Tag Archives: midterm

Adam’s 2 project proposals

Sorry for the late post, I was working til almost 4am last night and woke up a little later than I planned.  See you all in a few hours.

1)

Introduction

As a subject, philosophy has always been contextual.  The seminal works of philosophy are perpetually situated in a time and a place, with a particular historical foundation, and those elements are essential for understanding the theories and postulations of a particular work.  However, without a proper training in philosophy, it can be hard to keep a clear conception of context and history when reading and studying.  Therefore, Atlastotle aims to create an interactive world map that can move through the different centuries and essential periods of philosophy, while allowing the user to scroll over different highlighted regions to view a list of seminal authors of said region at said time, while also linking to certain important texts and theories of each author.  Incorporated into each author’s pop up will be a brief synopsis of the philosopher’s contributions and theories, as well as, a short list of historical connections to previous authors.

Personas

Phil O. Sophy – A second year college student who is focusing on his Bachelor’s in philosophy, Phil is extremely interested in the subject but has a hard time keeping up with the wealth of information available and isn’t sure where to start or where to continue in his studies.

Dr. Vitz – A professor in Modern Philosophy, Dr. Vitz attempts to teach the era of philosophy keeping a chronological and historical context to illustrate how each theory builds off another (either by adding to or critiquing particulars).

Existential Emily – A high school student who is trying to find her place.  She got her hands on a copy of Thus Spoke Zarathustra and has a budding interest in Nietzsche but wants to learn more.

Use

Phil stumbled upon this map online searching for philosophy and was able to obtain a good sense of the history of the subject and the context for particular disciplines.  From here, Phil was able to find his favorite authors, discover others in that discipline and connect to authors involved in that conversation during that era.  Dr. Vitz uses this tool as a reference resource to follow along the chronological and historical course so that his students can keep the era organized throughout the semester.  Existential Emily searched Nietzsche and came across the map which took her through a journey as she is now exploring a degree in philosophy after high school.

Full Version and Time Expectations

The full version would use a mapping platform such as ArcGIS or CartoDB.  These tools already have pop up abilities and some java included in the application, however, to customize this to my specific needs would require a lot of extra java.  I would like to partner with an organization such as Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to help manage the content.

I feel this project would require a significant amount of time and effort. I am studying mapping resources currently for a project I am on and I feel if this were to be realized, I wouldn’t need much time on that.  However, with that said, the javascript needed to build the popups and such would take time.  The real time constraint for the project involves the organization and research.  Because philosophy is such an extensive subject, a lot of time and effort would go into organizing the content to decipher who would be included and what content to be highlighted.  Depending on support from outside sources, I feel this project could be completed in a year.  Organizing the content would require at least ¾ of the project, while the actual building of the tool could be completed in ¼ of the time.

Stripped Down Version and Time Expectations

A stripped down version of this tool would be one era of philosophy mapped without the links to other philosophers.  This would get at the spirit of the project and allow people to see the importance this tool provides without the time it takes to organize an entire subject.  This would also provide the experience needed to expand the map in a much quicker fashion, technically.  I could accomplish this task in 4-6 months given the technical skills needed to complete the map.

 

2)

Introduction

Teachers can help each other in so many ways.  With the connectivity of technology increasing, I propose a social media style site for teachers to share tips, teaching suggestions, and anecdotes.  It could easily be organized into categories and tags by department, subjects, grade, and/or region.  Teachers would sign up using school assigned email addresses and could connect with thousands of other teachers to collaborate and ultimately raise the bar in pedagogy.  Threads and forums could be archived as a resource and added to at later dates.  Based on an environmental scan, there are sites dedicated to teacher blogs and certain forum sites that involve teachers, but the usability is limited and none have succeeded in creating a significant community for teachers to use each others’ experience and knowledge across the world.

Personas

Adjunct Alan – As a recent PhD student, Alan is teaching his first courses.  Although confident in his abilities and knowledge, he is inexperienced.  He would benefit from understanding certain early tips for organization and structure.

Early Education Erin – Knowing she wanted to teach but not sure exactly what, young Erin hasn’t lead a room of young children by herself.  There are others like her that could help.

Tenure Tim – Tim has been teaching for years and has all the tips and tools of the trade.  He remembers starting out and wants to share his knowledge with up and coming academics.

