon-Nembhard. Presenters: Mangai Natarajan and Lissette Delgado-Cruzata

Description: It is important to understand student bias on student evaluations of faculty. This panel presentation will explore the possible student biases in evaluations of faculty of color, women and LGBTQ+ faculty, based on decades of research. We will provide strategies for how to explain the kinds of bias to one’s department P&B and on the form C etc., or in any tenure or promotion interviews. We will also discuss how to put the responses in context; as well as how to help short-circuit any student issues using their feedback. In addition we plan to address how to approach student evaluations with a growth mindset, and combine that information with peer teaching evaluations and other innovative evaluations in order to improve our teaching. We will end with a dialogue about innovative ways to address the problem of structural biases in teaching.

Please find the Zoom recording here.

 

Yuja & Perusall:  Examples of digital tools that map with NACE digital and communication competencies

Presenters: Judith Cahn with Department of Online Education and Support staff

Description: Using the NACE digital and communication career competencies as a framework, this workshop will examine how learning technologies can be used to help guide students to develop career competencies.  We will reference many digital tools that can map to each core skill, but introduce, demonstrate, and focus primarily on 2 online learning technologies that are used at John Jay: YUJA, a multimedia/video tool and Perusall, a social, collaborative reading tool.  Participants will have the opportunity to collaborate on ways these tools can be used to help guide students and foster career competencies.

Please find the Zoom recording here.

 

Resilient Competencies: Social Emotional Learning (SEL) + NACE in Course Design

Presenter: Iralma Pozo

(in person, this session was not recorded)

Description: As an accounting instructor within the Public Management department, I have seen firsthand how giving students a space to express their interests, concerns and observations through project based learning and exposure to the work and career trajectory of professionals in their field gives them a sense of accomplishment and enhances the competencies they will need for a successful career journey. Incorporating SEL into course design can further help students with the work they need to do to triumph in social settings and the self development needed as they start their careers. In this presentation, I will illustrate some elements of SEL and how these elements can be aligned with NACE competencies and learning objectives to seamless help students develop holistic leadership skills.

Resources not currently available.

 

Landmark Cases: Developing students’ problem solving and critical thinking skills in a racial justice context

Presenters: Wynne Ferdinand; Mariya Gluzman, Sergio Gallegos Ordorica, Fritz Umbach 

(in person, this session was not recorded)

Description: Landmark U.S. Supreme Court Cases: Criminal Justice & Humanistic Perspectives is a new 300 level Justice Core General Education offering that engages John Jay students in examination of complex questions of racial justice, citizenship, individual rights, and criminal justice raised in one or more Supreme Court Cases, and through the varied interdisciplinary perspectives of law enforcement professionals, criminologists, historians, philosophers, artists, and writers. In this session, participants will review sample course assignments that ask students to: critically analyze legal documents, develop arguments, and synthesize multiple perspectives on complex justice issues. Working in small groups alongside facilitators, participants will identify how the samples reflect an interdisciplinary approach to understanding justice issues, develop core academic skills, and prepare criminal justice majors to reckon with the complex challenges they will face in their professional lives.

Resources not currently available.

 

The Value of the Research Experience: Applied Research Skills for Life

Presenters: Bettina Muenster, YanShan Yu, Yareli Perez, Ernest Lee, Adam Ramirez 

(in person, this session was not recorded)

Description: This moderated panel discussion will focus on the less tangible and obvious, yet fundamental, long term benefits that a mentored research experience has for both, the student and their mentor. Transcending the more palpable technical data collection process and reading and writing aspects of the research project, this panel will focus on the importance of teaching students the merit of conducting research in the application of their theoretical and subject specific research to the world around them. Learning is much more than a perfect attendance, reading textbooks, and writing (research) papers; conducting research instills life-long skills that future employers and academic institutions seek. It is a crucial tool in identity.

Resources not currently available.

