by David Divita, French
Students were expected to learn the phonetic rules of “standard” French, but they were not encouraged to reflect on the historical origins and political implications of such a construct. Whose standard were they learning? Who had the authority to claim it as such? In a course designed to teach “correct” pronunciation, it seemed to me such questions could not remain unasked.
by Ladan Foose, Chemical Engineering
My goal was to figure out how to address this lack of “big picture” understanding in my sections and office hours, while still getting to the material I was asked to cover by the instructor and the many homework questions that the students had. My favorite tool is actually very simple. Some of my students call it “storybook time.”
by Hillary Gravendyk, English
I was … impressed to find myself in a room full of well-trained environmental studies, engineering, and biochemistry majors who were fearless (it seemed to me) in the face of those mysteries of math and science that had so baffled me as a college student. But I quickly realized that there was one thing about which these poised young scientists were utterly perplexed, even terrified: poetry.
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 Jennifer McGuire, Integrative Biology
Despite my efforts, the students continued to struggle with the exam material. It seemed to me that, despite my making the study material available to them, most of the students would not take advantage of it or study in a timely manner unless they had some graded incentive. The next semester when I taught the course, I decided to try to help my students achieve better test results by getting them to study for the exams earlier. To do this, I changed the way in which I quizzed the students.
by Robert Held, Bioengineering
My goals were to gauge the students’ comprehension of the material, provide an assessment of the professor’s effectiveness for the class as a whole, and help everyone understand the concepts more thoroughly. I adopted a three-tier solution to the issue of uneven experience. Brief quizzes, multimedia presentations, and interactive study sessions were employed.
by James Ramey, Comparative Literature
I was dismayed to find that we had been located in a small, windowless basement room in Haas Pavilion. Claustrophobia heightened my awareness of the need for the students to get along, which led me to wonder how I might structure my course, not only as an intellectual opportunity but also as a social one.
by Veronica Herrera, Political Science
I thought that many of these students would go on to teach, facilitate presentations in future careers, give public speeches, or otherwise coordinate and instruct a group of colleagues, students, etc. The way sections were commonly taught did not allow for them to be constructors of the material in order to prepare for such a career, but rather the students were often passive digesters.
by Sonya Lebsack, Legal Studies
I have discovered, to my surprise, in the past few years, that most of my students—including those doing otherwise excellent work — struggle to read a chapter or article and state (in a paragraph or in person) what the author’s “project” is and what the stakes of that project are…As a result, I focus my efforts on teaching this underserved area of focus.
by Matias Cattaneo, Economics
I was facing a big challenge: I had to teach highly technical topics to a very diverse audience. More importantly, I had to do this while following the pace of the professor’s lectures, attending to the demands of the students with strong technical skills, and preventing those students with relatively less preparation for this class from falling behind.