by John DeNero, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science The course’s original syllabus began with a conceptual roadmap of how various problems related to each other. But since our students didn’t understand the individual problems yet, they didn’t understand the purpose of the framework...To infuse continuity into the course, I designed a series of projects around Pacman, a classic video game with lots of retro charm.
by Polina Dimova, Comparative Literature I needed to teach my students to trace complicated theoretical arguments and pinpoint and articulate the concepts that underlay them. I had to empower my students through theory and not let them despair by succumbing to the theory scare, to their assumption that theory is just too tough and they just don’t get it.
by Sarah Macdonald, Sociology While teaching Sociology 5: Evaluation of Evidence, I encountered a problem that is not unique: how, as GSIs, can we prepare our students for challenging final exams without teaching exclusively to the exam?
by Ryan Steele, Chemistry I had to humbly undergo a transformation that allowed me to let the students' discussion guide the session. Frankly, I had to shut up. Letting students speak and make mistakes does not mean conceding control of the classroom or the teacher's sense of authority.
by Monica Gehlawat, English This activity is all about perspective. By creating a new way for the students to look at their writing, I was able to empower them to see how to change it. Tackling the sentences on the board all together with a clear set of drills transformed the debilitating immediacy of one's writing into a liberating problem-solving experience.
by Kenneth Haig, Political Science The most difficult problem I faced was how to teach both the Japan-specific and broad theoretical aims of the course to students who were at best familiar with only one part or the other...The solution I settled on was to try to find applications for visual learning techniques and small group discussions wherever I could.
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 Amy Lerman, Political Science Each group had read their own article as a reasonably complete account of “the way it had happened.” When they began to see the differences between the pieces, though, they were struck by how disparate each account was from the others. In particular, the students were surprised by how even those that were technically “unbiased,” “academic” or “scientific” were unintentionally framed in certain ways.
by Kathryn Peek, Astronomy The stellar evolution exercise followed from a tenet of my teaching philosophy: occasionally putting larger concepts aside to nail down the basics is important, and doing so can illuminate more complex ideas...The day that I did this exercise in my sections was one of my best days that semester.
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.