Pamela Pollock, Director of Professional Development, Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning

As a PhD student, you likely take for granted a lot of the spaces and routines of academic life, whether it’s the way you use footnotes, the norms and rules of a lab, how you read an article in your discipline, or even how you prepare for and participate in class. As a Teaching Fellow, how do you manage making these norms transparent, while also helping your students feel welcome and ready to learn in your classroom? In many ways, being a TF is like being a host—...

Jonah Johnson, Assistant Director for Writing Pedagogy, Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning; Head Preceptor in the Writing Program

Have you graded a thousand papers and need some new ideas? Or is grading papers totally new to you? Are you worried about how much time you spend grading? Or how to ensure that your feedback is accurate, consistent, and useful for your students? In this session we’ll discuss best practices for responding to student writing, which will help you grade that next stack of papers more efficiently and effectively. We’ll discuss general...

Yasemin Kalender, Assistant Director, Science Pedagogy, Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning

Leading laboratory sections can often be one of the most fun and rewarding ways to teach and engage with students. This session is designed to prepare you to lead laboratory sections with confidence. How can you ensure that each student feels at home in the lab? How do you use the lab space and time to maximize student learning? How should you organize your pre-lab talk to the students, and should you save certain tips for later? Should you emphasize the students’...

Yasemin Kalender, Assistant Director, Science Pedagogy, Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning

Problem solving is a central activity in science, engineering, and math classes. In this workshop, designed for both new and experienced TFs in the STEM disciplines, we will explore strategies for teaching with problems. How and why might you encourage students to work in groups to solve problems? How can you enable a variety of students to participate and share their answers and ideas with the class? This workshop will provide you with practical methods for...

Rebecca Miller Brown, Assistant Director, Graduate Student Programming, Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning
Julia Judge Mulhall, Bok Pedagogy Fellow 

What makes for an effective discussion in your discipline? How do you balance your goals for the session with student questions and interests? What are strategies you can use to encourage participation from all corners of the class? Join us for a discussion of these and other questions about how to make discussion more meaningful and engaging. We’ll play with the various moves people...

Sarah Emory, Assistant Director, International Teachers and Scholars, Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning
with an experienced panel of undergraduate Culture and Communication Consultants

Are you a TF who received your undergraduate degree at an institution outside the U.S.? How might the undergraduate experience at Harvard differ from your own experience? What does it mean to be a teaching fellow (TF) and what do Harvard undergraduates expect from TFs? In...

Adam Beaver, Director of Pedagogy, Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning

Want to learn more about how to be an effective Head Teaching Fellow? Looking for a forum to talk through what it’s like to work closely with your coursehead, and to coordinate a larger teaching team? Wondering what is (or isn’t) your responsibility, and where to get help? Join the Bok Center’s Director of Pedagogy and veteran Head TFs for a wide-ranging, informal discussion about the ins and outs of the job. 

This session is part of the Fall Teaching Conference,...

Seth Avakian, Program Officer for Title IX and Professional Conduct for the FAS
Danielle Farrell, Director of Student Services, GSAS

This session will address principles of professional conduct and classroom management for teachers as it relates to Title IX responsibilities and Harvard’s commitment to gender equity.  We’ll discuss how one balances Harvard University’s commitment to the free exchange of ideas while maintaining a safe and healthy educational and work environment in which no member of the community is on the basis of sex, including...

Erika Bailey, Head of Voice and Speech, American Repertory Theater; Lecturer on Theater, Dance & Media

We spend most of our time preparing for class by focusing on what we need to cover— what we need to SAY. But are we actually reaching our students? Our physical as well as our vocal presence play an integral role in our ability to communicate our ideas and engage students. This year, after more than a year of being physically distant from each other and teaching within the confines of a Zoom square, we will also be re-introduced to the possibilities of sharing...

Brett Flehinger, Associate Dean of Academic Integrity and Student Conduct
Brigitte Libby, Assistant Dean for Academic Integrity and Student Conduct

What should you know about academic integrity at Harvard College as you prepare to teach this year as students return to the classroom (or enter for the first time)?  This session offers an overview of the Honor Code, the Honor Council, and the most common types of concerns that come to the Council. We will also offer suggestions for how you can help students approach their academic work with...

Eleanor Finnegan, Assistant Director, Faculty Programming, Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning

As a graduate student, you may be asked to teach a course outside of your primary area of expertise—whether in a department or program different from your own, or in the Program in General Education. This can be a daunting prospect, but effective teaching ultimately is not just (or even primarily) about mastering or communicating a specific body of content. It is about rendering transparent to students the rules of the disciplinary game(s) they are being asked to play...

Bok Center Staff

Equitable and inclusive teaching involves cultivating awareness of the dynamics that shape classroom experiences and, critically, how those experiences impact student learning. In this session we’ll introduce some key concepts from the research on inclusive teaching, to help us 1) consider common challenges to fostering equitable and inclusive learning environments, and 2) discuss strategies you can use to create conditions conducive to helping your students feel both welcome and capable of learning effectively in your class. In the first part of the session...

Allan Brandt, Professor of the History of Science and Amalie Moses Kass Professor of the History of Medicine; former Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

What does it mean to be back in the classroom? What do we need to think about as we rejoin our community on campus, after such a tumultuous year? In this opening plenary, hear from Allan Brandt, Professor in History of Science and former GSAS Dean, about what he learned from teaching a ...