by Anamika Chowdhury, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2019 “I practiced all the homework questions, attended all classes, and even went over lecture notes multiple times… still failed to score well. I give up!” I was rather perplexed to hear such distraught statements from several students in…
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…
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 Varsha Desai, Chemistry Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2018 Experiments in chemistry laboratories often have complex protocols where students perform several steps sequentially to obtain a “correct” product. Seemingly small mistakes can result in a domino effect that leads to inconclusive end results. For example, students forget to “mix” a…
by Jingxun Chen, Molecular and Cell Biology Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2018 Challenge: Genetics is a difficult subject for many students because of its abstract concepts. In other MCB classes, students often learn biology through descriptive narratives—each step of a cellular process is drawn out, organisms’ morphologies are compared, or…
by Brittany Meché, Geography Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2017 “Introduction to Development Studies” is a lower division survey course tackling some of the world’s most pressing issues. From refugee resettlement to gender-based violence to humanitarian famine relief, the course teaches students to evaluate reports from international organizations like the World…
by Evan Klavon, English Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2017 Navigating multiple approaches to the same topic can be tough—even more difficult is learning to articulate connections across disciplines. As a TA for Intro to Environmental Studies, I guided students in learning and writing about cultural conceptions of nature, the history…
by David Gardner, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2017 Challenge: Thermodynamics is a notoriously difficult subject. It’s no surprise that the subject causes anxiety and animosity – even physicist Arnold Sommerfeld was quoted as saying that even by the third time you learn thermodynamics, “you know you…
by Claire Duquennois, Agricultural and Resource Economics Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2017 The first meeting of section is extremely important as it sets the tone for the rest of the semester. Despite this, it can easily turn into a hodge-podge of administrative activities that can leave students disinterested. Going over…