This assignment was developed for students in HSF 090- Health Sciences who attend a 1-hour library session. The focus of this session and assignment is research as inquiry." Research is iterative and depends upon asking increasingly complex or new questions whose answers in turn develop additional questions or lines of inquiry in any field. Students will practice this iterative process by experimenting with the trial and error necessary in the research process as they repeat and refine their searches. They will be encouraged to explore the way cultural competence changes depending on their field or topic focus.
This session will give students the chance to develop integrative learning by connecting their prospective field with the professional literature. Choosing and reading an article from their field will also help them develop inquiry skills. LaGuardia's 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

The Cultural Diversity in Healthcare assignment is designed for the SCX 101 Patient care course. This assignment was first implemented in 2011 and has undergone significant revisions in the past few years from individual presentation to collaborative group presentation in 2013 and the connection to the Health Science First Year Seminar (HSF) assignment in 2018. The most recent revisions made were through the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) workshop on Global Learning in Fall 2018. Feedback from the CTL seminar led to the inclusion of the Learning Objectives of the assignment and prompts that direct students to relate their topic to possible clinical scenario. The feedback from the seminar participants was particularly useful in tweaking the assignment to meet all the dimensions of LaGuardia‰Ûªs Global Learning Core Competency rubric. Their feedback also helped in providing clearer instructions to the students.
The purpose of this two-part assignment is to learn from each other‰Ûªs culture and help educate the class about the different cultural practices that can influence how a healthcare worker should communicate with the patient. Through completion of this assignment, the students will be able help identify practices or beliefs that can be a possible barrier to good patient care and help decrease health disparities in Radiology.
This high stakes assignment accounts for 15% of the students‰Ûª final grade in the course. We scaffold the assignment through a lesson on cultural diversity, cultural competence and patient communication. Following the lesson, we facilitate class discussion on cultural competence and cultures. The lesson and class discussion will provide knowledge on the importance of cultural competence in providing utmost patient care. The assignment also fulfills the Global Learning Core Competency, mid-point deposit, and it reinforces the Written and Oral Communication Abilities.
LaGuardia‰Ûªs Core Competencies and Communication Abilities
COURSE LEARNING OBJECTIVES: Introduce students to the importance of the ARRT Code of Ethics, including the. Technologist‰Ûªs accountability and responsibility to the patients and to the field. Familiarize students with the moral, ethical and legal issues relevant to the healthcare field.
ASSIGNMENT LEARNING OBJECTIVES: The student should be able to define and explain Cultural Diversity. The student should be able to understand the different culturally significant attitudes, practices and beliefs and their impact on the delivery of patient care. The student should be able to explain how lack of cultural knowledge, awareness and sensitivity contributes to health disparities. The student should be able to understand their role and responsibility as a Future Radiologic Technologist in decreasing health disparities through cultural competence. The student should be able to identify and discuss practices or strategies that can promote the ethical principles of patient care.

This staged and high stakes Urban Studies assignment was developed in conjunction with two Center for Teaching and Learning Seminars at LaGuardia Community College: The Pedagogy of the Digital Ability and The Next Generation ePortfolio. All Urban Studies courses at LaGuardia are writing intensive, and all are designated for the college's Global Learning Core Competency and the Written Communication Ability. Urban Studies courses exist on different points of many programmatic curriculum maps for Liberal Arts majors, but students usually take it as a midpoint course. Dozens of different majors completed this assignment and take Urban Studies courses more generally, including Criminal Justice, Psychology, and Computer Science. This assignment comes from a course called ENN 195: Violence in American Art and Culture. This course surveys the depictions of various types of violence and the use of violence as a theme or metaphor in North American literature, art, and popular culture.

