KCC Academy for Excellence in Teaching & Learning

KCC Academy for Excellence in Teaching & Learning 

 

Faculty Development Seminars

Faculty Development Seminar in Career Connected Learning

Facilitators: Joanna Agnello (BEH) and James Pacello (ENG)

Fall 2026 Meeting Dates:          Fridays, October 9, October 30, November 20, December 11 | 10am – 12pm on Zoom

In keeping with CUNY’s increased commitment to integrating career connections into every aspect of an undergraduate's journey, this faculty development seminar will explore how educators can reimagine their courses through the lens of career-connected learning. Faculty will work collaboratively to explore how they can guide students in understanding how an academic discipline fits into their future learning and career paths. Through the seminar, faculty will:

    • Connect Skills to Students’ Futures: Assist students in identifying the career skills they are developing in your courses.
    • Make Career Possibilities Visible Through Assignments: Collaborate with colleagues to determine how to use assignments and classroom conversations to help students explore career pathways and connect course learning to their future educational and professional goals.
    • Emphasize students why skills matters: Through your syllabus, assessments, and instruction, explore ways to guide students in discovering the connections between course content, skill-building, and how skill application can help students achieve their goals.

The Fall 2026 faculty cohort will consist of 14 faculty members, one of each academic department to be nominated by the department chairperson. Participants will receive a $1000 stipend upon successful completion of the seminar. An open call will be disseminated for the Spring 2027 cohort, which will be assembled based on faculty applications. Please contact Ryan McKinney, Director of the KCC Academy for Excellence in Teaching & Learning, with questions.

Joanna Agnello, LMHC-D is a Lecturer in Psychology at Kingsborough Community College, CUNY, and a CUNY Beyond Faculty Fellow. Her teaching, faculty development, and scholarship focus on belonging, identity development, equity-minded pedagogy, and career-connected learning in the community college context.

Professor Agnello facilitates, designs and leads professional learning experiences focused on innovative, inclusive, and student-centered teaching practices. Her facilitation work explores how faculty can create classroom environments that foster connection, vulnerability, academic confidence, and meaningful engagement across difference. Professor Agnello is currently a co-facilitator for The Faculty Initiative for the Teaching of Reading.

Her Scholarship of Teaching and Learning examines identity, multimedia expression, interdisciplinary pedagogy, and the use of “silent conversations” to build belonging and empathy in diverse classrooms. Through her teaching, research, and faculty leadership, Professor Agnello is committed to advancing transformative educational practices that center student voice, strengthen faculty practice, and expand opportunities for student success.

As a CUNY Beyond Faculty Fellow, Professor Agnello contributes to institutional efforts to integrate career-connected learning, identity, and students’ academic and professional development across the college experience.

James Pacello is a Doctoral Lecturer in the Department of English, where he teaches Composition I and II and the department's new Introduction to Professional Writing course. He chairs the Writing Studies Committee, which is developing the English Department's forthcoming professional writing concentration, and he helps coordinate the department's ad hoc Committee on AI, exploring pedagogical and other implications of AI on college writing instruction. He has presented on this area at the Two-Year College English Association (TYCA) Northeast conference. James holds an Ed.D. In Literacy Education, and his approach to teaching is informed by an interest in writing studies, metacognition, and transfer. He is a 2026-2027 CUNY Beyond Faculty Fellow.  

EduCourse: Creating Accessible Content (Fall)

Creating Accessible Content (Dawn Levy, Business Dept.)

Creating Accessible Learning Materials will prepare you to make accessibility improvements in your course to support equitable student learning. You will learn how to use readily available built-in tools to assess the accessibility of your course and its content. The course will be delivered in Brightspace and consists of two modules. After each module, there will be a synchronous meeting to review content, discuss strategies, and answer any questions. You will be added to the EduCourse in Brightspace once you have completed the registration form. 

Apply by October 1st
Course Dates: October 15 – November 16
Registration Link:

EduCourse: Regular Substantive Interaction (Fall)

Regular Substantive Interaction (RSI) (Dorina Tila, Business Dept.)

Regular Substantive Interaction (RSI) will prepare you to assess how your existing course design choices promote or limit opportunities for RSI. You will also learn how to use Brightspace tools and features to support RSI.  The course will be delivered in Brightspace and consists of two modules. After each module, there will be a synchronous meeting to review content, discuss strategies, and answer any questions. You will be added to the EduCourse in Brightspace once you have completed the registration form.  Apply by October 1st

Course Dates: October 15 – November 16
Registration Link:

 

Spring 2026 Faculty Inquiry Groups (meeting days/times will be determined based on faculty availability)

Faculty Inquiry Groups are faculty-led learning communities where faculty from various disciplines meet throughout the semester to explore a common interest or emerging practice. Operating as faculty learning communities (FLC), communities of practice (COP), or faculty reading groups (FRG), faculty inquiry groups are low-commitment, high-impact communities that meet 5-6 times over a given semester. 

For the 2025-2026 academic year, KCTL has worked with faculty facilitators to create distinct FDG programming for each the fall and spring semesters:

Fall 2025 Faculty Inquiry Groups (meeting days/times will be determined based on faculty availability)

  • Game Based Learning
    Facilitator: Professor Grace Axler-DiPerte (BIO) | Gaxler-diperte@kbcc.cuny.edu
    A faculty learning community that provides faculty with resources and strategies to introduce playful, active learning and game-based activities into the classroom. 
  • Teaching the Liberal Arts
    Facilitator: Jacob Segal (HIS) | Jacob.Segal@kbcc.cuny.edu
    A community of practice that will foster a conversation on the importance of the liberal arts within higher education, teaching strategies for liberal arts disciplines, and provide community for interdisciplinary exchanges across the liberal arts. 
  • Writing for a Public Audience
    Facilitator: Jamie Aroosi (POL) | Jamie.Aroosi@kbcc.cuny.edu
    A community of practice and accountability designed to support faculty in developing their research for audiences beyond the academy and creating writing projects for audiences outside of their scholarly fields.

 More Information on Faculty Inquiry Groups

What are the different types of faculty inquiry groups?

  • Faculty Learning Community: a cross-disciplinary faculty group that engages in an active, collaborative program, with a basic curriculum about the enhancing of teaching, and supports faculty learning, development, the scholarship of teaching, and community building (Cox, 2016).
  • Communities of Practice: Initially envisioned by anthropologist Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, a community of practice is simply a group of people who come together to explore a shared domain and pursue a common goal. To do this, they engage in joint activities, discussions, readings, and research, and collaborate to develop a shared repertoire of resources and practices (Wenger-Traynor, 2011; Hoyert and O’Dell, 2019). While they are facilitated by a single member, communities of practice prioritize community-building and collaborating to collectively develop agendas, learning goals, outcomes, and deliverables.
  • Faculty Reading Groups: a group of faculty members that gathers to read and discuss (and perhaps put into practice) a selected text that explores teaching & learning in higher education, or a topic of interest within a shared academic discipline. Faculty Reading Groups are primarily centered in reading and discussion, and do not necessarily have an articulated goal or outcome beyond the study of the selected text. Faculty Reading Groups often lead to the development of faculty learning communities or communities of practice in future semesters.

An open call for new and returning faculty inquiry group sis disseminated at the end of each academic year. Proposals are accepted at the end of one academic year, reviewed by the KCTL Advisory Board, and then programmed for the upcoming academic year. If you are interested in facilitating a faculty development group in the future, please contact Ryan McKinney (ryan.mckinney@kbcc.cuny.edu), Director of the Kingsborough Center for Teaching & Learning, with any questions or to discuss further. Thank you.