This presentation is used with students for evaluating sources. It covers the differences between popular, scholarly, and news articles. The information cycle is used to inform students about how and why topics are covered in different publications. The presentation ends with an activity where students read a snippet from a publication and are asked to guess the source.

This assignment was developed for students in ECF 090- Engineering and Computer Science who attend a 1-hour library session. This session will give students the chance to develop integrative learning skills by connecting their prospective field with academic research.
LaGuardia‰Ûªs Core Competencies and Communication Abilities
Main Course Learning Objectives: Students will be introduced to the concept of library academic resources Students will learn the strengths and weaknesses of different forms of information

I developed the assignment drawing on both BeyoncŽ's 2016 Super Bowl halftime show and her music video "Formation" to initiate a discussion about how the Liberal Arts may inform our readings of popular culture images and performances. Through an analysis of content and form of Beyonces musical performance and the video, students are invited to reflect on the ways in which a Liberal Arts education can contribute to a deeper understanding of the social issues addressed in the work. In our guided discussion, students frequently offer observations on historical and cultural contexts as well as power relations based on race and gender. We then explore the role of a liberal arts education (theatre and performance studies, history, political science, sociology, anthropology, music, etc.) in connecting and deciphering the various discourses that intersect in cultural events. To further familiarize students with the various disciplines that make up the Liberal Arts, we then explore the curriculum of the Liberal Arts: Social Science and Humanities major in the college catalogue. In an in-class activity, students are tasked with finding at least two courses that connect with the issues addressed in BeyoncŽ's "Formation" and explaining the ways in which these courses may inform our understanding of the song. As a third step, students include their findings in a formal reflection on the role of the Liberal Arts and their place in it. While the in-class activities are ungraded (but count for students' participation grade), the reflection is 10% of the final grade.

This assignment is for a Fantasy Autobiography essay in the Liberal Arts: Social Sciences and Humanities FYS. It includes a research element as well as reflection. It is a high-stakes assignment worth 15% of the course grade and involves secondary research with an option to include primary research and auto-ethnography.
There are three low-stakes writing tasks, a co-curricular activity write-up, and a presentation that lead up to this final essay. Students collect data at each of these stages and compile a draft that is a narrative of their past experiences as a student in high school, and that weaves in their LaGuardia experiences (in-class and co-curricular) and then visualizes a story of future professional success.
Students revise the Autobiography draft over Week 9-10 using instructor feedback (on both content and mechanics) and present a condensed version of their essay to the class using a Powerpoint slideshow.
Relevant Course Objectives:
The following instructional objectives are the goals of the course (what the instructor expects to achieve):
1. Familiarize students with the types of research and methods utilized in the liberal arts.
2. Provide students with fundamental writing, reading and speaking opportunities necessary to develop essential skills for college success.
3. Familiarize students with key academic support resources related to student life and engage them in using these resources to advance academic success.
4. Connect students with their advising team, which will guide them in setting goals, exploring educational and career options, and developing an individualized educational plan.
5. Design opportunities for students to situate and contextualize their learning by making connections across disciplines, to prior learning, and to non-academic learning experiences, including co-curricular learning.

This assignment was created for LIF101 (New Student Seminar for Liberal Arts), which is a baseline course taken by students (typically in their first semester) in Liberal Arts: Social Science and Humanities (including the options) and Fine Arts. Students in this course have wide-ranging abilities, given that they may be in ESL or have transferred in advanced writing courses. As such, the final assignment needs to serve the goals of the course while not penalizing students for having lower abilities in writing and research. Similarly, the integrative learning rubric has several very different dimensions, and connecting them all in one assignment is not easy. This assignment is my first attempt at providing more structure (to support my ESL students), connecting work done throughout the semester (so not overburdening those with less college experience), and explicitly addressing each of the dimensions of the integrative learning rubric.
LaGuardia's Core Competencies and Communication Abilities
The topic addresses the goals of the course to introduce students to the liberal arts, help students transition to campus culture, develop a better understanding of the learning process, and acquire essential academic skills. They explore campus opportunities and resources, research career options, and investigate possible transfer schools during the semester, and then tie these elements together in the assignment presented here.
Students complete elements of this paper throughout the semester as individual reflection papers and/or ePortfolio pages, and then bring their research together in this final paper. It is submitted both as an essay and as an ePortfolio page, and it is the ePortfolio page which is deposited for assessment purposes. The final paper is worth 20% of their final grade, with an additional 5% available for the draft (which is peer reviewed by LIB200 students).
In developing this assignment, I participated in a mini-grant (run by Ian Alberts, Reem Jaafar, and Habiba Boumlik) connecting LIB200 to FYS, and had capstone students peer review their drafts. I also workshopped this in the assignment workshops run by Chris Schmidt and Karen Miller. These allowed me to ensure I was also touching on the digital ability through integrating two or more forms of media (image and text on the ePortfolio platform) while also assessing if the student artifacts generated by this prompt did, in fact, meet the dimensions of the rubric.

