The AASCU/ELE (EveryLearnerEverywhere) Initiative
The stated goal of the AASCU/ELE (EveryLearnerEverywhere) 18 month long initiative, which took place from October of 2021 to May of 2023, was to enable Lehman College to bolster and supplement the curriculum by enabling specialized and robust training for faculty to enhance student experiences with digital technologies. Twelve faculty members (8 full time and 4 part time) were selected (along with representatives from Enrollment Management and Office of Online Education) to lead the redesign of bottleneck courses and partake in the institutional transformation efforts to re-envision strategies for scaling technology, digital transformation, and faculty professional development across the institution. The initiative consisted of two phases. Phase I, which focused on case making, foundational learning, and planning was from October 2021 to August 2022 and phase II, which focused on implementation, iterating and scaling, was from September 2022 to May 2023.
Ralph Boone, Adjunct Lecturer
I am an Adjunct Senior Lecturer by choice at Lehman College for about 16 years. I have also maintained a career as an Independent Artist, Singer. My “career” objective has always been to motivate students to imagine different goals along with various ways to meet those goals. Whether working in admissions at Middlebury College, where the students come from the upper 10% or working as a lecturer at Lehman College where 62% of the students are on full financial aid, I have always encouraged students to remember the dreams they had in K-5 and to reimagine how those dreams might reshape themselves along with how to actualize those dreams in the present reality.
Michael Buckley, Associate Professor
Michael Buckley is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Lehman College and serves as Director of Lehman’s Center for Human Rights and Peace Studies. He works in the fields of political philosophy, human rights, and applied ethics. Michael joined Lehman’s faculty in 2007 after earning his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Emory University. He earned his BA from Hunter College, CUNY, and a BBA from Baruch College, CUNY.
Sheila Gersh, Adjunct Associate Professor
Sheila Gersh is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Journalism at Lehman College and has been teaching the course for the past ten years. She has also taught Education and Education Administration courses at Lehman College. She has been involved in international education for many years and has been invited to speak at conferences in the U.S. and around the globe.
Brian Wynne, Professor
Brian Wynne is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Lehman. He received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Wesleyan University in 2005 and has taught at Lehman since 2014.
The six framework modules of the 18 month initiative, outlined below, were further broken into two phases. Phase I was from October 2021 to August 2022 and phase II was from September 2022 to May 2023.
Timeline - AASCU/ELE (PDF)
Evidence-Based Teaching and Student-Centered Learning
- Discover the evidence-based instructional practices that most contribute to student success in gateway courses and how pairing evidence-based teaching with high-quality courseware can personalize learning for minoritized and poverty-affected students
- Recognize and learn to use the evidence-based teaching practices that promote active learning, support collaboration in blended and online learning environments, and improve engagement of students with instructors and peers.
- Choose the evidence-based instructional practices that put the needs of Black, Latinx, Indigenous, poverty-affected, and first-generation college students at the center of the learning Plan for the redesign of one or more courses using evidence-based teaching strategies.
- Select and implement formative assessment and outcomes measurement approaches that align with the evidenced-based instructional practices used to continuously evaluate and improve student learning.
Equitable and Inclusive Digital Learning at Scale
- Discover the equity-minded and inclusive instructional practices that impact student success in gateway courses and how high-quality courseware can disrupt racialized and marginalized patterns in teaching and learning for Black, Latinx, Indigenous, poverty- affected, and first-generation college students.
- Identify and learn to use courseware and digital tools to design equity-minded and inclusive teaching practices and curriculum that center culture as a cognitive tool, activate prior knowledge, create relationship-rich faculty-student learning partnerships, and integrate authentic assessment.
- Select equity-minded teaching practices enabled by courseware that are relevant to Black, Latinx, Indigenous, poverty-affected, and first-generation college students learning experiences and academic goals.
- Address digital equity by ensuring all students have equal access to media and technology as producers, users, and decision makers who can shape their own digital learning environments and experiences.
- Implement continuous improvement and plans to scale that align institutional, departmental, program, and course goals to increase instructor use of equity-minded teaching practices. Disaggregate course data by race and socioeconomic status to demonstrate the effect of equitable digital learning on academic outcomes.
The engagement experience features six focus areas which are designed for phased delivery. The modules for this engagement are based on five of the focus areas 1) Case Making; 2) Foundational Learning; 3) Planning for Transformation; 4) Implementation; and 5) Iterating & Scaling. The sixth focus area, Measuring Outcomes, is appropriately interwoven throughout the five modules.
ELE Webinar #1: Equitize Syllabi
PRESENTERS: Adjunct Lecturer Ralph Boone and Associate Professor Michael Buckley
DATE: May 3, 2023
ELE Webinar #2: Equitize Syllabi
PRESENTERS: Adjunct Associate Professor Sheila Gersh and Professor Brian Wynne
DATE: May 9, 2023
DESCRIPTION: The Office of Online Education (OOE) invites the Lehman community to join us in two faculty-led webinars where they discuss their participation in the American Association of State College and Universities/ Every Learner Everywhere (AASCU/ELE) initiative. This eighteen-month initiative (Fall 2021-Spring 2023) focused on bolstering and supplementing curriculum by enabling specialized and robust training for select faculty to enhance student experiences with digital technologies to address high-DWIF.
These open discussions by the pilot faculty members will showcase their insights and experiences, supplemented with examples from the syllabi and Blackboard course shells they developed during the initiative. These examples will include how they strove to include more welcoming and inviting language and tone to further value their students and increase the racial/ethnic experiences in their syllabi, readings, activities, and assignments.