Zoom Labs: Replicating Hands-on Learning in Virtual Education

by Mallika Bariya, Materials Science and Engineering Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2021 Challenge: In the first fully remote semester of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was a GSI for Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) 45L, a core lab course. Labs revolve around hands-on participation and pose a unique challenge for remote Continue Reading >>

Using Phenomena-Based Inquiry to Increase Class Participation

by Rachael Olliff Yang, Integrative Biology Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2019 At the beginning of every class, instructors are faced with the challenge of encouraging participation. I was able to successfully increase class participation using phenomena-based inquiry. In Fall 2018 I co-taught the field section and lab of General Biology Continue Reading >>

Online Research in the Age of Google

by Nicholaus Gutierrez, Rhetoric Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2019 Students in R1B classes are asked to engage in research that involves acquiring relevant information through reliable sources, and to use those sources to produce new knowledge on a given topic. This can be a challenge in the age of Google, Continue Reading >>

A Hands-On Approach to User Interface Prototyping

by Lora Oehlberg, Mechanical Engineering
I realized that…workshops should be available to students beyond ME290P…because the workshops help students develop marketable skills for careers in design, [so] I initiated a series of User Interface Prototyping Design Clinics that focused on teaching hands-on prototyping skills to communicate design concepts.

The Kitchen as a Laboratory

by Naomi Kohen, Materials Science and Engineering
In order to make the demos more relevant and interactive for the students, all of the soft material systems examined were food-based…The promise of a lab that yielded edible results provided an effective motivation for the students to stay for the extra credit labs.

Stretching the Field of View

by James Su, Vision Science
Once I start hearing “oohs” and “ahas,” I know the students are starting to understand the physical effects of each of the telescope elements. The math comes naturally once the students understand what physically happens to the light rays that are squeezed, expanded, reflected, and bent.

Solar System on a Laptop: Visualizing the Dynamic Universe

by Daniel Perley, Astronomy
In this case, words and diagrams were the problem, and no amount of them would solve it. My solution, instead, was to produce for my students an animated simulation of the motion of the planets around the sun, and display it on one wall using an LCD projector.

Utilizing a Unifying Experiment to Enhance Conceptual Integration

by Jason Ng, Vision Science
I knew that I wanted to strengthen the students’ understanding of the lab material and provide greater clinical relevance…The challenges were to find a way to tie the labs together over the entire semester, and to focus on creating a more direct link between the basic science experiments in the labs and actual clinical patient testing.