Bronx Community College's 11th Annual Conference on Community College Excellence (C3E): Theme 3 - Mastering the New Three R’s

For years, the strain on college students’ mental health has been rising at a concerning pace. Year after year, there seems to be a higher number of students suffering from depression, anxiety, and other behavioral disorders. Following the overhaul in ways students learn because of the Covid-19 pandemic, more than 40 percent of students have reportedly expressed anxiety about falling back academically and transitioning back into a prepandemic style of learning.
What is the current state of mental health among college students?
What looming effects has Covid-19 had on the mental-health crisis?
And what is the future of mental-health services on campus?

Higher ed institutions are dramatically rethinking their physical footprints. The changes spurred by the pandemic — both virtual and on campus — may alter the ways in which facilities are managed and expanded long term. What can the world of higher ed expect post-pandemic?
Hosted by Scott Carlson, a senior writer with The Chronicle, this virtual forum will examine what higher-ed leaders need to know about how the campus experience will evolve in the months and years ahead.
What efficiencies are being discovered in classroom spaces, housing, and offices?
How will remote work and education reprioritize what facilities?
How will the pandemic affect trends like sustainability efforts?

Stories are powerful educational tools. Digital storytelling is a creative and meaningful way to build engagement and inclusion in online and hybrid courses through the use of computer-based tools, including digital media essays, photography exhibits, story-based mapping, and podcasts, to tell stories. Digital storytelling allows learners to connect on a personal level and cognition skills are improved through writing narratives that are enhanced with the use of digital media methods. The student of the future is a maker and it is imperative to have knowledge, skills, and capabilities around content creation and communication. Digital storytelling assignments give students transferable skills that are applied to a 21st-century job market.

In this webinar, the presenters will demonstrate various digital storytelling techniques and projects along with templates, rubrics, and media applications that have been applied to online and hybrid courses that have included students from diverse learning communities made of multilingual, intergenerational, and neurodivergent participants. These strategies have proven to contribute to an overall inclusive learning environment in which all students perceive to be valued and continue successfully in their process of life-long learning. Session attendees will join in a digital storytelling activity to sample how to facilitate similar assignments and projects for easy adoption into their courses.

Intended Audience:
Faculty and instructors, instructional designers, instructional technologists