 

Collegiality 101: Understanding Service and Developing Leadership Opportunities at John Jay

Panelists: Carla Barrett, Alexa Capeloto, Karen Kaplowitz, & Chitra Raghavan Moderator: Angela Crossman

(in person, this session was not recorded)

Description: There are myriad ways in which each member of our John Jay community shows collegiality – ways that we collaborate and cooperate to share responsibility for our institution. An important step toward collegiality is finding our service groove – the ways in which we can invest in meaningful service that we feel passionate about. The goals of this panel are to: inform faculty members about types of service opportunities available at the College (particularly new and/or recent faculty members) and what they entail; consider ways to develop leadership through service and leadership opportunities at John Jay and beyond; and discuss strategies for planning about service and leadership in light of one’s career stage and goals.

Please find the resources from the session here.

 

Paths to Departmental Leadership

Presenters: Andrew Sidman, Katherine Stavrianopoulos, and Jayne Mooney

(in person, this session was not recorded)

Description: This panel discussion will feature current department chairs reflecting on the paths they took to becoming leaders in their departments. The discussion will address service and activities prior to becoming chair, timing of these activities, and maintaining balance between leadership responsibilities and other professional activities (like scholarship).

Resources not currently available.

 

Collaborative Grant Writing, Research and Grant Administration

Presenters: Marie-Helen Maras, Adam Scott Wandt, Kenji Logie, Iden Koxhaj

(in person, this session was not recorded)

Description: This session focuses on the presenters’ experiences with collaborative grant writing, grant administration, and related scholarly production utilizing colleagues, doctoral students, graduate students, and external partners. Focus will be placed on the successes, failures, challenges, and lessons learned by the team over the past three years. Attendees will gain practical knowledge regarding the formation of a successful multi- disciplinary team approach to apply for and administer large research grants.

Resources not currently available

 

Experiential Learning: Reinforcing Career-Ready Skills in the Classroom

Presenters: Katheryn Crawford, Stacia Maynard, Kristina Simonsen 

Description: Experiential learning and hands-on experience are key components to supporting students to gain a competitive edge in their desired career industries. This session highlights the social and economic barriers that might disrupt the engagement of marginalized students in hands-on learning experiences that will prepare them for appropriate careers. We will share the different ways students can participate in experiential learning opportunities and how faculty can share this information with students. We will engage in a conversation for participants to gain insight to what employers are looking for in candidates; basic etiquette, techniques, and the NACE competencies that faculty can then reinforce in the classroom.

Please find the resources from the session here.

Please find the Zoom recording here.

 

Classrooms as Professional Spaces: Establishing Faculty-Student Interactions that Work

Presenters: Alison Perry; Madhura Bandyopadhyay

Description: While most John Jay students already work while attending class, many are nonetheless underprepared for the post-pandemic digital and material professional environments they will enter after college. Professors can help by creating pedagogical and classroom management strategies that promote self-efficacy in order to prepare students for their future careers. In this interactive workshop we will begin by conducting an activity where we lay out three scenarios describing student professionalism in in-person and virtual environments for participants to discuss. We will analyze our responses, look for patterns, and offer solutions. Next we will invite participants to share experiences they have had with student under-preparedness in recent semesters and tell us about how they responded. Our goal is to arrive at a set of best practices regarding lateness, absence, late/missing assignments, and in-class

Please find the Zoom recording here.

 

Model United Nations as the Ultimate Experiential Learning Activity at John Jay

Description: Members of the previous eboard of the winning Model UN will share their knowledge in how to train members in public speaking, writing, negotiation, collaboration and diplomatic skills. These members have participated in the team that has won the outstanding delegation award two years in a row, online in 2021 and presential in 2022 at the NMUN NYC Conference. The Academic Advisor will focus on an examination of the advantages of having students participate in Model UN.

Presenters: M. Victoria Pérez-Rios, Edita Biro and Juan Príncipe III 

Please find the Zoom recording here.

 

Integrating Impactful Career Conversations into Major Advising

Presenters: Sumaya Villanueva, Emily Chow

Description: This training will be applicable for major coordinators that will hold 1:1 advising sessions for Junior and Seniors in 2022-23. John Jay has partnered with The Opportunity Network to co-develop Advisement Guides that integrate career talking points, considerations, and reflection questions within advising. We will share examples of critical and relevant career conversations that can take place to equip students for success in their career journey. There will also be an opportunity for faculty reflection and input on these Advisement Guides.

Please find the resources from the session here.

Please find the Zoom recording here.