On April 4^th, 2018 the Student Success Mentor (SSM) Program, a peer mentoring program within the LaGuardia Center for Teaching and Learning, held a 3-Day Professional Development series modeled off of LaGuardia’s Communication abilities. Most notably, the session around Oral Communication was held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

With each day of this series being dedicated to either Written, Oral, and Digital Communication, and threaded together using the Core Values of the SSM program, the Professional Development activities at the Metropolitan Museum of Art engaged SSMs in a variety of activities that centered around (1) SSM practice of Oral Communication in their work with LaGuardia students and faculty, (2) their rationale of the benefit of being proficient in this particular communication ability to students, and based on their own experiences, it’s practical application in one’s student experience. and (3) their group’s assigned Core Value of the SSM Program. These three topics were explored through extensive team-building activities.

This off-campus Professional Development session was the first of its kind for the SSM Program. Emphasizing the Oral Communication ability as a vehicle for collaboration, SSMs worked in four distinct groups. Each group was eponymous with a core value of the SSM program: Leadership, Empathy, Professionalism, and Innovation.

Throughout the four-hour session, SSMs worked collaboratively in identifying examples of their group’s particular core value in various works of art. Some questions posed included “Why did your group feel that this piece embodied your assigned value?” and “What does your group feel the importance of this value is in your work as an SSM?”

Through completing the activities and addressing the prompts as a group, versus independently, SSMs were made to come to a common consensus on matters of which group members possessed a wide-array of observations and opinions; analogous to the diverse experiences and perspectives they encounter on a daily basis in their work with LaGuardia students.

The Professional Development series culminated in the completion of an ePortfolio-based blog titled Showcasing the Values of the SSM Program Through Art and History. The blog served as a means to both document the written, image, and video content from the session at the Met, as well as to reinforce ePortfolio as a means of showcasing one’s Digital Communication abilities.

To view the finished blog, please click here.

If you would like to learn more specifics about this Communication Ability-themed Professional Development series, or the construction and design of the culminating blog, please contact the SSM Program Coordinators: Estefany Gonzaga (egonzaga@lagcc.cuny.edu) or David Brandt (dbrandt@lagcc.cuny.edu)