applied knowledge | GSI Teaching & Resource Center

Bringing Concepts to Life through Field Trips

by Allison Kidder, Environmental Science, Policy, & Management
I needed to find another way to help bring these concepts to life for my students. I recalled learning most intently when seeing examples of each concept out in the field in their unique spatial and temporal context. Using a little imagination and the wide variety of UC Berkeley’s campus resources available to us, I devised a series of field trips for my students on weeks they were learning new concepts. We traveled all over campus.

Multi-Sensory Windows into Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology

by Stephanie Langin-Hooper, Near Eastern Studies
One of the most involved and successful projects that I designed was a miniature replica of underwater shipwreck excavations. Using large turkey roasting pans, water, sand, and an assortment of miniature objects, I recreated three underwater shipwreck excavation sites…The students became the archaeologists and were divided up into excavation teams…Through a multi-sensory engagement, this project successfully opened the eyes of my students to the dynamic process of archaeological excavation.

From Theory to Obama: Innovative Teaching Methods to Increase Participation

by Zoe Harris, Public Health
One morning, my classroom was abuzz with a debate over whether to vote yes or no on Proposition 2…Instead of my original lesson plan, carefully typed up with several handouts, I sat and listened to their debate. Students who only spoke when I cold-called them were the center of the discussion. “STOP!” I raised my arms while students glared at me nervously. “Today, we are going to apply Wilson’s theory of concentrated versus diffuse interests to decide which way you would vote on Proposition 2.” (Stunned looks all around.)

Training Molecular MacGyvers Using the Immunologist’s Toolbox

by Nicholas Arpaia, Molecular and Cell Biology
I designed what I called the Immunologist’s Toolbox, a running list of techniques that the students could refer to when it came time for them to design experiments. They were able to draw from this list to act like molecular MacGyvers and use the reagents that they were given in particular scenario-based questions to answer them.

Externalizing Analyses and Bridging Sub-Disciplines

by Molly Babel, Linguistics
I find the largest problem in teaching a class like Linguistics 110 is keeping the intellectually split student body focused, interested, and comprehending the material at hand. I have found the key to this problem is to provide students with theoretically relevant real-world linguistic examples.

Current-Literature Problem Solving as a Connection to the Real World: How Solving a Problem in the Classroom Expanded Professor-Graduate Student Mentorship from the Laboratory into the Classroom

by Suzanne Blum, Chemistry
I realized that the students were not yet able to make the connection between what they were learning in the course and the bigger picture of professional chemical research…[so] I incorporated current literature into two lectures that I designed and presented to the class, as well as into problem sets and exam questions, thereby initiating student discussion about real research advances.

Science Education: Focus on Core Analytical Skills

by James Endres, Molecular and Cell Biology
At the first meeting I commanded rapt attention by announcing the secret to getting an A in the course. “If you understand the experiments presented in lecture,” I promised, “actively understand them, enough that you can change them to make and test novel predictions, you will get an A.”

Teaching an Uncommon Sense

by Sarah Cunningham, Integrative Biology
The basic evolutionary and ecological concepts and principles are not difficult to understand…However, in order to tie them together and apply them in the solution of novel problems, students must learn to think scientifically and within an evolutionary framework. It is another kind of common sense that the students must develop, and it often runs contrary to the assumptions they are used to making.

Do Our Students Understand the Relevance of What We Are Teaching Them?

by Natalia Ferretti, Political Science
I was convinced that what we were doing in the class was precisely what my students thought it was missing: we were explaining the origins of the main political and socio-economic structures that characterize Latin American countries today. For us, the connection between these macro-processes and the reality of everyday life was straightforward, and therefore, we took for granted that students would be able to make the link as well. But my students’ complaints showed me that we were wrong.