DH Dan – Heavily influenced by the potential of digital technology on pedagogy and research, Dan wants to share his experiences and exciting new tools for relaying knowledge and creating excitement for learning.

Use

Alan would benefit from a community of peers that can help him get over the hump of his first classes and feel comfortable with his skills.  It’s tough teaching a group of kids and keeping their attention for an entire school day.  Erin hasn’t been around kids too much but is passionate about early education.  She’s connected with others like her and is now inundated with valuable resources and tips.  Tim has done it all in his academic career and has been rewarded with tenure.  Tim is very passionate about his studies and about his career and its benefits and wants to share his knowledge and experiences.  This tool allows Tim to connect with young teachers and mentor and guide them directly and/or remotely through the tips he posts.  Dan is excited about the opportunities he sees as inherent in digital technology and teaching/research.  Dan uses this tool as a way to spread the word of new tools and techniques that allow digital technology to be utilized in the classroom.  Dan also connects with others involved in DH to grow the community and learn more from his peers.

Full Version and Time Expectations

This tool could be set up using a WordPress/Commons in a Box set up.  I am relatively new to both and I would need to learn how to utilize these tools to customize a site like this.  Since CUNY Commons would be a model for the tool, I have several resources to tap into to learn how to build this.  Outreach and marketing this tool to the academic community would be the difficulty in this project.  The tool is not completely unique, however, none have been overly successful in creating a space to build a community of teachers and educators.  Therefore, the interface and usability would need to be a major focus on the tool itself, making it easy to sign up, make a profile, connect with others and navigate communities and forums.  This project would take time to put together and launch, but ultimately, the time would be in marketing and outreach and upkeep.  As with the CUNY Commons, putting it up online wasn’t the hardest part, nor the most time consuming; it was more the subsequent releases and upkeep.  Therefore, I would put a several year timetable on this project to its full potential.

Stripped Down Version and Time Expectations

The stripped down version would be the soft rollout of the tool, possibly to a select few schools or so to not only find the bugs and the usability problems, but also to build intrigue through a limited release.  This soft rollout would still require building the site and learning the WordPress/Commons in a Box but would not yet include the subsequent releases and upkeep so I estimate the stripped down version would still be close to a year long project.

Kelly’s midterm project

Teaching assignments app

Most teachers (adjuncts) have very little time to be as creative as they would like to be in the classroom, and creativity is part of the main teaching strengths when teaching literature to non-literature majors. This mobile friendly app will be an exchange of technology-based assignments. It will also provide a very user-friendly platform to upload assignments, teaching methodology, etc. as most great ideas happen in the classroom and are later forgotten.

  1. Personas:
    1. Floridian Paper – is a fourth year 31 year old English grad student at NYU, he has been exploited as a teaching assistant for the past three years and is ready to jump into a classroom all for himself. He has a tattoo on his forearm of a very obscure James quote, which reminds him of why he is doing what he is doing. He taught kindergarten in Maine right after college while he figured out what he wanted to do with his life. He overthinks the teaching he wants to do, preparing for an undergrad class three months in advance.
    2. Chelsea Piers – Is a 23 year old in her second year in her French Masters at Hunter College. She has been working as a restaurant manager in Queens, which is where she grew up. She is starting to teach next year and is very confused as to what is expected of her. She has been doing a lot of research online to figure out what it is she needs to do, reading sparknotes and finding a few discussion points she can use.
    3. Trillian Potter – is a 42 year old Comp Lit PhD student at the GC. She got married very young and her kids are now in college, so she decided to do what she had always wanted to do. She taught grade school when she was raising her kids, but now wants to go in deeper. She is about to start her second year and has been assigned to teach at BMCC. Her two boys make fun of her fear of technology. She is scared regarding the technology generation gap with her students.
    4. Adam Douglas – is a 29 year old Comp Lit PhD student at the GC. He moved to NY from Colombia where he used to teach college. He is in his third year and has already taught for one year at Baruch. He feels very overwhelmed by the teaching and the studying and feels he is designing things in such a way that he spends most of his time grading. He would like to change that but still give his best to his students.
    5. Use case scenario:

–        Adam Douglas and Trillian Potter meet at the comp lit lounge. They are both teaching “Things fall apart” in the respective colleges. They both disagree with how to enter the discussion, while Adam wants to bring in videos of Nigeria, Trillian wants to do a close text analysis. They see the strengths in each others views but have to rush out before they can actually sit and exchange methodologies. They decide to use the app. As they are both on their way to teach they upload the teaching approaches to the apps o the other can access it and take a peek.