The goal of this initiative is to improve students' learning of the subject while developing their Inquiry and Problem-Solving competencies as well as their numeracy, written, digital and oral communication abilities. A flipped-class approach will be taken to present different topics ahead of the practical laboratory experiences. Topics will be presented with PowerPoints and/or videos posted on Blackboard. Students will be given a low stakes quiz at the beginning of each laboratory session to assess their knowledge and understanding of the posted material. A research project, introduced at the beginning of the semester, will be used as the backbone to integrate inquiry and problem-solving competencies to the laboratories. Each laboratory will explore a question/aspect outlined in the research project; students will be expected to work in pre-assigned groups and present individual written outputs, data, and analysis at the end of each laboratory session. Students will be expected to compile their results obtained during the semester, and make a digital/oral presentation at the end of the term. Students will collect background information and complete four written assignments; students will receive feedback on these assignments to allow for improvements and successful completion of the final presentations. Each individual student will also be required to write three laboratory reports. Collaborative work with group members will be essential for successful learning using an Inquiry and problem solving approach, although written reports will be marked individually, per the guidelines given in the assignments. The syllabus for the lecture component of these sections is identical to the syllabus of the standard versions of this course; the grading procedures for the laboratory component of the course are modified as described in the grading policy below.
LaGuardia's Core Competencies and Communication Abilities
Main Course Learning Objectives:
This course is an integrated two-semester laboratory-based sequence, stressing major concepts of biology designed to assist the student in relating these concepts to the environment. The scientific method of thinking and the experimental approach will be stressed. Among the topics studied are: SCB201 Cellular and molecular basis of life, heredity, and the evolution of life.

Students visit the library or library website to search for scholarly sources, identify an empirical study, summarize and critique the study and cite using APA style.

This assignment was developed with the global learning core competency rubric and its dimensions in mind. The objective is for students to understand and articulate the intention of a play and the significance of choices the playwright makes. Students are also expected to articulate how the play fits into a social/political context on a global level and articulate how the student can relate or not relate to the point of view and why. This process provides the student an opportunity to open their minds to plays beyond entertainment purposes and have a deeper understanding of a writer‰Ûªs intention.
LaGuardia‰Ûªs Core Competencies and Communication Abilities
Main Course Learning Objectives:
To understand and articulate the intention of a play and the significance of choices the playwright makes. Additionally, to understand and articulate how the play fits into a social/political context on a global level and articulate how the student can relate or not relate to the point of view and why. This process provides the student an opportunity to open their minds to plays beyond entertainment purposes and have a deeper understanding of a writer‰Ûªs intention.