This high-stakes assignment was designed within the frame of Learning Matters Mini-grants Capstone-First Year Seminar Collaboration (Spring 2018). It was used in Caron Knauer‰Ûªs First Year Seminar class (LIF101) and in Habiba Boumlik‰Ûªs Capstone Liberal Arts‰ÛÓHumanism, Science, and Technology (LIB200). For this collaborative assignment, the primary Core Competency is Integrative Learning and the Communication Ability is Written.
The following dimensions of the relevant core competency and communication ability align well with this collaborative assignment: Ability to draw insight from connections across relevant learning experiences, including personal, co-curricular, and academic-- what connections are there between culture, traditions and how gender is shaped? Ability to apply learning across diverse contexts by applying knowledge and skills inside or outside the classroom--attitudes towards gender in the Amazigh culture and how they connect to the students‰Ûª own culture. Communication ability--orally and in writing reflect on the newly acquired knowledge about gender and indigenous Amazigh people. Reflection and Self-Assessment: students demonstrate a developing sense of self as a learner, building on prior experience to respond to a new context offered to them through readings and film festival showings and discussions.
LaGuardia‰Ûªs Core Competencies and Communication Abilities
The main objectives of the LIF assignment are: to involve students in co-curricular activities, an important component of the First Year Seminar. Students attend and report on the kickoff of a co-curricular college event, the New York Forum of Amazigh Film. to expose students to learning about a particular culture by first reading two articles about it and then being exposed to in-person, expert context and watching two films about which to write a film review. At the end of this first phase, First Year Students are connected and paired with LIB200 students close to graduating. to get feedback from the capstone class that enables LIF students to revise drafts and incorporate feedback.
The main objective of the LIB-LIF collaboration is: to give the LIB capstone students the opportunity to apply their knowledge and learning experiences outside their course by helping First Year Students improve their reflective and critical thinking skills along with their writing ability.
The LIF/LIB 200 collaborative aspect of the assignment unfolds following these steps: Provide information to LIF students about the liberal arts capstone class, LIB200, and ask LIF students to write questions to LIB students. Hand out letters from LIB 200 students to LIF students and have students write back. Let LIF students know that LIB students will be peer reviewing their research papers. Completing the peer review process.

This is an in class activity created for Organic Chemistry I at LaGuardia Community College.

The low-stakes assignment Habits of Mind for Academic Success was designed to support First Year Seminar for Liberal Arts: Social Science and Humanities students in developing habits of mind essential for success in college. Using Costa and Kallick‰Ûªs 16 Habits of Mind (HOMs) as reference, the assignment is staged and starts by prompting students to assess their current use of Habits of Mind and to identify what HOMs would be of value to them as college students. Upon completion of the individual assessment, students are introduced to examples of Habits of Mind in action through a video created for the Advanced Study of Learning course at Kennesaw State University. This next step also includes a collaborative exchange between students that culminates in a roleplay that requires the application of what has been learned. Finally, students write a reflective essay that describes their plans for using Habits of Mind in college. Students complete Steps 1 and 2 in class, which take approximately 90 minutes and can be done in the same class or during two consecutive class sessions. Students complete Step 3 outside of class. The assignment complements the overall course objectives by helping students who are new to college identify and develop strategies for academic success. It is worth 10 percent of the final grade.

SCT 101: Introduction to Physical Therapy
Assignment Description: This assignment was designed during Learning Matters 2018-2019 Digital Communication sub-seminar. The assignment was originally a written paper based on the clinical manifestations and pathogenesis of a diagnostic condition. As the profession of physical therapy is inherently a teaching profession, an oral and digital component was incorporated to facilitate the student's ability and confidence in oral communication and use of media. The presentation of a diagnostic condition and implication in the performance of activities for an individual can be variable depending on the individual's physical status, medical/health history, and psychosocial status. To enable a holistic understanding of a diagnostic condition, the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health Model (ICF Model) is integrated into the assignment. The ICF model is biopsychosocial interconnected dynamic relationship of the health condition, body structures/functions involved, participation in life activities and an individual's environmental and personal factors (contextual factors). This assignment is a Level I baseline assignment to assess the student's integrative learning competency and oral/digital communication abilities. In addition, this assignment is the initial assignment in the PTA program's scaffolded Capstone project. This is a graded assignment worth 35% and the average completion time is 2-3 weeks. The breakdown of the assignment grade includes completion of the ePortfolio component and an in class oral presentation of the diagnostic condition.
A Diagnostic Condition and Its Implications is an assignment for the Introduction to Physical Therapy course. It will assist the student in understanding how a diagnostic condition can be unique for an individual. The overall objective is for the student to develop a holistic and complete clinical picture of a diagnostic condition including, how it can affect the individual during and post rehabilitation and how it can impact an individual's execution of activities and participation in life events by using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health Model (ICF model). The student will use the ICF model as a framework for describing and organizing information on functioning and disability based on the diagnostic condition. Each student selects a diagnostic condition from an established list and develops a multimedia presentation based on the ICF model. Using the ICF model template provided, the student will integrate the assigned diagnostic condition to the body structure/function impairments, activity limitations/restrictions, participation level in life situations and the contextual factors (environment and personal). For the development of activity limitation/restriction, participation level and the contextual components of the ICF model the students are instructed to draw upon their personal situation, environmental factors (natural physical environment) and personal factors (support, relationships, attitudes). The connecting of the individual student factors will allow the student to view the diagnostic condition holistically. The grading criteria for this assignment is based on the Integrative Learning Core Competency, and the Digital and Oral Communications Abilities rubrics.
LaGuardia's Core Competencies and Communication Abilities