  1. the full version would be have both app and website versions. The app would have several options, a search window in order to find assignments according to a specific reading, author, or by school, or even by grade. the user would have to sign in and provide an .edu email address in order to do so. The app would have a 2.99 dollar cost and would also be subsidized by a few scholarly institutions (such as digital humanities things).
    1. It would also have a button for “quick upload”, this button can be pressed right after class to upload ideas and teaching methods which came up during the said class. It would have very specific blanks to fill in:

i.     Reading – text discussed

ii.     School – students level

iii.     Class size

iv.     Smart classroom yes or no

v.     Form of discussion: in small groups, in pairs, class activity.

vi.     Use of technology yes or no

vii.     Question based assignment yes or no

viii.     Production based assignment yes or no (by this I mean that the students need to ‘produce’ something at the end  of the class in regards to the text)

ix.     Homework based yes or no

x.     Goals:____

xi.     Difficulties:____

xii.     Innovativeness in five words

xiii.     Hashtags

xiv.     Category

  1. This would all be in a user friendly setup that would take less than three minutes to fill out.
  2. The app would have several ways of ‘accessing’. By buying it for 2.99 you have full access. A free version would let you access just two assignments per reading. A free version with exchange feature would allow you to access as many assignments as you upload. (since the uploading process does require the assignments to be real, it would not be a problem)
  3. The website would be a little more complete, with assignments divided by specific categories, more advanced search engines, links, and advertisements.
  4. This would take about 200 hours. I need to know how to develop an app, how to design it, monetize it, upload it. how to keep it up. I need a lot of skills.
  5. The strip down version is just a User-friendly website into which teachers can type in their assignments to look at them at a later date or to exchange them. (I have no idea what tools to use for this) You can ‘befriend’ other teachers who have teaching methodologies you are interested in. the way of uploading the assignments would be based on five questions:
    1. Text
    2. Group size
    3. Technology yes or no
    4. Goal
    5. Description
    6.  I need to learn everything. I don’t even know what I would need to do this. I don’t think a wordpress would work, but who knows? If it is wordpress then tinkering with it more. 200 hours.

 

 

Wiki-Spanish

Wikipedia is the largest Encyclopedia and yet there is a huge disadvantage and imbalance between the wikipedias in different languages. Wiki in Spanish is very poor, it has very few cited works and is quite unserious, although students keep using it as a primary source of information. Thru awareness, workshops and events with universities in Mexico, we will promote a change in the Spanish Wikipedia.

  1. Personas:
    1. Luis – Is a full professor at the Universidad Iberoamericana. He teaches in the Latin-American Literature department teaching research. He is also part of the Library. One of his biggest problems with his students is that they don’t believe research is necessary, or useful, in the way that he thinks of it, and that they use Wikipedia as a primary source when he knows it is not useful in that way.
    2. Dany – works in the communication department at the Universidad Iberoamericana. He is the coordinator of the largest undergrad group and also teaches radio. He is a bit anachronological since he just acquired a smart phone a year ago, but he knows how important technology is for his students.
    3. Triny – is a second year communications undergrad at the Universidad iberoamericana. She failed a class last semester because most of her research was done online and she still does not see why her teacher didn’t think it was appropriate.
    4. Jesus – is a third year undergrad in Media design at the Universidad Iberoamericana. His writing skills are terrible, but he is an ace where technology is involved.
    5. Luis gives his students the assignment of looking up an article in Wikipedia which is not well researched and asks them to edit it by going to the library and researching in books. Jesus gives them a workshop on how to do the editing beforehand. Dany sees how cool this is and wants to implement a whole wiki editing program.
    6. Full version: wiki editing workshops as a requirement in all programs at the Universidad Iberoamericana. It would later spread to other universities, public and private. There would be massive wiki editing events all over the country and would later spread to the rest of Latin America. Wiki in Spanish would be as good as it is in English.
    7. 50 hours. I need to get a handle on more wiki editing skills. Contact people, organize workshops. Implore.
    8. Stripped sown version: organize a few workshops at the said university (my alma mater) with professors and then with students. Organize at día ibero (the public day of the university) a few editing sessions with specific focus (feminist session, music session, etc). Assess and re-do. Propose more workshops and more editing assignments to professors.
    9. 50 hours. Bit more wiki skills

