Contextualizing Social Theory with Collaborative Timelines

by Nicholas Anderman, Geography Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2019 In Geography 112, a challenging, upper-division course, students read canonical social theory (Marx and Engels, Antonio Gramsci, Franz Fanon, etc.) alongside historical texts that show how these thinkers’ key concepts emerged out of particular events. A key learning outcome of the Continue Reading >>

Making it Matter: Connecting Theory to Reality in Economics

by Jonathan Schellenberg, Economics Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2018 In the social sciences, we seek to understand all types of human behaviors. Economics, my sub- discipline, formalizes these actions with mathematical models, both to reduce the complexity of the world and to highlight the rules that we believe govern human Continue Reading >>

Beyond Bland: Inspiring Perceptive and Original Literary Interpretations

by Bristin Jones, Comparative Literature Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2018 In my first semester teaching Reading and Composition (R&C) in the Comparative Literature department, I realized that one of the most significant challenges undergraduates face in engaging with literary texts is producing thought-provoking thesis statements and arguments. After years of Continue Reading >>

Beyond Plot: Discussing the Stakes of Literary Texts

by Vanessa Brutsche, French Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2017 One of the skills that I target in my Reading and Composition courses is the ability to read beyond basic content (plot and characters), and to move fluidly between the abstract and concrete levels of a text’s meaning. In literature-based courses, Continue Reading >>