This document summarizes the process of leading a difficult dialogues workshop. Supplemental files are attached, which include a script and slides. We recommend following the script to ensure the workshop is organized and follows the methods outlined below. These materials have served as the basis for an ongoing series of workshops at LaGuardia Community College in a variety of contexts, from faculty and staff discussing gender identity to student interactions at the College. Most recently and frequently, the workshop has been held for Student Success Mentors to help them navigate their relationships with the students they supervise and the professors they work with and report to. The text in this document and the attached files can be found at the following website: https://guides.laguardia.edu/difficultdialogues.

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.

During this lab, students determine the salinity of collected water samples. They also compare the effect of the solute concentration of their samples with that of solutions of known solute concentrations on plant cells.

Digital Image Retouching: Evaluation Assignment was developed in the context of a 2017-18 CTL sponsored mini-grant where the course HUA 231 Digital Photography II, which was formerly an elective, was redesigned as a required course in the Photography program. As part of the mini grant work, the program's curriculum map was also adjusted to reflect the changes. The students in HUA 231 are usually in their second to last semester as this is an advanced digital class. They have taken the pre-requisite HUA 131 (Digital Photography I) in earlier semesters. The assignment will be implemented for the first time in Fall I 2018.
Digital retouching has become a staple of the commercial photography industry. This exercise shows the students the level of quality that will be expected of them after graduation, along with helping them to become market ready. Although I do this assignment with beauty images, it can be done with any type of photographs (landscape, architectural, street, etc.) as the emphasis is on the application of the newly acquired skills and workflow of the students. The evaluation of the newly acquired knowledge and the students progress is done by comparing the before and after images. The difference is clear and immediate and does not require any photography training to assess. Making the students work on real world commercial assignments allows them to be more engaged in the learning process as they see a clear learning outcome to those exercises. This assignment allows the students a more sophisticated and comprehensive understanding of the digital process as a whole. All the steps involved in the processing of an image coalesce into a more organic and logical knowledge structure. The students expanded understanding of the context and new arsenal of tools at their disposal, allow them to better assess the needs of an image and then implement the necessary steps. It is aligned with the Integrative Learning Core Competency and Digital Communication Ability rubrics, and will count for 20% of the student's final grade. The first part of the exercise allows for the faculty to establish a baseline of the students' digital knowledge and understanding of what a professionally finished image should look like. Assigning this early in the semester also allows the faculty to have a good sense of the class's general knowledge; it also provides the opportunity for early syllabi adjustments if necessary. The students are able to self-assess their progress and have a true representation of their newly acquired skills. This often helps them realize how much they have progressed and is very beneficial to their self-motivation.
LaGuardia's Core Competencies and Communication Abilities