This assignment falls within Fine Arts‰Ûª Intermediate Studio Elective and is a final deposit for Global Learning Core Competency and Oral Communication Ability. The students are primarily advanced majors. Students will work on this assignment over the course of several weeks as it is scaffolded throughout the semester. It is worth 10% of the final grade. This assignment was modified during the course of the Global Learning Assignment workshop, and was built during Fine Arts‰Ûª Learning Matters! Mini Grant. During this grant process, Fine Arts revamped global assignments to better meet the rubric. We worked together in our grant team to revise the assignment, then worked with Drs. Christopher Schmidt and Karen Miller for feedback. We then performed a mini norming session and benchmark reading on the assignment, and further adjustments were made.
LaGuardia‰Ûªs Core Competencies and Communication Abilities
Main Course Learning Objectives:
This assignment meets two course objectives: To create an oral presentation on a work of global graphic narrative. Interpret a work of sequential narrative using visual analysis.
The assignment also meets several Program Learning Outcomes.
Communicate effectively through: oral critiques and presentations written assignments demonstrating an understanding of art and artists in a global historical and contemporary context creation of a portfolio demonstrating proficiency in digital documentation and presentation of work
A required component of this assignment is writing a script for a video or audio presentation that would communicated the students‰Ûª understanding of selected text‰Ûªs global elements as the author has presented them. The required recording will be about 5-7 minutes long.
Students that complete this assignment will be expected to: --demonstrate an understanding of global issues and events by identifying their interdependent implications on the natural, social, cultural, economic, and political world. --communicate an awareness of how diverse cultural perspectives are shaped within global contexts. Ability to communicate across difference. --show an ethical engagement and global self-awareness by recognizing the ethical dimensions of global issues (e.g., environment, education, housing, healthcare, etc.), articulating global self-awareness, and analyzing human action on global issues and events.>

This is a youth to youth guide to the GED. Written for and by youth it is a learner-centered tool for understand choices and options around the GED.

This lesson plan, and accompanying slides, is for the library instruction session for HSF90, LaGuardia Community College's health sciences first year seminar course. The lesson details the importance of college-level research for students who will enter various health sciences professions. The lesson also covers the importance of citation in academic research, covering what to cite and how to do it using library subscription databases.

This assignment was designed to be used in global history survey courses, which are primarily taken by students with little prior experience in college-level history, and who will not go on to major in History. It has not yet been used, but it is best suited for use in in SSH 106 (World History from 1500) and/or SSH 110 (East Asian Civilizations) courses currently not designated with any one of LaGuardia's core competencies and communication abilities. These are both writing intensive courses, wherein LaGuardia's Written Communication Ability can be reinforced. They employ a number of primary and secondary sources to help students engage critically with the discipline of history while also developing important skills in analytical thinking and communication. The assignment outlined below is a reflective, end-of-term writing assignment that is meant to both draw out and synthesize themes about refugees and war from Viet Thanh Nguyen's edited volume, The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives. It also aims to get students to both consider the transferrable skills they can take away from the course, and to better understand the meaning and importance of ‰ÛÏhistorical empathy. The assignment directly addresses the skills that the Global Learning Core Competency aims to hone, namely critical analyses and engagement with complex global systems and legacies. This assignment is the culmination and reflection upon of several weeks of reading assignments, but the assignment itself takes only one week to complete (the 1-2 page reflection paper). The assignment is worth 10%-15% of the overall grade, similar to a midterm or exam. The readings for this assignment came directly from the Spring 2019 NEH funded Meanings of War seminar syllabus. The assignment was developed for the seminar, and was workshopped and improved upon by my colleagues' feedback.
LaGuardia's Core Competencies and Communication Abilities

Students will learn and understand the importance of reflexes in human body, understand how the nerve impulse travels through the nerves and how to test a reflex.

Students will be able to understand and do the following: describe the mechanism by which osmosis and different types of diffusion occur and compare and contrast the effects of hypertonic, isotonic and hypotonic conditions on cells.

