March and April are always a busy time for the Bok Center’s nine Undergraduate Pedagogy Fellows (UPFs). In the pre-COVID-19 era, they would spend these months visiting departments and programs across the FAS, delivering workshops on student identities and classroom power dynamics to Teaching Fellows (TFs) and faculty. This year, instead, they found themselves moving their work online. As the semester comes to a close, the UPFs reflect on how online teaching and learning has surfaced new ways for them to help instructors think about the undergraduate experience.

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...

From the moment courses moved online in March, Bok Center undergraduate fellows have been compiling a list of effective moves and design choices that faculty and TFs have performed in the new distance-learning environment. Aware that their instructors were making the difficult transition to a new teaching dynamic, they sought to identify and recognize exceptional moments and “moves.” The students playfully use the term “Gold Star Teaching Moves” to reference the iconic symbol of classroom achievement in grade-school, and to indicate the way in which they are inverting the flow...

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...

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?