by Nitin Kohli, School of Information Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2019 Behind the Data: Humans and Values (Info 188) deals with the social, political, and ethical considerations of data science. Data science solutions are actively being deployed in diverse settings, implicating values such as privacy, fairness, and freedom of expression. Continue Reading >>
by Mariel Goddu, Psychology Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2019 PSYCH 140 (Developmental Psychology) attracts a variety of students. Some students have psychology research experience and interests. However, many are interested in applied fields like education, social work, and social policy, and these students may be less inclined to delve into Continue Reading >>
by Alexandria Yuan, Business Administration (Home Department: Goldman School of Public Policy) Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2016 The Problem: There are two things that I have to actively fight in the classroom: complacency, and its closely related cousin, a kind of superficial motivation for students to participate in class simply Continue Reading >>
by Leila Mansouri, English Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2016 Engaging with scholarly criticism for the first time is daunting for undergraduates. Accustomed to thinking of academic books and articles as authoritative, students often struggle instead to point out what scholars have misunderstood or overlooked. Likewise, unsure who (aside from their Continue Reading >>
Detailed explanation of group work techniques you can use in your classroom.
by Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan, Rhetoric
[A]sked to write an essay that deals with more than one primary text, [students’] tendency is … to either illustrate the ways in which the texts make equivalent arguments, or to pit one text/author against the other… I realized that I needed to do more to teach students what it means to bring two texts “into conversation.”
by Anna Harkey, Anthropology
Abstract concepts can present a real challenge, and for most — and especially for the high percentage of freshmen who take the class each semester — the whole concept of a “theoretical perspective” is entirely foreign. They soon learn the names of different schools of theory, names of scholars associated with each, and details of case studies demonstrating what each looks like in practice. But as exams loomed closer last spring, Q&A time with my sections revealed that many were still confused.
by Anna Rubin, Public Policy
Assigning students to small groups leveraged the economics background that many students brought to this class by putting them in the role of a peer teacher… This structure…help[ed] students struggling to understand core concepts…[and created] opportunities for all students to apply these concepts to public policy questions.
by Stephanie Langin-Hooper, Near Eastern Studies
One of the most involved and successful projects that I designed was a miniature replica of underwater shipwreck excavations. Using large turkey roasting pans, water, sand, and an assortment of miniature objects, I recreated three underwater shipwreck excavation sites…The students became the archaeologists and were divided up into excavation teams…Through a multi-sensory engagement, this project successfully opened the eyes of my students to the dynamic process of archaeological excavation.
by Jessica Shade, Integrative Biology
I saw several examples of this disparity between surface learning of principles and working comprehension. For instance…students…had no problem calculating allele frequencies and genotype ratios using the Hardy Weinberg equations, but they were…baffled by the simple question, “What does this mean?”