by Ashwin Mandakolathur Balu, Public Policy Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2021 Using experimental methods to establish causal relationships has been the holy grail of research in social sciences. However, it is a challenge to teach these concepts since it requires knowledge about sampling methods, statistics, and probability, as well as…
by Jessica Katz, Energy and Resources Group Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2021 One of the most challenging aspects of adjusting to a remote classroom has been losing the nonverbal cues that allow teachers and students to communicate efficiently in real time. As a GSI for an interdisciplinary data science course…
by Kevin Lin, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2019 Students learn computer science (CS) by doing. In CS 61A, a highly-rated introductory CS course at UC Berkeley, students are introduced to new concepts in lecture, go hands-on to learn the solution process in lab and discussion…
by Samuel Nicholas Ramsey, Group in Logic Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2017 In my first year of graduate school, a math professor confessed to me that it was only late in their graduate school career that they learned that most mathematicians spend their time feeling completely confused. This should be…
by Jeffrey Kaplan, Philosophy Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2017 In my experience, there is one problem that plagues higher education, especially in the humanities and social sciences. It is not a subtle problem. But it prevents progress in virtually every area of the educational and classroom experience. If this one…
by Caroline Delaire, Civil and Environmental Engineering I quickly realized that the class generated a lot of anxiety. Students, undergraduate and graduate alike, were surprised and challenged by the quantity of equations and algebra involved in lectures and homeworks. I helped them the best I could with solving problem sets, but at the same time I started to understand that by focusing on algebra and equations students were at risk of missing the point of the class: gaining practical knowledge about water chemistry. They were simply not developing the intuition that would help them address real world environmental issues!
by Nadia Kurd, Molecular and Cell Biology I was frustrated to find that any time I catered to the more advanced students and presented more challenging topics, the rest of the class struggled to follow along; whereas when I continued to conduct class at a level where most of the students were comfortable, the advanced students again lost interest. In an attempt to remedy this problem, I decided to try to develop “interactive” worksheets for class.
by Marquise McGraw, Economics I innovated by...creat[ing] an exercise that required students to integrate multiple concepts and skills to solve...This type of activity proved to be much more effective in promoting student learning than the standard “chalk and talk” delivery.
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 Mathew Wedel, Integrative Biology The most serious problem I encountered was the tendency of students to skip the lectures. Many students assumed that that they could get all the information they needed in lab or discussion sections, or by reading the textbook on their own time... I needed a way to encourage students to attend lecture, something that did not rely on the nebulous threat of poor performance on future exams.