by Lyn Paleo, Public Health
I believe that students in a practice-based field…should receive a combination of theory and skills development. Theory-based lectures are critical; however, they alone are insufficient to the task of teaching people how to design and conduct evaluations for health promotion programs.
by Huma Dar, South and South East Asian Studies
Their final test entailed writing a detailed account in Urdu of the experiences of their families during the Partition. What I read made me re-read each essay and weep afresh at the depth of reflection, pathos, and the stubborn optimism in spite of it all, all in excellent Urdu!
by J. Peter Coppinger, Plant and Microbial Biology
As a GSI for Biology 1B, my goal seemed simple in principle: get students to enjoy biology because biology is fascinating in and of itself. I wanted my students to appreciate biology simply because biology is worth marveling at — barnacles, slimemolds, and all. Unfortunately, many students often brush aside an interesting topic if it is not explicitly intended for an exam.
by Gretchen Purser, Sociology
Not unlike Dante in the first canto of The Inferno, the students “found [themselves] within a shadowed forest,” clutching these maps, but unable to translate the signs, symbols, and pathways of each map to the actual structures, systems and institutions that make up the social world.
by Kathryn Pearson, Political Science
It became clear that students were not absorbing the readings or lectures outlining the process nor my repeated explanations of the differences between a budget resolution, an authorization bill, and an appropriations bill. The congressional budget process presented a greater challenge than did any other topic covered in the U.S. Congress class.
Strategies for helping students effectively organize and mobilize their learning. Based on a talk by Lawrence Lowery (Education).
by Helen Boucher, Psychology
I felt that any discussion of culture and ethnicity had to include an understanding of the prejudice and discrimination that can occur as a result of them. Discussing these topics is understandably difficult, however, and what usually happens is that students clam up and won’t participate, usually out of embarrassment and fear of offending other students. I tried to solve this problem in a somewhat controversial way.
by Brian Current, Music
We recreated the ambient sounds I recorded by “performing” the piece as a class. Dividing the parts up as one would for a choir, we assigned some students as the “chair-squeakers”, some as the “sighers”, some as the “inhalers”, and one…as the “pencil-clicker”. With myself as conductor, we proceeded to perform our twenty seconds of music, producing a sound world not unlike that which I had heard the week before…I asked them: “Is this music?”
by Steve Dawson, Astronomy
Any physical problem, as well as all of the associated formalism, can be rendered not only intelligible but even pleasurable if the student first achieves a gut sense of the physical situation. Put plainly, all of the math in any science class makes sense if the student first has an intuitive mental picture of exactly what is going on.