Learning Lab

New Bok Center Publication on the Learning Lab

New Bok Center Publication on the Learning Lab

April 4, 2023

We are pleased to share that we contributed a chapter to a new book, In their own words: What scholars and teachers want you to know about why and how to apply the science of learning in your academic setting. This ebook, which is published online by the Society for the Teaching of Psychology, explores scholarship on the science of learning and its applications to higher education. In the chapter, “The Learning Lab: An Experiment in Student-Centered  Teaching and Learning,” written by...

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2023 Apr 11

Harvard Horizons Symposium 2023

5:00pm to 7:15pm

Location: 

Sanders Theater, 45 Quincy St, Cambridge

The Bok Center is proud to support the Harvard Horizons program, which highlights the exciting scholarship of GSAS PhD students across disciplines. This year, nine PhD candidates have been chosen to receive in-depth, personalized mentoring and coaching designed to enhance their presentation skills. The program culminates in a symposium of brief,...

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Christine D'Auria, Assistant Director of the Learning Lab, demonstrating a VR headset.

Media & Design Fellow Supports New Video Games Course

March 8, 2023

Carly Yingst, this year’s Media & Design Fellow in English, designed and facilitated an interactive, multi-station workshop for Professor Vidyan Ravinthiran’s course English 189VG: Video Game Storytelling. The Harvard Gazette featured the course, describing the workshop Carly took the lead in designing:

“As part of the curriculum, students attended a workshop hosted by The Bok Center’s Learning Lab, which sought to provide insight into the technical side of gaming. One...

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2023 Jan 20

Visual Communication

1:15pm to 2:30pm

Location: 

50 Church St. 3rd Floor Learning Lab Studio

Led by:
Marlon Kuzmick, Director of the Learning Lab, and the Bok Learning Lab Team

How do you use visuals to help your audience develop a schema to understand your work? In this session, you will explore how to communicate your work visually, and how visuals communicate structure to help your audience understand the main idea, whether you are teaching or presenting your research. You will explore the different roles visuals can play in a talk, analyze examples, learn some key principles of visual design, and practice with different tools to communicate...

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Claire Adams

Analyzing the Past Using Multimodal Projects

April 1, 2022

As a way of augmenting students' learning in History courses, Media & Design Fellow Claire Adams (PhD candidate in History) developed a series of workshops at the Learning Lab to introduce students to the fundamentals of visual communication and presenting academic findings in digital forms. Designed to work in conjunction with specific course content and the analytical methods that students need to practice, Claire’s scaffolding activities, and the...

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Xiaomeng Han

Graphical Abstracts to Teach Neuroscience

March 2, 2022

In MCB80, The Neurobiology of Behavior, many Harvard undergraduates encounter scientific papers for the first time. As a way to augment students’ understanding of influential research papers in neuroscience, Media & Design Fellow Xiaomeng Han (PhD candidate in Neuroscience) has developed “graphical abstracts”—a form that uses illustration and graphic design to explain, and in a sense tell a story about, key concepts in neuroscience.

As a Media & Design Fellow at the Learning Lab, Xiaomeng’s project...

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Flexibility in Form: Podcasting with Spanish 50

Flexibility in Form: Podcasting with Spanish 50

February 4, 2022

Over the last two years, we’ve all had to make adjustments to our plans, whether as instructors, students, or support staff. One of the Learning Lab’s Media & Design Fellows, Ignacio Azcueta, recently demonstrated the importance of developing resources and course plans that are responsive to quickly-changing conditions. At Bok, we are heartened by the adaptability of our fellows and their students.

Ignacio Azcueta (PhD candidate in Romance Languages and Literatures) has been working as a Media & Design Fellow...

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2020-21 Bok Annual Report

2020-21 Bok Annual Report

December 17, 2021

As we reflect on the year and prepare for winter recess, we are pleased to share our 2020-21 annual report, which showcases our year of remote teaching and learning. The report highlights key moments from the year as we transitioned our programming and support online, and endeavored to keep up with the needs of teachers and learners across the FAS.  We are proud of our work supporting faculty and PhD students and building community around teaching throughout these challenging times. 

We wish you a restful and restorative winter recess, and we look forward to working...

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Grace Burgin

Science through Story: Podcasts in OEB50

April 7, 2021

When OEB50: Genetics and Genomics wrapped in Fall 2019, Professors Robin Hopkins and Dan Hartl, who co-teach the course, decided to incorporate a creative project that would allow students to engage course material in new ways in the next iteration. Little did they know that the next iteration of the course would be on Zoom!

When it came time to design the creative project, Hopkins and Hartl turned to OEB graduate student Grace Burgin, a Media and Design Fellow at the Bok Center’s Learning Lab. ...

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The cover image for the Voyager Golden Record resource created by the Bok Learning Lab.

Explore the Golden Record!

October 28, 2020

"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...

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Media and Design Fellow David Forrest works collaboratively with an undergraduate student on some audio equipment.

Media & Design Fellows Program Launches

September 25, 2020

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...

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Machine in deep sea

Dispatches from the Field: Teaching Innovation Videos

September 16, 2020

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...

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