We are now accepting applications for the 2021-2022 cohort of Pedagogy Fellows. Pedagogy Fellows enhance training and support for teaching fellows within their departments and across the FAS. They lead pedagogy seminars and workshops, consult with TFs, and develop resources on teaching and professional development for their peers.

Through their work and the Bok Center’s training, Pedagogy Fellows grow in their own careers as teachers and scholars. Each year, fellows report on how much they learn...

In the wake of the attack on the nation’s Capitol last week, President Bacow wrote, “As members of a university community dedicated to truth, learning, research, debate, and service, we condemn ignorance and hatred, and stand in support of the rule of law and the role of knowledge.”

Regardless of your discipline, current events relate in some way to your teaching—whether this means...

We are pleased to share our 2019-20 annual report, which showcases highlights from the year, including how we helped facilitate the transition to remote teaching, examples of courses we supported, and stories of students who have taken part in our programming. Especially given the challenges of the past year, we are proud of the strength of our community, and that we worked with more faculty and graduate students than ever before.

View our annual report.

We are heartbroken to share that our beloved faculty director, Robert Lue, passed away on Wednesday, November 11. Rob was appointed as the inaugural Richard L. Menschel Faculty Director of the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning in 2013. He had a vision for a teaching and learning center that would attract and energize faculty, graduate students and undergraduates; that would spark excitement and creativity about what could happen in the classroom; and that would build an intergenerational community around teaching. During the seven years of his tenure, Rob transformed the Bok...

"In 1977 humanity sent a mixtape into outer space. The two spacecraft of NASA’s Voyager mission include a Golden Record, featuring greetings in 55 earth languages, 116 images of the planet and its inhabitants, plus examples of music from a range of cultures across the world: from Azerbaijani bagpipes to Zaire pygmy songs, from English Renaissance dances to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, and from Louis Armstrong to Chuck Berry. The samplings of earthbound auditory culture are on their way into the unknown.”

So begins the course description for Alex Rehding’s...

Bok Center staff played an active role in last Friday’s annual Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching (HILT) conference on Championing Equitable Instruction and Inclusive Classrooms, a topic at the core of our work with instructors at all stages. In addition to our many staff who attended the conference as participants, two Bok staff members led breakout sessions. Pamela Pollock, Director of Professional Development, co-facilitated a breakout session on...

This summer was a busy time at the Bok Center. In the November-December issue of Harvard Magazine, the Bok Center’s Director of Pedagogy Adam Beaver describes some of the ways in which the Bok Center worked with the Office of Undergraduate Education to help faculty prepare to teach remotely this fall. One of the unique challenges facing fall term faculty—one that they did not face in the spring, when they pivoted online halfway through the semester—was the absence of in person meetings where faculty and students  could build rapport and community that could be sustained...

The Bok Center is excited to announce the launch of a new graduate fellow program, the Media and Design Fellows (MDFs)! As part of the Bok Center’s Learning Lab team, MDFs support innovative course development within the FAS, partnering with faculty and staff to design a variety of digital tools, course materials, and assignments for undergraduate courses and departments.

Across the disciplines, faculty and students are innovating by deploying richer media (3D models, high quality videos, well-designed infographics and illustrations) and richer interactions...

We are pleased to share that we have contributed a chapter to The Routledge International Handbook of Student-Centered Learning and Teaching in Higher Education!  Edited by Sabine Hoidn and Manja Klemenčič, Lecturer on Sociology, the Routledge Handbook provides a comprehensive examination of student-centered learning. Tamara Brenner,...

Back in July, Peter Girguis, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, reached out to the Bok Center after a series of informal conversations with faculty colleagues about their innovative ideas for the upcoming semester, which would be taught entirely remotely. The faculty Girguis encountered were working hard across the summer to develop innovative, rich experiences for undergraduates in the fall. While some types of...