This assignment, aligned to LaGuardia Community College's Global Learning Core Competency and Digital Communication Ability, was designed for the laboratory part of Human Anatomy and Physiology I (SCB203) course. The assignment, "Human Diseases Related to Different Body Systems" aims to promote students learning and preparation towards their future major in STEM and in the Allied Health Programs. SCB203, taught by faculty in the Natural Sciences department, is a program-core course for Liberal Arts-Mathematics and Science majors and a key Pre-Clinical course (prerequisite) for future enrollment of students into several Allied Health majors such as Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Radiologic Technology, Dietetics, Veterinary Technology, Therapeutic Recreation and EMT/Paramedic Program. It is crucial then that these programs goals and the Human Anatomy and Physiology courses (such as SCB203) align well with and promote the scale up of assignments in the curriculum. The dimensions of the Global Learning Core Competency and Digital Communication Ability rubrics reflected in Human Diseases and Healthcare also run across many courses in the Health Sciences programs; for instance, in the SCO101 course in the Occupational Therapy program and in HTR101 Therapeutic Recreation to help build student learning and professional identities. This assignment in SCB203 can offer the first experience to students to practice on these needed skills and will contribute to students future academic performance in the Health Sciences-related programs.
LaGuardia's Core Competencies and Communication Abilities The assignment was initially developed as part of the Provost Learning Space project on Evidence of Student learning in SCB203 in 2016-17 and has been implemented in all the SCB203 laboratory sections taught by Dr. Gupta since Spring 2017. It entails research by student groups on the etiology, symptoms, treatment/preventive options and global distribution of human diseases related to different body systems, as well as the socio-economic, environmental or genetic factors leading to such distributions. PowerPoint presentations in class (using different digital modalities such as text, images, tables, graphs, citations or hyperlinks), collaborative communication on each other's work via ePortfolio, and submission of simple concept sheets provide an opportunity for students to earn extra credit while revising major concepts pertinent to the final exam. This low-stakes exercise is worth 1% of the total course grade and students have 2 weeks to complete it.

The Foundations of Chemistry SCC 110 course is required for LaGuardia's Health Sciences students interested in the Nursing, Dietetic Technician and Veterinary Technician programs. This course has been designated for the Inquiry and Problem Solving competency as well the Digital Communication ability. SCC 110 students will use SCC 110 lecture material and information in the SCC 110 lab manual to perform an electrophilic addition. Students will be able to correlate the organic theory concepts with the experiment by making physical observations (e.g., color changes) when carrying out the lab procedures. The student findings will be synthesized and expressed by making an in-class video and drawing the reaction using chemistry software.
Students, who successfully complete the hydrocarbon reaction lab and produce a corresponding satisfactory digital media report, will ideally have engaged in the assignment for at least three hours in lab followed by an additional 2-3 hours completing the digital components of the lab. The assignment is worth 2.5% of the final grade and is at the midpoint in the core competency for health sciences. This lab assignment was developed in the CTL seminar- Pedagogy of the Digital Ability where assignments were devised in the seminar followed by revisions of the assignment in a charrette format.
LaGuardia's Core Competencies and Communication Abilities
The assignment will enable students to use digital media to explain complex chemistry concepts while improving digital literacy. In more detail, this is shown where SCC 110 students are asked to submit/upload a video of themselves performing an organic chemical reaction and providing audio commentary on the experimental observations with an explanation of the underlying chemistry principles. The second part of the assignment will entail students using chemistry software to draw out the chemical reaction from the lab and uploading the two digital media products in their ePortfolio. The crafted digital report addresses all four dimensions of the digital communication rubric with an emphasis on multimodal communication. It describes both on a macroscopic and microscopic level the step by step organic reaction of an alkene plus bromine to create a haloalkane. Students will be able to use appropriate scientific language to explain the reaction mechanism to the undergraduate scientific student community. The design of the experiment incorporates one of SCC 110's course objective, which is to introduce students to concepts about chemical bonding.