Pamela’s Proposals (For the Midterm)

Proposal #1: Mapping for Humanists

Introductory Paragraph
One of the most attractive types of project for humanists interested in experimenting with digital tools is mapping. The software is readily available (the Graduate Center and other CUNY schools provide institutional access to ArcGIS and there are open source versions as well, in addition to accessible online tools) and the end product is has clear use as a research or teaching tool. There is a workshop in the CUNY system on ArcGIS but it assumes that the mapper will be working from existing data files, like census information. However, most humanists are working from information that does not already exist in appropriate file formats, if it available electronically at all. I propose to present a mapping workshop for graduate students in the humanities who have little or no experience with GIS software or online mapping tools. The workshop would cover how to identify the kind of information that is map-able, how to get that information into a format that can be used, and turning that information into a basic map.

Personas
1. Jill is a level one Art History student at the Graduate Center. She has no mapping experience and no special computer skills. She has no particular project in mind, but she has heard of digital mapping and is trying to get the lay of the land and see what kinds of research she might be interested in.
2. Alex is a level two student in English at the Graduate Center. He has no mapping experience and but is confident about his computer skills generally. While he doesn’t have a particular mapping project in mind, he has some ideas about research in his area of study that might be interesting to map out. He’s trying to get a sense of how much time and effort mapping would really take.
3. Beth is a level two student in Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center. She has been reading about digital mapping on her own, but has not yet made a serious attempt at mapping anything. She has a definite mapping project in mind and she wants to make sure that she is on the right track before getting started.
4. Kevin is a level three theatre student at the Graduate Center. He is in the process of writing his dissertation. He has no mapping experience but he has some programming experience and considers himself skilled with computers. He is less interested in starting a particular mapping project than in developing skills to that might help in his upcoming job search.

Use Case Scenario
Students attending this workshop would hear about it through the Graduate Center (by email and on flyers in student lounges) and would use it to develop a basic understanding of mapping tools.

Scope (Full-fledged)
In an ideal world, I would present a 2-part workshop in a computer lab at the Graduate Center. Each part would run 2 hours and they would occur on different days. The first part would focus on data preparation for ArcGIS and comparable open source GIS software. In addition to talking about the kind of information that might lend itself to mapping, we would cover creating tables that can be converted into vector files, and finding available maps with georeferencing. The second part of the workshop would take place 1-2 weeks after the first. In it, we would use ArcGIS to create a map from sample data provided by me. This would be a map relating to my own research in theatre, and thus model the mapping of a humanistic research project. Participants would also have the option of working from their own data.

Time Frame (full-fledged)
I anticipate that I could accomplish this project in 8-9 months. At this point I have only made two maps using ArcGIS, both practice projects using data already in the appropriate format. I would need some time to learn how to convert tables into vector files, and some practice building maps from my own data. I would also need to familiarize myself with at least one open source GIS option, probably Quantum GIS. Because of my current obligations I don’t think that I could realistically give skill acquisition enough attention to become an effective teacher until the spring semester is over.

Scope (small-scale)
A smaller scale version of this idea would involve a single workshop on mapping, running 2-2 ½ hours. We would cover the kind of research that best lends itself to mapping projects, and talk about how to gather data. Then we would put together a map from sample data provided by me using Google Maps and Google Fusion Tables. We would wrap up by discussing more complex mapping tools and where to get help learning them.

Time Frame (small-scale)
I believe that I could put a workshop like this together in 5-6 months. I have not yet used Google Fusion Tables to create a map but I have been through the tutorial on the University of Virginia Library’s page and my experience with other Google products suggests that it wouldn’t be a struggle to achieve sufficient skill to teach. The more time I had to work, of course, the more mastery I could gain. In this case I would like to have completed 4-5 maps as examples, one of which we could use as the workshop example.

Proposal #2: Improving the CUNY Graduate Center Theatre Project

Introductory Paragraph
The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, in association with the Theatre Department at the Graduate Center, maintains a database of around 10,000 image of theatre for educational use. The database is a great resource for theatre students but even within the department not everyone knows about it, and few actively use it. The site was recently changed over to Omeka, making it a lot more functional, which provides a good opportunity to revisit what it can do and be for GC theatre students. My proposal is to survey use of the database, and also investigate what the Segal Center and the professor overseeing the collection would optimally like to see from it. This would lead to one or more strategies to increase student use and/or improve usability that I could then implement.

