By Zhehang Zhang, Sociology Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2026 Goethe famously wrote that theory appears gray when separated from life. In my UC Berkeley sociology discussion sections, that was the pedagogical problem I faced. Students brought extraordinarily different racial, class, gender, and educational histories to seminar, yet many…
By Taylor Brown, School of Social Welfare Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2026 Social welfare policy is forged through democratic deliberation—through the messy, necessary work of disagreement, persuasion, and the building of consensus across differences. Yet our students arrive having come of age amid acute polarization and democratic backsliding,…
By Emily Thompson, Anthropology Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2025 One of the central challenges I encountered while teaching The Image and the Archive: The Power and Politics of Visual Anthropology was helping students develop critical reading and writing skills in response to visual materials.
By Ishani Chesire, Astronomy Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2025 It was a situation many GSIs are familiar with: following the first midterm in Astron 7B, a student approached me looking nervous and asked to talk about her grade. She had not done well in the midterm, but even…
by Katherine Bruhn, South and Southeast Asian Studies Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2021 A key learning outcome in Reading & Composition courses is the ability to identify original research topics. For most students this can be daunting. In order to structure this task, I require my students to center…
by Katherine Blackford, Chemistry Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2021 Each time I have taught organic chemistry, students have come to me wondering why, even after memorizing all of the necessary content, they still struggled to solve exam problems. They have mentioned running out of time after realizing too late…
by Douglas Epps, Social Welfare Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2021 With a global pandemic, an international racial justice movement, and ongoing threats to US democratic institutions, 2020 was a year of many sobering first-time experiences. It also marked my first and second time in the role of acting instructor,…
by Jessica Katz, Energy and Resources Group Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2021 One of the most challenging aspects of adjusting to a remote classroom has been losing the nonverbal cues that allow teachers and students to communicate efficiently in real time. As a GSI for an interdisciplinary data science…
by Frances Ramos, Graduate School of Education Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2019 The American Cultures (AC) requirement provides Berkeley students with the opportunity to critically explore the complexities of our society and the contributions, experiences, and challenges of peoples historically marginalized in our curriculum. AC courses not only enrich the…
by Kevin Lin, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2019 Students learn computer science (CS) by doing. In CS 61A, a highly-rated introductory CS course at UC Berkeley, students are introduced to new concepts in lecture, go hands-on to learn the solution process in lab and discussion…