In a typical year, the Bok Center’s Learning Lab houses multiple intergenerational working groups we call “Labs,” each dedicated to a specific medium or tool used by courses we support: realityLab for 3D modelling and VR/AR, codeLab for web development, theatreLab for performance-based assignments, and so on. This year, when courses moved online in March, we had each and every one of our student fellows and staff join a central team called distanceLab, which was tasked with developing responses to the new challenges our faculty and students were facing in teaching and learning...

In our latest installment from the Learning Lab’s gameLab team, Graduate Fellow Clarisse Wells introduces two gaming concepts, Metagaming and Speedrunning, where players draw on their accumulated experience in order to optimize game mechanics and exploit trends in gameplay to create advantages and complete new challenges. While this might sound like “cheating,” in these posts...

When word came that courses would be moving online for the remainder of Spring 2020, Learning Lab Graduate Fellow Phil Fahn-Lai knew that the science course for which he is a Teaching Fellow would face a particular challenge. Labs in OEB 126: Vertebrate Evolution, taught by Prof. Stephanie E. Pierce, involve visits to the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, where students view and interact with fossil specimens from the Museum’s Vertebrate Paleontology collection. The labs reinforce information learned in...

One of the things we love most about our work in the Learning Lab is the challenge of responding quickly and dynamically to unusual requests in creative assignment design. One way we foster this dynamism is by leveraging our Learning Lab Undergraduate Fellows (LLUFs), whose intuitions about what mediums and modes will appeal most to their peers yields ideas and resources that can be translated into the classroom in surprising ways. While the LLUFs certainly aren’t as expert as the faculty when it comes to the course material, they are inarguably experts on their own experiences...

At the Bok Center we’re fortunate to be able to partner with a wide array of instructors and courses, from engineering labs to writing seminars. These partnerships take many different forms, but the one constant is the depth of our engagement. We understand that helping an instructor formulate an effective or innovative experience or assignment is only part of our job. We’re also here to help the instructor bring that idea to life, whether that means offering specialized training to Teaching Fellows, a custom-built web resource to house student work, or workshops and hackathons...

Have you used active learning in your classes? If so, ABLConnect wants to know about it!

If you have developed and used an active learning exercise in your class recently, we'd love for you to submit it to the ABLConnect Teaching Innovator Prize, which celebrates Harvard University instructors who develop and use active learning in their classrooms! This year we are especially interested in submissions related to remote learning....

In a typical semester, the Bok Center’s Learning Lab hosts an array of workshops and hackathons on a wide range of skills, including photography, game design, animation, and  infographics.  These workshops help students in Bok-supported courses complete assignments and capstone projects. The Learning Lab Undergraduate Fellows (LLUFs) are central to these efforts, having spent a year or more developing technical skills that they share with their peers.... Read more about Students Supporting Student Learning

One month ago, Harvard students transitioned to remote learning. Over this time, we have regularly asked the Bok Center’s undergraduate fellows to reflect on their experiences with online courses and with learning in new environments. Last week, we asked students to weigh in on the ways in which learning has changed over the past month. Below, and on this blog, we share reflections from undergraduates who work with the Bok Center’s Learning Lab.... Read more about One Month In: How Has Learning Changed?

On the morning of Tuesday, 10 March, Harvard’s faculty, students, and staff logged on to their email to find unprecedented news from president Larry Bacow: in just under two weeks (including Spring Break), Harvard would move instruction online, with the vast majority of its students off campus and taught remotely through Zoom, Canvas, and other digital means. The university’s sudden move to remote teaching and learning was obviously tremendously disruptive to students, who had to pack their belongings and...

As we are all gaining experience with remote teaching and learning, we are pleased to share a post on lessons from game design. Learning Lab Graduate Fellow Ceci Mancuso reflects on the mechanics that asynchronous online games use to connect players across the globe and what those mechanics can teach us about designing asynchronous experiences for our students.... Read more about Lessons from Game Design: 3 Reasons to Add “Turns” to Your Online Class