Personas (users of the database)
1. Stephanie is level one theatre student at the Graduate Center. She is looking for images of actress Sarah Bernhardt as part of her research for a seminar paper. She plans to attach these images to her paper when she turns it in.
2. Joe is a level two theatre student at the Graduate Center. He is noodling around in the image collection looking for inspiration as he tries to come up with a topic to go with an interesting call for papers for a conference in his area of specialty.
3. Allison is an alumna of the theatre program at the Graduate Center. She is looking for images of Japanese Noh masks to add to a PowerPoint for the Introduction to Theatre class she is teaching.
4. Dr. C is a professor of Theatre at the Graduate Center. He is pulling images for PowerPoint presentations for a class that he teaches on scenic design. He is searching for specific images from a variety of places and periods and they need to be high enough resolution to maintain good detail when projected in class.

Use Case Scenario
Use of the image collection is restricted to current PhD students in theatre and alumni, as well as faculty. Students, alumni, and faculty use the database to find images for research and teaching purposes.

4. Scope (full-fledged)
A fully realized version of this project would have two parts. First would be the usability study. With the permission of the relevant people at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center and the professor overseeing the image collection, I would send a questionnaire to current theatre students, alumni (last 8 years), and theatre faculty asking if and how they use it, how they would like to use it, and what improvements they would make to the site. After gathering the data I would choose, in consultation with the Segal Center, one large or two smaller changes to the site to improve usability and execute them.

5. Time Frame (full-fledged)
The major task for this project would be to learn Omeka. I have no experience with it, but from what I’ve read it is fairly intuitive. I have solid HTML and am improving my CSS, so I would guess that in 3-4 months I could learn Omeka pretty thoroughly and in 5-6 months I could get a handle on basic customization. I would also want to research usability studies. I know what kind of information that I am looking for but I don’t have formal experience designing surveys so I would want to make sure that I am asking the right questions in the best possible format. This, plus actually doing the survey, could be done at the same time as learning Omeka. If I chose improvements that would take 2-3 months to execute I anticipate that I could complete this in 9-10 months.

6. Scope (small scale)
The smaller scale version of the project would be very similar, but with more modest ambitions. I would start with a survey of current students, alumni (last 5 years), and theatre faculty. To do this simply, I could use Survey Monkey and email a link to the questionnaire. From the results, I would choose one straightforward change/improvement that I could make to the image collection to improve usability.

7. Time Frame (small scale)
The time frame for the smaller scale project can’t be shortened too much, because I still need to learn Omeka. With a simpler survey, and choosing a simpler project to execute I could likely finish the project in 7-8 months.

Christina’s Proposed Projects

Project Proposal #1: Implementation of a Summer Workshop Series for Students with Autism
Incoming freshmen college students with autism report significant stress and anxiety. However, most colleges don’t provide freshman programming specifically for this population of students. The proposed research will design, implement, and evaluate a summer training focused on classroom readiness, social skills, self-advocacy skills, and computer-mediated communication skills designed to support students with autism as they transition into college. This study will instruct future programming targeting students with autism as they meet the challenges of an increasingly complex online and offline college social environment.

Set of Personas
Unprepared Ulric: Ulric enrolled in college at CSI, but knows very little about the college experience. His high school and his strong-willed parents pushed him to take classes without providing him with the computer-skills that he’ll be required to use in his freshman year of college. Ulric was not diagnosed with autism, but displays many autistic-like characteristics.

Sheltered Sally: Sally is an incoming freshman with a lot of ambition to go to college. She’ll be the first in her family to attend a 4-year institution. Having gone through the NYC public school system as a student diagnosed with autism, Sally was given a personal aid and a strong support network from the school. Sally will be starting school in the fall of 2014 and although she’ll be connected with the Center for Student Accessibility at CSI, she is unsure how different college life will be from her experiences in high school.

Introverted Inna: Inna is an incoming 2014 freshman college student at CSI with a milder form of autism. She has numerous social difficulties in peer groups stemming from her lack of understanding about social norms and her inability to pick up on nonverbal from others. Consequently, Inna doesn’t have many friends and has always wanted to build a stronger support network. Inna is hoping that college provides her with opportunities to make new friends that share her interests. She has always wanted to use online social networks, but has been too intimidated to try them out.

