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A relatively recent addition to the Kingsborough WAC Initiative is the employment of CUNY Online to enhance students' learning, while also permitting them to practice “writing-to-learn” in a more interactive way. Although Blackboard has been around for quite sometime, CUNY has now installed Faculty Development courses in the use of existing web-based resources. What has been most conducive to this type of course, both for faculty and later, students who are involved, is the collaboration and comparing of notes, as well as the discussions that begin as a result of those associations.

Before teaching their own mostly content-area courses that are either Writing Intensive or Linked through the CUNY Online Distributed Network, faculty members may choose to attend one or two intensive introductory sessions in Manhattan with their CUNY Central Online instructors, Karen Greenberg and George Otte. These orientation classes provide faculty with the opportunity to experience first-hand how Blackboard will be seen by students when the course becomes part of the curriculum. In other optional sessions, faculty members may also attend a class taught by William Bernhardt and Nora Eisenberg that addresses the utilization of the CUNY WriteSite in their course.

In addition to these face-to-face (f2f) sessions, faculty members must also work online to complete the framework of their course that is to be offered in the succeeding semester. This requirement covers faculty from all CUNY campuses and enables them to interact with one another and receive feedback (online) through Discussion Boards (both generally and by field) and the completion of various assignments. At the conclusion of this online course, faculty members are asked to review two other faculty sites, one from their own field of study and another from a different subject area.

To this end, these hybrid courses using Blackboard are meant to provide a highly interactive model that interests students so that they may take a more proactive approach to learning and writing. Preliminary evidence shows this to be the case. While the computer, more specifically, Blackboard, does not in itself teach the student, it acts as a tool that facilitates the learning process and promotes group activity. This allows for a more learning-centered environment, rather than an instructor-centered one. In addition, this type of learning situation is more convenient for faculty members and students alike because discussions and (some) assignments can be completed in the comfort of home. Both faculty members and students have more time to reflect upon and analyze issues that, due to time constraints, would not otherwise have evolved in the classroom. Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, many times, students are as comfortable and as familiar (if not more so) than their professors with the type of web-based resources employed.

The Faculty Seminar

At Kingsborough Community College, instructors are certified to teach writing-intensive (WI) courses, instead of the reverse—in which courses would be considered certified as writing-intensive. Once instructors are certified, they may offer any course as WI, provided that they include a meaningful and creative use of writing as a teaching tool for the particular class. In return, instructors are awarded an extra hour of release time, the course is capped at 25 students and there is the possibility of working with a writing fellow.

How does one get certified?

The first and most substantial part of the certification process is the Faculty Seminar. It is given up to two times a year—in the winter and in the early summer, and its goal is to create a community of faculty at Kingsborough who will discuss the theory and practice of teaching college students and using writing in the classroom. The Seminar lasts for six weeks, and is composed of approximately 10 two-hour sessions. Topics include: the uses of formal and informal writing, and how best to teach students to stage their own writing, as well as how to create drafts and revisions; the employment of various active learning strategies; how to convert a syllabus from being “topic/coverage driven” to one that is “assignment-driven;” discussions about the thinking behind the learning that goes on in the college years; options for the assigning of more writing without the hassle of becoming overwhelmed with extra grading; the most efficient ways of providing feedback on students' papers; and so forth.

Past seminar participants have enjoyed becoming a part of our community of reflective practitioners. If you are interested in learning more about KCC's Faculty Seminars, or our WI courses in general, please contact Kate Garretson at 718-368-5209 or by e-mail at KGarretson@kbcc.cuny.edu .