by Sonia Travaglini, College of Engineering (Home Department: Mechanical Engineering) Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2018 Working to support the Masters of Engineering capstone projects, my hardest challenge was teaching students to communicate the value and significance of their highly technical work. Students had to learn science writing; how to use…
by Abigail Stepnitz, Legal Studies (Home Department: Jurisprudence and Social Policy) Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2018 We often ask students, either as part of a discussion or on an exam, to express an opinion on a complicated topic. What we’re hoping they’ll do is develop and defend a position based…
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…
by Julia Lewandoski, History Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2018 After several semesters as a GSI and Reader for history classes, it has become clear to me that a concise, clear, and specific thesis statement is essential to a successful student paper. Developing a strong thesis statement enables students to frame…
by Brian Judge, Political Science Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2018 Challenge: Introduction to Political Theory is either the beginning or the end of students’ engagement with political theory at Cal: interested students may go on to enroll in further political science courses, but (statistically speaking) many will stop after the…
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…
by Kathleen Cruz Gutierrez, South and Southeast Asian Studies Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2018 The annotated bibliography is an important component of a research-based undergraduate course. But in most of my experience as a student and as a teacher, I found the exercise to complete it empty. Even after providing…
by Rosalind Diaz, English Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2018 Grading rubrics are an invaluable teaching tool. Ideally, they promote fairness and transparency in assessment, and help students set reasonable goals, develop metacognition, and practice self-assessment. But a rubric can also act as a gatekeeper of knowledge. Vague, abstruse, or circularly…
by Eric Armstrong, Integrative Biology Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2016 In addition to providing the educational scaffolding necessary for life-long learning, we as instructors face an equally important challenge in preparing interested students for professional careers in our fields. In biology, the ability to analyze and visualize data is a…
by Marianne Kaletzky, Comparative Literature One of the core principles of literary analysis is that the form of literature — the language an author uses, the way he or she structures the text, and the stylistic conventions he or she employs — means as much as the content. … I wanted to help my students not only to become more attentive to formal features, but also to understand why those formal features matter ... To cultivate this understanding, I decided to give my students an unconventional writing assignment ...