by Anna Mikkelborg, Political Science Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2021 When I learned that the first course I would teach at Berkeley would be offered not only remotely, but asynchronously, I was a bit disappointed. I’d been looking forward to leading a classroom of Introduction to American Politics students in Continue Reading >>
by Audrey Haynes, Integrative Biology Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2019 “It’s nice to know someone actually cares.” A student in Biology 1B said that to me at the end of a meeting. She had not passed the first exam and we were brainstorming about how to improve. For a variety Continue Reading >>
by Tiffany Perumpail, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2018 Academic Interns (AIs) are former CS61A students who help current students in office hours and labs. Any student who passed CS61A can go through training and volunteer as an AI. In Spring 2017, our students’ Final Survey Continue Reading >>
Ideas for how to start productive conversations with students during office hours.
by Nicholas Knight, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
I knew it would be completely infeasible to teach half of the class how to program during office hours or via a forum. So for the first homework, I designed teams that each had a member with computer programming experience. As a result, every team completed the assignment, and the collaborative write-up ensured that each team member understood the material, even if one team member did the majority of the programming. I was explicit with the class about our strategy to combine programmers and non-programmers.
by Conrad Hengesbach, Mathematics
The variety of the students’ backgrounds meant that everybody brought different prerequisites to the table, especially when it came to their training in first-semester calculus… I needed a mechanism to ensure that towards the end of the first week everybody was on the same boat.
An example of using the bSpace chat room tool.
by John Johnson, Astronomy
As the Head GSI for Astronomy 10 last fall, I was challenged with administering effective, individualized assistance to the students who needed it most. The solution I developed is The Astronomy Learning Center (TALC). TALC uses collaborative learning as an alternative to traditional office hours…[and] uses the philosophy that students learn better by doing than just by hearing or seeing.