Use Case Scenario
Unprepared Ulric: Ulric reluctantly enrolled in the summer transition program at his parents’ request. Although he was hesitant to engage during the first week of the workshop, in the second week Ulric is starting to feel more confident about college having learned about some of the computer-mediated skills he’ll be asked to use. Ulric is starting to understand the Blackboard learning management system, and hopes that he’ll be able to help his peers if they have questions about the system.

Sheltered Sally: Sally’s older siblings warned her about the difficulties of college life, so Sally was eager to engage in the summer workshops. Sally is learning more about the student-professor relationship, and how this relationship differs from the student-teacher relationship in high school. The workshops have also provided Sally with the skills to use an online planner to keep track of her classes and assignments in the fall.

Introverted Inna: Inna was slow to open up to the group, but has realized that she has a “knack” for some of the computer skills in the workshops. Inna is quickly gaining confidence in her interactions with her peers, and is starting to make friends through the workshops that are both on and off of the spectrum. Inna is looking forward to connecting with her new friends through social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

Full-Fledged Version
Throughout the spring 2014 semester, the research team will be working on identifying focus areas and then developing a sequence of training modules for the summer programming. As a collaborative effort, the team will work with current students in Project REACH to build modules focusing on computer-mediated communication skills. The pre-existing training modules (classroom readiness, social skills, and self-advocacy skills) will all be modified based on the evaluation feedback received from the previous three semesters of the Project REACH model.

Timeline
Phase I: Recruitment: First year college students with autism will be recruited for this project from the CSI’s Center for Student Accessibility (CSA) and through informal workshops held at local high schools on Staten Island in the spring of 2014. During the recruitment phase, the research team will design and modify content areas identified from a current study the researcher is conducting at CSI.

Phase II: Workshop Design and Pre-Testing: The first round of focus groups will be held in early-July. Based on recordings from the focus groups the research team will design/modify content for each of the workshops. Workshop content areas previously identified by Project REACH and by the computer-skills study at CSI (email, Blackboard, social networking) will be used as the foundational skills that the research team will build from.

Phase III: Skills Workshops: Workshops will occur two times each week for 2-hour increments of time from mid-July through mid-August. During each of the workshops, students will be given time to demonstrate and practice their skills with their peers, their undergraduate mentors, and the workshop facilitator (the graduate student instructor).

Phase IV: Post-Testing: At the conclusion of the workshops in August, students will be asked to complete the same videotaped role-plays and standardized measures conducted before the workshops began.

Phase V: Program Evaluation: Students will engage in a final round of focus groups in late-August to discuss any barriers during the intervention, and to obtain students’ recommendations for future interventions. These focus groups will also serve as opportunities for the researchers to modify and/or develop training modules for recommendations of future programming efforts at the CSI and other colleges.

Current Skills
The researcher has a working skillset surrounding workshop instruction and has used the Project REACH training modules in a group environment. Depending on the specific areas of computer-mediated communication skills identified by the incoming cohort, the researcher may need to become more knowledgeable about the Blackboard website, specific social networking sites (Twitter, etc.), and/or other areas of potential interest for this cohort.

Stripped-Down Version
The stripped-down version of this project will include one workshop held in the summer of 2014, in which the workshop will focus on only one computer-mediated communication module – Blackboard or social networking. Up to 20 students will participate in this 2-hour workshop to learn more about the skills they’ll need to succeed in their first year of college.

Project Proposal #2: Creation of a “Teaching Hub” for Graduate Student Instructors in Psychology
Doctoral students enrolled in the CUNY campuses often teach one or more undergraduate classes in the CUNY system. However, preparing to teach a new class for the first time can be a daunting task and there are few “teaching of psychology” websites with open-access availability for teachers. The proposed project will use the GSTA website to host teaching activities for graduate student teachers.

Set of Personas
Rushed Rita: Rita is a second year graduate student that takes classes within and outside of the CUNY system, in addition to working a part-time job at a non-profit children’s organization. As part of her funding package, Rita is required to teach this upcoming fall semester. Since she’ll be teaching at Hunter (as is contracted by the Psych Department), she is unsure which class she’ll have until August. Rita knows she won’t have much time to prepare for the class and is worried about fitting it into her already busy schedule.

