by Badr Albanna, Physics I decided to reverse the dynamic of our discussion sections. When it came time to work on problems, instead of my standing in front of the class begging the students to explain how they reasoned the first part of problem one to their classmates, they would become the teachers and I would adopt the role of a particularly knowledgeable assistant.
by Vasudha Paramasivan, South and Southeast Asian Studies To my class, it seemed almost irreverent to read into such marvelous tales, prosaic explanations of power struggles and gender discrimination. While their skepticism was welcome, I had to find some way of addressing their resistance to the idea that there could be meaning and purpose behind folkloric narratives.
by Alejandro Reyes Arias, Latin American Studies I divided the class in small groups, each of which would represent a different historical character...The various characters had been kidnapped from their contexts and transported to Berkeley in 2004 to participate in a Conference on Latin America, to debate the future of the continent and to discuss issues of race, identity, gender, economy, sovereignty, nationhood,[and] culture.
by Anna Nisnevich, Music An easy analogy between music and word, music and image, and music and gesture...often proves deceptive...Ever-tempted to "translate" music into a discernible language, the students easily get under the spell of the familiar and end up telling stories and drawing mental pictures, instead of trying to address the subtler ways in which music interacts with other media.
by Catherine Becker, History of Art I, the eager GSI, launched into an examination of Jomon pots and Yayoi bells; however, so many of the students’ basic questions had no answer that the class became frustrated and uninterested...I wanted to encourage more student participation. How could I engage my students in a productive and thoughtful conversation about objects from the distant past?
by David Radwin, Political Science Learning by doing has a long history in educational theory, even if it is uncommon in practice...The analysis and rearrangement of facts which is indispensable to the growth of knowledge and power of explanation and right classification cannot be attained purely mentally-just inside the head...The challenge for undergraduate education is how to create activities, within the constraints of the university setting, that challenge students to discover answers on their own.
by Elzbieta Benson, Sociology Well-prepared and active students make successful discussion sections. However, not all students read and not all of them participate. As a Graduate Student Instructor, I strive to encourage all students to read their assignments and engage in class discussions.
by Mayumi Takada, English I noted a startling discrepancy between the intelligent insights students provided in class and in office hours and the poor critical papers they wrote...In the language of high school math, they simply wrote out answers without showing their work. They were incapable of doing a close reading, the building block of literary writing and analysis.
by Victoria Somoff, Slavic Languages and Literatures They acutely sensed the distance "within" themselves between their ability to speak and to write. To use a metaphor, their unexpressed pathos was this: if we already understand each other so well (when speaking), why bother to hobble about on crutches (when writing)? We can run or, at least, walk much faster if we throw them away!
by Alexander Diesl, Mathematics The ability to write mathematical proofs is not a result of genius but rather of an understanding of the language of mathematics. Students think that they lack fundamental understanding when they in fact lack only the ability to translate their intuition into mathematically precise statements.