A well-crafted and executed storytelling assignment can serve as an efficient and engaging learning activity which targets the three highest levels of Blooms‰Ûª taxonomy which are to Create, Evaluate and Analyze. This digital storytelling assignment is part of a signature assignment series (Stage 1) conducted in all courses of the First Year Seminar for Natural Sciences (NSF101). Students begin collecting pictures and videos for their assignment from the 3rd week of the semester on a flash drive. During the fourth week of the semester, the instructor first describes the storytelling process and stages. This is followed by learning around how storytelling can be used as a narrative, to foster inquiry learning, content-based information.
In studio hour, the First Year Seminar Student Success Mentors enable students to familiarize themselves with the digital tools necessary to create their digital stories such as iMovie, narrated PowerPoint, Prezi and Powtoon (to name a few). Next, students submit a draft of their scripts, which is edited by the professor, and then students submit their final digital story. The prompts for the script ask students to reflect on their journey thus far and project forward into their future career aspirations. It also asks them to connect their content learning between courses and co-curricular experiences. The prompts within the assignment directly articulate the Student Learning Objectives of the Biology and Environmental Science Program (please see Table 1) Students complete this assignment within ePortolio assignment templates. Link to the assignment template can be found here https://lagcc-cuny.digication.com/nsf101-digital-storytelling/home-1.
This assignment has been through multiple assignment development and revision charrettes as part of the Programmatic Integration Meeting in the Natural Sciences Department funded by the Learning Matters mini-grants from the Center for Teaching and Learning at LaGuardia Community College.
LaGuardia‰Ûªs Core Competencies and Communication Abilities

Disability, Mobility, & Society is a newly developed assignment for a required level II physical therapy course (SCT 221). It is aimed to familiarize students with the psychosocial and socioeconomic challenges faced by people with physical disability/dysfunction and their immediate community. Students work in teams to develop multimedia pre-recorded video presentations based on actual clinical case studies. Each team will identify and discuss issues related to the specific pathology and impairment, and consider the medical/social/behavioral/financial implications for the individual and the society. The team must present a course of physical therapy intervention that illustrates clinical competence and professional standard of care. Students are encouraged to draw connections to their personal experiences as related to relevant local and/or national healthcare issues. The grading criteria for this assignment is based on the current Global Learning and Oral Communication rubrics.
LaGuardia‰Ûªs Core Competencies and Communication Abilities
Main Course Learning Objectives:
Instructional: Reinforce effective and appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication with patient/client, the physical therapist, health care delivery personnel, and others. Reinforce individual and cultural differences in all aspects of physical therapy. To develop the student‰Ûªs global awareness and oral ability.
Performance: Demonstrate effective and appropriate verbal and non verbal communication with patient/client, the physical therapist, health care delivery personnel and others. Recognize individual and cultural differences in all aspects of physical therapy. Demonstrate Global Learning using an oral ability through a multimedia presentation based on cases assigned.

This Drug and Disease assignment has been prepared for the capstone course Veterinary Pharmacology and Toxicology (SCV 262). Students take the course in the last semester of the 2-year AAS degree in Veterinary Technology at LaGuardia Community College. Students completing this assignment are second year (junior), clinical phase students. In this course, students are introduced to concepts in pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, providing a basis for an applied, systems-based introduction to veterinary drugs. The course also introduces concepts in pharmacy management and toxicology. As a capstone course, this course assignment provides a basis for students to apply veterinary medical knowledge and practice communicating this application in both written and oral formats. The assignment typically takes students several weeks to complete and is worth 20% of the final grade.
The Drug and Disease assignment asks students to choose a veterinary drug (from an instructor-created list) and connect this drug with an associated veterinary disease that can be treated with it. Students are encouraged to use research, experience from prior veterinary technology coursework (Introduction to Veterinary Technology, Veterinary Pathophysiology, Veterinary Nursing, Veterinary Laboratory Techniques and Veterinary Pharmacology and Toxicology) along with clinical experience to support this investigation.
Students are first asked to demonstrate their ability to make logical (medically-sound), technician-level connections and conclusions about the drug and disease by writing a research paper. They then are asked to participate in a mock-client discharge/interview about the drug and disease that they have researched.
LaGuardia‰Ûªs Core Competencies and Communication Abilities

