critical thinking

Skills for Engagement: Teaching Close Reading Techniques in an Interdisciplinary Classroom

by Ashton Wesner, Materials Science and Engineering (Home Department: Environmental Science, Policy, and Management) Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2018 E157AC: Engineering, The Environment, and Society is the only American Cultures course offered in the College of Engineering. I was thrilled to teach students pursuing rigorous scientific training with an interest…

Making it Matter: Connecting Theory to Reality in Economics

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…

The Thesis Statement as The Key to Unlock Essay Writing

by Julia Lewandoski, History Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2018 After several semesters as a GSI and Reader for history classes, it has become clear to me that a concise, clear, and specific thesis statement is essential to a successful student paper. Developing a strong thesis statement enables students to frame…

Scaffolding Suspension of Belief as a Means to Intellectual and Political Empathy

by Brian Judge, Political Science Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2018 Challenge: Introduction to Political Theory is either the beginning or the end of students’ engagement with political theory at Cal: interested students may go on to enroll in further political science courses, but (statistically speaking) many will stop after the…

Beyond Bland: Inspiring Perceptive and Original Literary Interpretations

by Bristin Jones, Comparative Literature Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2018 In my first semester teaching Reading and Composition (R&C) in the Comparative Literature department, I realized that one of the most significant challenges undergraduates face in engaging with literary texts is producing thought-provoking thesis statements and arguments. After years of…

Collaborative Grading Rubrics for Assessing Student Writing

by Rosalind Diaz, English Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2018 Grading rubrics are an invaluable teaching tool. Ideally, they promote fairness and transparency in assessment, and help students set reasonable goals, develop metacognition, and practice self-assessment. But a rubric can also act as a gatekeeper of knowledge. Vague, abstruse, or circularly…

Why Am I Doing What I Am Doing?

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…

The Interpretive Problem: A Key Concept in Teaching Writing

by Carli Cutchin, Comparative Literature Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2017 Thesis statements are the bread and butter of a good college essay – or so conventional pedagogical wisdom would say. As a Reading and Composition instructor, I would see students struggle time and again when asked to write a thesis.

Beyond Plot: Discussing the Stakes of Literary Texts

by Vanessa Brutsche, French Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2017 One of the skills that I target in my Reading and Composition courses is the ability to read beyond basic content (plot and characters), and to move fluidly between the abstract and concrete levels of a text’s meaning. In literature-based courses,…