by Emily Frey, Music The lowly sounding course title is thus deceptive; teaching Basic Musicianship II is a baptism by fire. Desperate times, I thought when I received the assignment, called for experimental measures. With its mélange of skills, requirements, and student backgrounds, 20B is chaotic by nature, and it seemed unproductive to try to work against that.
by Jessica Shade, Integrative Biology I saw several examples of this disparity between surface learning of principles and working comprehension. For instance...students...had no problem calculating allele frequencies and genotype ratios using the Hardy Weinberg equations, but they were...baffled by the simple question, "What does this mean?"
by Naomi Leite, Anthropology The first section presents a double challenge...Simply put, how can a GSI use the first section to engage a disparate group of students who are not necessarily enthusiastic about their enrollment in a course whose topic they don’t yet understand?
by Danielle Champney, Education, SESAME I view Calculus II as more than just a solution-finding mission or strategy game. Students will learn little or resort to untested pattern-matching if I simply tell them what method to use each time they encounter a new problem! Learning how concepts in class are reflected in procedures used to solve problems is, to me, a core principle of the course.
by Natalia Cecire, English The project was designed to produce a scholarly community that would provide an intellectual context for research findings. Yet because the community was composed of students, all with similar experiences with nineteenth-century literature, the debates occurred in terms that were meaningful to the students at their particular stage of exposure to literary criticism, rather than in the remoter terms of my discipline.
by Paul Bruno, Physics If I could help them recognize what they had learned, and to see how that acquired knowledge empowered them to understand even more course material, I could develop both their understanding of physics and their positive self-efficacy as science learners.
by Sener Akturk, Political Science All theories “make sense” at some level, making it difficult for students to find their weaknesses. Hence, many students believe that the political development of the region they study (Europe, Middle East, etc.) could not unfold differently than it did...To overcome these problems, I set aside a section in mid-semester for students to act out 50 years of EU political development in a simulation.
by Timothy Pepper, Classics The Greek institution of blood sacrifice, adapted to the classroom as a melon sacrifice, provided the framework as an institution that was differentiated into separate stages and involved actions well suited to optative and subjunctive constructions.
by Jason Purcell, Political Science In the Spring of 2008, I realized that I had a problem: I was teaching a 3-speed class. While some students were content with the pace of section, others were struggling to keep up, and still others were starting to get bored. How can one GSI keep pace with students learning at three very different speeds?
by Seemay Chou, Molecular and Cell Biology I found that the problem was not rooted in lack of comprehension but an imprecision in their scientific language, owing to their lack of experience in the field. They felt that they knew the answers but could not express what they were trying to say...They needed to think and speak in the same language as scientists.