The assignment Education for NYC Bilinguals is a final, high-stakes written research paper in ELN101: Introduction to Bilingualism, a course contributing one deposit into the Global Learning Core Competency and Written Communication Ability. The assignment calls for the consideration and application of social, political, educational, and psycholinguistic concepts into the discussion of global and local multilingualism. By completing this assignment, students gain a deeper understanding of linguistic and cultural diversity in the US society and learn to position issues in bilingualism against a global backdrop. The assignment asks students to approach the challenges of education for multilingual New Yorkers from the multiple perspectives of students, parents, educators, and administrators facing a real-life issue that resonates around the globe. The assignment requires that students engage with issues of diversity, power, privilege, and ethical action. It assumes the students‰Ûª emerging understanding of global cities, of which New York City, a place in which they reside, is a prime example.
ELN101: Introduction to Bilingualism is a course housed in the Linguistics Program in the Department of Education and Language Acquisition. It is a writing-intensive, urban study, ePortfolio course offered in two modalities ‰ÛÒ face-to-face and hybrid. The course also fulfills LaGuardia‰Ûªs urban study graduation requirement. ELN 101 is depositing for Liberal Arts: Social Science & Humanities and four options in Liberal Arts at the midpoint for the Global Learning Core Competency and Written Communication Ability. Students in the course have typically taken the ENG 101-102 sequence and many liberal arts majors are concurrently enrolled in ENG 103: The Research Paper course. The ENG sequence of courses provides an introduction to the skill of writing with power and clarity ‰ÛÒ the ability to combine vocabulary with grammatical proficiency, fluency, and cogent organization. The ELN 101 course, also attracting diverse cohorts of students from outside the Liberal Arts majors, including Business, Computer Science, and Natural Science majors, continues this task of teaching writing in the liberal arts tradition, emphasizing, in turn, the writing conventions of social sciences.
The assignment Education for NYC Bilinguals takes several weeks to complete as it incorporates a data analysis research experience for community college students. Students are introduced to the quantitative description provided by the Department of Education (DOE)‰Ûªs Demographic Report and are asked to describe the information as well as infer the information captured by numbers to support their proposal addressed to the DOE. To complete the assignment, in addition to analyzing quantitative data, students review the bilingual education literature to advocate for bilingual learners in the NYC public school system. The assignment is worth 15% of the final grade. In its earlier and the revised versions, the assignment has been implemented in ELN 101 for a number of years. For the majority of students taking the course, this is the most challenging assignment in the course. It requires an analysis and synthesis of a number of elements, on top of deep integration of the many concepts to which the course introduces the students. Acknowledging the difficulty with completing the project, the students, nonetheless, admit that it gives them invaluable knowledge of the NYC public school system, which they, as taxpayers, support, and which they, as current and prospective parents, intend to utilize. Typically, students share their experiences of advising family members on educational opportunities they have learned about through completing this research project. Last but not least, this particular project awakens both social awareness and activism on the part of the students.
The assignment in its final version has benefitted from the feedback of LaGuardia colleagues coordinating and participating in the Learning Matters Mini-Grant 2018-2019.
LaGuardia‰Ûªs Core Competencies and Communication Abilities

Students use world population data to find the observed trend, the rate of population growth, build a model (linear equation) using the data, and predict the future world‰Ûªs population size based on the model that they develop.