Clueless Connie: Connie is a graduate student transferred from a university in the Northwest. She is still becoming acquainted with the CUNY system and is trying to learn the locations of each campus. Her new advisor is pushing her to try teaching his semester, but she’s unsure how to teach, where to teach, and where to find resources for teaching.

Lazy Leonard: Leonard is an 8th year graduate student in the Psychology Department. He has put off teaching in graduate school, as he’s only interested in his research. However, due to his lack of employment and graduate student status, Leonard has been financially forced to pick up a teaching position at a community college outside of the CUNY system.

Use Case Scenario
Rushed Rita: Rita found out about the Teaching Hub from a classmate a few months before the fall semester began. She has begun to use the Hub to start putting together “course packs” for the 3 potential courses that she is likely (and qualified) to teach at Hunter. Rita feels more confident that she’ll be prepared for whatever class at Hunter gets thrown her way.

Clueless Connie: As the GSTA faculty advisor, Connie’s advisor told her about the Teaching Hub. Connie has been exploring through the teaching activities and based on the syllabi from the website, she is starting to narrow down the types of classes that she’d like to teach. Although she’s still learning about the many CUNY campuses, Connie has narrowed down a few campuses that are closer to her apartment in Queens.

Lazy Leonard: Leonard has waited until the week before the fall semester to begin preparing for the Introduction to Psychology class that he’ll be teaching at one of the community colleges. However, Leonard was given the link to the GSTA website by a friend, so he is now starting to put together materials for his course. Although Leonard has waited till the last minute, his students will have well-structured and empirically validated educational activities in their psychology class.

Full-Fledged Version
Beginning in the middle of the spring 2014 semester, the GSTA page will be updated by members of the organization. Consequently, the researcher will have access to the site during this time to begin making updates to the site. This project will be on-going project through the summer to prepare he site for a full launch in the fall of 2014. Once the site has been piloted with a subgroup of graduate student teachers, the full site will be revised to reflect feedback from the graduate students, and then the site will be launched again to the CUNY graduate student psychology community.

Timeline

Phase I: During this phase, the researcher will solicit materials from the graduate student community in the Psychology Department. Some of these materials will be collected from an online pedagogy and psychology text currently being written by students and faculty. The researcher anticipates that activities for the site will continue to come in throughout the summer.

Phase II: Most of the work done during this phase will include website development and modifications. The current state of the GSTA website is not fully functional (and not user-friendly), and as such, the researcher will be using her editing skills acquired through the IT Core II course to make revisions to the site. The following revisions are suggested:

1. Create a modern user interface with drop down menus and tabs, making the GSTA website more functional. The researcher anticipates that the following tabs will need to be added: (a) Syllabi, (b) Teaching Activities, (c) Teaching Tips/Tools – Blog Link, and (d) a list of current graduate student teachers in the psychology department.

2. Make corrections to any uploaded syllabi to maintain the confidentiality of the graduate students submitting the documents. Upload teaching syllabi and other materials to the GSTA website.

Phase III: In this phase, the researcher will pilot the website in July-August of 2014 with fellow graduate student teachers, many of which will likely come from the GSTA. This period of the summer also tends to be the time when student teachers receive their teaching assignments and are most likely to be seeking teaching resources online. After the pilot run, the researcher will request feedback from each student via email. Final revisions will be made to the site by the end of August based on the instructor feedback.

Phase IV: Beginning in the fall of 2014, the GSTA Teaching Resource Hub will be launched to the psychology graduate student instructor community. An email will be sent out through the psychology listserv that describes the website. To maintain website sustainability, including upkeep and consistent revisions, the maintenance of the site will be turned-over to a newly-formed GSTA Teaching Hub Committee.

Current Skills
I’ve heard from other students in the GSTA that the website support software is not easy to use, and has a steep learning curve. My limited background in modifying webpages will require me to learn more about the Wild Apricot site design. I plan to rely on my fellow GSTA members currently using the site, online tutorials, and probably external reading materials related to website building. As I’m beginning to understand the nuances of WordPress, I’m hoping that some of these skills will carry over to Wild Apricot as well.

Stripped-Down Version
The basic version of this project would include an online resource for a few psychology course activities with tutorials on how to use the activities in classrooms. I would exclude the syllabi as well as any other supplemental teaching material. The piloting phase will also be removed from this project, as activities are solicited, uploaded to the site, and then the psychology graduate student instructors at the Graduate Center will be given access to the site and it’s materials.