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 their…
by Skyler Wang, Sociology Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2021 In a 2020 midterm evaluation form I sent to my students, I included the question: “What makes writing a course paper challenging for you?” Aside from the usual suspects such as work overload, lack of motivation, procrastination, etc., I noticed a…
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 Nitin Kohli, School of Information Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2019 Behind the Data: Humans and Values (Info 188) deals with the social, political, and ethical considerations of data science. Data science solutions are actively being deployed in diverse settings, implicating values such as privacy, fairness, and freedom of expression.
by Nicholaus Gutierrez, Rhetoric Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2019 Students in R1B classes are asked to engage in research that involves acquiring relevant information through reliable sources, and to use those sources to produce new knowledge on a given topic. This can be a challenge in the age of Google,…
by Mariel Goddu, Psychology Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2019 PSYCH 140 (Developmental Psychology) attracts a variety of students. Some students have psychology research experience and interests. However, many are interested in applied fields like education, social work, and social policy, and these students may be less inclined to delve into…
by Lise Gaston, English Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2019 My course “Introduction to the Writing of Verse” had a twofold aim: for students to cultivate a variety of poetic techniques and to develop the art of constructive criticism. While every student had experience writing poetry (they had to submit a…
by Kate Driscoll, Italian Studies Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2019 In teaching Reading and Composition courses, I have found that students—many of whom come from disciplines outside the humanities—often search for the “right” answer to literature, expecting the black and white colors on the page to correspond to black and…
by Erin Bennett, Comparative Literature Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2019 One of my primary goals when crafting a syllabus for a Reading & Composition course is to select texts with which my 18-year-old students can readily connect, but which also challenge them to develop their own coherent interpretations. Last spring,…
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…