This assignment is a co-curricular assignment designed as part of LaGuardia Humanitarian Initiative (LHI). LaGuardia Humanitarian Initiative is an inclusive platform for students, faculty, and staff foregrounding pedagogical inquiry, civic engagement and academic service learning by facilitating a year-long college-wide inquiry of a global issue as addressed by the United Nations. Through partnerships with local and global NGOs, students gain access to career opportunities and professional development workshops. Ultimately students are mentored on how to translate their classroom learning to advocate, educate, and support their communities. This experiential learning assignment required students from a First Year Seminar (FYS) course to engage with LHI’s 2021-22 global partner, Malala Fund and focus on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 4, Quality Education which aimed to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” Through this work, students develop skills associated with competencies aligned with LaGuardia’s General Education requirements: global learning, integrative learning, inquiry and problem-solving core competencies and utilize various communication abilities including written, oral, and digital. While the assignment strengthened student work in all the above competencies and communication abilities, it especially addressed global competency and digital communication ability.
Encouragement and discussion of co-curricular activities on campus and in our communities has long been a part of First Year Seminar practice. The First Year Seminar introduces students to important aspects of their college journey, including habits of success, the college’s core competencies and communication abilities and career paths. As part of these discussions, students are made aware of learning that can be done outside of the classroom, on campus and in their communities. This LHI assignment allowed us to provide an opportunity for students to experience the importance of co-curricular activities while practicing critical engagement, reflection, and application of course content in a real-life setting. Participation in this assignment required that students attend the LHI “virtual” workshops focused on the year’s theme of equitable education. By attending LHI’s workshops, students gained knowledge of how COVID-19, global politics, and climate change affected girls’ education. The workshops offered students opportunities to work collaboratively with peers from other disciplines and learn a range of skills including how to design flyers, engage in digital marketing, make digital presentations, and lead advocacy efforts.
After reflecting on their own educational journeys and reading about the journey of Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai, students were assigned to identify action steps needed to create accessible and inclusive approach to education. With the knowledge they gained they were tasked with developing a project (options included fundraising, digital marketing, and creating videos), to advocate for quality education. The inspiring workshops helped students with designing elements and communicate key points for their digital flyers and PowerPoint presentations as part of their digital assignment.
LaGuardia’s Core Competencies and Communication Abilities
Main Course Learning Objectives: Learn about the global problem of inequitable education and its ethical implications Consider differences in cultures and perspectives Work collaboratively to develop action steps for advocacy and civil engagement Become familiar with the global learning, inquire and problem-solving core competencies Engage in a process of inquiry and problem-solving of a global issue Consider the importance of communication and be familiar with a variety of communication abilities Design digital media to communicate their learning and advocate for educational equity
This assignment is worth 20% of the course grade.

This lab introduces students to the fatigue failure of steels, plastics and ceramics when they are stressed in a controlled manner until they fail. Materials are subjected to repeated stress called fatigue and fatigue properties of different materials vary with type, source, quality, type and duration of applied stress.

This Ethics and Moral Issues (HUP 104) assignment incorporates the main elements of the rubrics for both Inquiry and Problem Solving (IPS) Core Competency as well as the Oral Communication Ability. It deposits Capstone Oral/IPS. The emphasis on the organization of the student‰Ûªs speech, evaluation of research that represents diverse points of view on the problem chosen, and emphasis on building an argument from true premises to well-supported conclusions all speak to the IPS rubric. The emphasis on communicating clearly the stakes of the problem and the student‰Ûªs solutions, the credibility and diversity of the research sources, as well as the nuances of attention to audience, body language, and voice all speak to the Oral Communication Ability rubric. The students typically come from many Liberal Arts majors, with at least one or two from Philosophy. They are typically second-semester or second-year students who are more advanced than incoming Freshmen. This assignment is staged across the semester. We build up to this step about ten weeks into the semester and actively work on it for about two weeks prior to the presentations, which take a week of class to produce. This assignment is worth 10% of the final grade. It was revised during the 2017-2018 Learning Matters Mini-Grant process, where the Philosophy Team, with help from Professor Patricia Sokolski, assessed artifacts from a previous version of the assignment and determined that the students‰Ûª attention to audience, active listening, and incorporation of research were the weakest points. All of this has been revised at the rubric-level as well as in the classroom work leading up to the presentation.
LaGuardia‰Ûªs Core Competencies and Communication Abilities

This assignment was developed for students in CJF 101 Criminal Justice who attend a 1-hour library session. This session is aligned with the Integrative and Global Learning core competencies.
This session seeks to introduce students to critical evaluation as the important skill that involves questioning different elements of an information resource to determine its authority on the topic it addresses. Students will practice this process by engaging in a discussion about the reliability of a specific resource. They will be encouraged to contribute to an in depth evaluation of a resource as a group.
This session will give students the chance to develop integrative learning by guiding them through a complete evaluation of information media related to their prospective field. They will learn how to navigate information in a digital format, deconstruct an argument and recognize different types of authority.
Alternate URL to the supplemental slides: https://shortlib.org/s/cjflesson
LaGuardia's 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