General Chemistry is a two-semester course (General Chemistry I, SCC 201 and General Chemistry II, SCC 202) required for majors in Biology and Environmental Sciences.
This lab experiment, aligned to LaGuardia Community College‰Ûªs Inquiry and Problem Solving Core Competency and Written Communication Ability was designed for General Chemistry I (SCC 201 Honors) course. Honors courses in LaGuardia emphasize critical thinking, analytical writing, and introduce students to research. This lab experiment provides an opportunity for students to engage in hands-on laboratory work, to develop laboratory skills, and to conduct research in the classroom by using two water soluble porphyrins to detect transition metal ions in a solution and on a paper support. Overall, this experiment was designed to meet the demand for undergraduate research experiences and to engage all the students in addressing a research question or problem that is of interest to the scientific community.
In order to demonstrate their learning, students write a formal lab report which includes an understanding of experiment procedures (methods and techniques), safety hazards, instrumentation, understanding of concepts and theories gained by performing the experiment, collecting data through observation and/or experimentation, interpretation of the data (Ultraviolet-visible spectra), analysis of the data in tables and graphs, and drawing conclusions and perspective from the experiment. The knowledge students gain during this lab experiment will be useful to connect with future chemistry courses and can also be utilized to do research. The lab write-up is deposited for the assessment of the Written Communication Ability to which SCC 201 is aligned.
This experiment also raises awareness about a global concern. Students detect transition metal ions in aqueous solutions by use of porphyrins. Due to rapid growth in technology and industrialization, transition metals are used in large amounts in a variety of electronic products. The improper preservation of the industrial wastes leads to accumulation of these metals into water resources, which can create danger to human health and the environment. Therefore, there is a need to carefully monitor and frequently detect transition metal ions content in the environment.
This lab experiment was implemented in an Honors section of General Chemistry SCC 201 and was worth about 3.5% of the final grade. The students are likely to spend 3 hours completing the experiment in the lab and another 3-4 hours completing the lab write-up.
The Program Goals that this assignment targets:
1. To provide training to the students in various lab techniques and how to utilize these techniques to conduct research.
The Student Learning Objective (s) that this assignment targets:
1. Students will have an enhanced conceptual understanding of the theory to practice relationship and will achieve higher level reasoning skills.
2. Students will be able to develop their practical competence in laboratory work.
3. Students will be able to collect data through observation and/or experimentation, preparation of solutions of known concentration, characterize the compounds by UV-vis spectra, and draw conclusions and perspective of the experiment.
4. Communicate their results through the formal lab report format of: Introduction, Chemicals, Procedure, Data, Discussion and References.
LaGuardia‰Ûªs Core Competencies and Communication Abilities
The Course Objective (s) that this assignment targets:
1. Based on the principles of environmental chemistry, students will be able to detect the transition metal ions using a porphyrin as a sensor and explore the complex connections between chemistry and real world issues.
2. Observe, collect, analyze and interpret experimental data and graph the UV visible spectra using Microsoft Excel.

ENG 102, as a baseline course aligned with the Integration and Problem Solving competency and written ability, has two broad learning objectives: that students will read and analyze literary texts and that they will write academic essays.
The students in ENG 102 are usually non-majors in the first or second year of their college work and are taking the class to meet the second semester of composition that is required of most majors. Consequently, many of them enter the class with limited experience in reading and analyzing literary texts, and so the assignment is difficult for many students.
This assignment requires analysis of a literary text and conveying the results of that analysis in an essay meeting academic standards in English. The assignment requires students to do individually the kind of close reading and analysis of a text that we have done together in class as preparation. This assignment prepares them for producing the research paper that is the most substantial assignment of the course. By working on their own to identify a question about their text and attempt to reach an answer to it by gathering evidence from the text itself, students are prepared then to seek out published work on that text and its author that will supplement the work they have already done.
In earlier versions of this assignment, most students were unable to meet all performance objectives of this assignment. Students were able to identify a worthwhile question regarding their selected literary text (often with help from me), and they did show in their essays some attention to details of the text, but often they were confused about what their essays should include and what it ultimately should accomplish. I have attempted to use one essay assignment to address three dimensions (framing the question, gathering some evidence, preliminary analysis of that evidence to support a hypothesis), resulting in an assignment that was too complex for most ENG 102 students to comprehend and master. To address this problem, I have developed the two worksheets included here. The first, the Close Reading Worksheet, prompts students to notice and list elements of their selected literary text that are important for developing an interpretation of the text, and it also asks students to identify questions the text leaves unanswered without some analysis. Then the two-page Essay 2 Worksheet prompts students to identify the question that will be their essay's focus, and to gather and select the textual evidence that help them develop a potential answer. Through this means students produce what will become the content of the essay before they take on the challenge of turning that content into a coherent, organized essay.
The entire assignment takes about two weeks to complete and is worth 15% of the final grade.
LaGuardia's Core Competencies and Communication Abilities
Main Course Learning Objectives: Read and analyze literary texts Write academic essays.

