ACERT lunchtime seminars

Coordinators

Elizabeth Klein (Special Education)

How do we guide our students in thinking critically about the use of generative AI tools? In this session you’ll hear from two instructors who have not banned but integrated the use of ChatGPT and similar AI tools in their teaching. They will share how they structured this exploration in their courses: What are some of the activities they assign? Which previous assignments did they stop using and why? How have they altered their assessments? And how have they structured conversations with their students about responsible AI use?

Ada Gafter-O’Higgins

(English / Comparative Literature, GC)

Calling all new(ish) instructors and anyone willing to share advice with their peers about teaching at Hunter! In this session we’ll come together to share resources, tips and tricks, and things you figured out the hard way and wish you had known earlier! Join us to chime in with advice, ask questions about anything mystifying at Hunter, or just listen in. We’ll take note of all the resources and insights mentioned, and prepare a follow-up post collecting them all. Please help us get the conversation started, and, if you can, already share one tip in the sign-up form.

How have our students changed over the last five years? What are their specific learning needs and how might we begin to address them? Last Spring faculty and staff from across the College explored these questions in a teaching scholarship circle, led by Jillian Báez (AFPRL). Join this session to hear the initial takeaways and continue the conversation about our current student population.

Join us as we explore the benefits and opportunities inherent in mentoring! This session is open to those mentoring students, faculty, or staff. We will review communication styles, mentorship maps, mentoring agendas, and mentoring supports.

How are things going with Brightspace? Join our mid-semester check-in and bring your insights and tips! Tell us about the cool ways you are using Brightspace, the workarounds you have found, or tools that you have discovered.

Boundaries are important in a classroom, for teachers and students alike, and they take many forms. What are our boundaries around our time and energy? How do we align our policies (such as accepting late work) with these boundaries, and with our teaching philosophies and values? In this session we’ll hear different perspectives on this, creating a useful forum for figuring out our own boundaries and strategies for aligning our policies with them. This session may be especially helpful for people new to teaching. We’ll also discuss other ways boundaries come up in the classroom, such as what we bring to teaching from our other worlds (prior careers, activism, family), and how grades can affect the student/teacher relationship.

Join us for an interactive online workshop designed to transform the way we connect, lead, and foster belonging through Conscious Communication. Led by Hunter College C-SELL Director Jeneca Parker-Tongue and book author Sarah Suatoni, this session will explore how our emotions, perspectives, and intentions shape the way we communicate—and how we can use these insights to create deeper understanding, curiosity, and collaboration.

Rooted in social-emotional learning in action, this workshop will provide:

✅ Practical strategies for navigating conversations with care and authenticity

✅ Tools for fostering trust and connection in professional and personal spaces

✅ Guided exercises to explore how communication shapes relationships, culture, and leadership

Whether you're a leader, educator, or changemaker, this session will offer tangible practices to cultivate a healthier, more inclusive climate where dialogue leads to transformation. Come ready to reflect, engage, and apply these tools in real time!

(C-SELL, School of Education), Sarah Suatoni (author, Conscious Communication)

In a facilitated discussion, Instructors will be invited to share their mid-semester challenges and successes, including such questions as:

• How can we motivate students mid semester as some of the initial energy and enthusiasm drops off, and students (and instructors) are feeling stressed?
• How can we change patterns of engagement that may have emerged, for example when some students dominate the discussion and others remain silent?
• How can we re-engage “disappearing” students?  
• How can we make the most out of mid-semester evaluations or feedback?

Brooke Xavier 

Advising individual students—as M.A. thesis students, as mentees in programs like Mellon-Mayes, as students registered in independent studies—is a crucial part of what we do as educators. But the craft of mentoring often gets less attention than it should, since attention to the details can be the difference between time-efficient and harmonious collaboration and … the other kinds. We will hear from a range of panelists with experience as readers of theses, program mentors, coordinators of graduate programs, and instructors in independent studies, with an eye to what makes collaborations work best for both faculty and students.

In this session, CUNY co-authors Dongshin Chang (Hunter College) and Kelly Aliano (LaGuardia Community College) will discuss the relevance of theatre and performance in the teaching of writing, fostering student engagement, and creating classroom community. This presentation draws from their recent co-authored book Teaching Writing Through Theatre: A Performative Approach to Pedagogy, which is rooted in their decade-long experience of teaching CUNY students.

12-2pm

For the final Lunchtime Seminar of the Spring 2025 semester, we'll meet for an in-person session on the 68th Street Campus, featuring lightning talks and lunch! Sign up now to attend or give a 3-minute flash talk on any aspect of your teaching.