discussion

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.

Hands-On Experience of French Irony

by Connie Anderson, French What kind of engagement is most effective in allowing students to make the target language their own? This, it seems to me, is one of the ultimate challenges for foreign language instructors.

Improving Laboratory Courses

by Nicholas L. Pivonka, Chemistry I sought to improve the laboratory portion of the course by improving the quality of experiments the students were asked to perform. One of the experiments was clearly a candidate for replacement.

Journals: The Key to Small Group Participation

by Heather McCarty, History The journals allowed me monitor each student's progress with the readings. I was able to track which students completed the readings, but more importantly, whether or not students understood the material. I enjoyed commenting on the journals and found that they provided me with yet one more avenue in which to individually engage with students.

Musical Representation and Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition

by Holly Watkins, Music Addressing the question of how music can represent images or ideas poses serious difficulties for music scholars, let alone for undergraduate non-majors...How, then, might a GSI introduce the thorny problem of musical representation in a class...which assumes no familiarity with musical notation or performing ability?

Teaching Bourdieu: Observing the Habitus in Sites of Consumption

by William Hayes, Sociology While sociology of culture courses regularly assign selections from his text, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, US students usually encounter these readings without the necessary theoretical knowledge (symbolic capital) or cultural knowledge (cultural capital) for understanding the main arguments or referents in his survey analysis of 1960s Paris. Hence, the teaching problem emerges of how to "materialize" these Parisian abstractions within our Berkeley students.

Transforming Quizzes into Teaching and Learning Tools

by Jennifer Powell, Molecular and Cell Biology To address my goal of encouraging the students to take the quizzes seriously so they would be useful to everyone as a tool to evaluate their progress in the course, I developed a quiz strategy for my discussion section...Rather than just telling them the [quiz] answers, I asked volunteers to come up to the chalkboard and write their answers for the rest of the class.

Understanding the Lives of Ancient Egyptians

by Deanna Kiser, Near Eastern Studies The daily activities and concerns of the earlier society's participants are lost on modern people, who view the entire culture as dead. This affects new students to the field in particular... I have found that helping Egyptology students to identify with the ancient Egyptians generates more enthusiasm for the subject matter and makes it meaningful to them.