This common assignment was designed for students in an LMF 101 (First-Year Seminar for Liberal Arts: Math & Science) class and those in a capstone LIB 200 (Science, Technology, and Humanism) class. The assignment is aligned to the Integrative Learning Core Competency and the Written Communication Ability. In this assignment, the students in both classes critically read the play, Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, and the LMF 101 class is also shown the film based on the play. The play is based on the connection of two of the major themes of these classes: humanism and science. The students are then required to write a comprehensive essay, which addresses a declared thesis statement based on the conflicts and intersections of the overarching themes, inherent within the play. In preparation for the formal essay assignment, there are in-class discussions and activities that are focused on critically thinking and analyzing several key quotations from the play: significant to character and plot development, as well as the connections between humanism and science. Subsequently, the LIB 200 students peer review the essays of the LMF 101 students, who in turn, respond to these peer reviews. The peer-review process comprises two combined class meetings and discussions focused on the LIB 200 student reviews and the LMF 101 student responses.
LMF 101 is a dynamic, interactive course with a variety of objectives that have been designed to address key issues connected to college life, the utilization of on-campus resources, the learning process for students and the pathway to their major. The introductory nature of this course serves as an orientation to the academic disciplines in the program, and provides exposure to the content that students will learn to develop and organize as they progress, as well as the connections they will make between academic content and their own experience. The overwhelming majority of students enrolled in this course are concurrently enrolled in remedial writing or introductory composition courses; the concept/process of peer-reviewing and peer-critiquing is introduced in students‰Ûª writing courses, and then applied to diverse context in this collaborative project with the Capstone students.
LIB 200 is a culminating capstone course in the college experience that explores, in depth, the relationship between humanism, science and technology. It is a writing intensive class, in which students apply knowledge, writing, and critical thinking strategies acquired in earlier courses to relevant contemporary and historical societal issues, as well as reflect on their responsibilities in a diverse society.
LaGuardia‰Ûªs Core Competencies and Communication Abilities
Framed by the dimensions of the Written Communication Ability rubric, this assignment helps students build the ability to critically examine and interpret a relevant text in order to enhance their critical thinking, synthesis, analysis, reflection and evaluation skills within the context of societal ethics and values. Overall, the assignment is worth 15% of the final grade in the LMF 101 and LIB 200 courses. The assignment was developed and implemented as part of a Learning Matters mini-grant project that aimed to enhance the Liberal Arts experience to students across the academic spectrum. The assignment was also discussed in detail in the mini-seminar sessions and revised based on the feedback obtained from such interactions with colleagues.

Course Content and Connection to LaGuardia Competencies
The three key assignments presented here, and their two supporting class activities, are designed to address the Inquiry and Problem-Solving Core Competency and the Written Communication Ability required for English 101.The research essay (Assignment #1) is an inquiry and problem-solving assignment. It asks students to seek and use disciplinary and cross-disciplinary content knowledge to address challenging issues, weighing evidence and drawing conclusions through a process of synthesis and evaluation. Students analyzed their own experiences as immigrants, or used a primary source of their choosing, and they connected that example to the experiences of others facing migration, displacement and related emotional experiences.
Assignment #1 is also a written communication ability assignment as students are asked to construct knowledge by selecting, linking and evaluating research materials related to a specific aspect of the immigration experience. Each student chose a specific stage of the journey to focus on. They examined obstacles faced, trauma experienced, and adjustments made, and they compared and synthesized personal examples with research. Depending on the topic, the structure of the essay follows an argumentation pattern or a problem-solution pattern. And in the conclusion to the essay, students are invited to impart a message to their audience related to ethical questions the topic raises about the treatment of those arriving at our borders.
The photography essay, (Assignment #2), in a more subtle way, is an inquiry and problem-solving assignment because it asks students to close read the photograph, research its context, connect that context to the migration theme, and to consider ways a photograph communicates differently from a written text.
Similarly, the final reflective essay (Assignment #3) asks students to review our class readings and screenings and to assemble and synthesize evidence from diverse sources of knowledge relevant to our theme by explaining how their selected texts enlarged their understanding.