Whether your students were already immersed in a group project before spring break, or are just starting to prepare for a collaborative capstone assignment, you—and they—might be concerned about the additional challenges posed by the shift to a remote, online, and often asynchronous learning environment. How can students work together effectively if they are not on the same continent, let alone the same campus? In this session we can think together about some tools (like Slack and Google Docs) and strategies that can ensure that your students still learn meaningful lessons...

How are students doing, and how are they learning? Staying connected is at a premium in these challenging times, for instructors and students alike. As the instructor, how can you stay in tune with your students when the ways you usually check their engagement and understanding aren’t available? We will explore strategies for fostering active learning and student engagement in seminar courses, and share specific strategies to “read” the class via Zoom. NB: This session might appeal equally to Teaching Fellows leading discussion sections.

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Before the start of the semester, you may have put in place a plan for a final assessment—say, a research paper—with the assumption that students would have access to on-campus resources (not to mention uninterrupted time) that may no longer be available to them. Now that the landscape has changed—and students will be graded SAT/UNSAT—your capstone might bear some rethinking. In this meet-up, we will talk about the kinds of assignments students may or may not be able to complete remotely, and about how to set meaningful standards without the extrinsic motivation of letter...

Please RSVP by the Monday of the meeting week.

For the schedule, readings, and to RSVP, visit: STEM Journal Club Canvas Site

Journal clubs meet biweekly during the academic year to examine recent literature in teaching and learning on various topics according to faculty interest. Faculty and graduate students are welcome to attend. Because journal club meetings are held over lunch, we request that participants RSVP in advance.

Our science education journal club...

Most basic labs in science courses provide the hands-on experience of doing experiments coupled with subsequent data interpretation. More advanced lab courses also require students to design their experiments. In this meet-up we will discuss how combinations of lab simulations/videos, data sets and primary literature can create online “labs” that help our students understand a full arc of the scientific process.

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