Capstone Projects, 2020–2021

Jonathan Karp

I was lucky to inherit a well-organized pedagogy course from Christofer Rodelo, the 2019 – 2020 Pedagogy Fellow. In my presentation, I highlighted three parts of this year’s course that felt distinct. First, I spoke about the practice of regular and lengthy check-ins, which involved both individual writing reflections and time to share. Second, I shared information about an event on power and pedagogy, a collaboration with our DIB Fellow. Finally, I spoke about the importance of bringing HGSU into the classroom. We had a representative of the union at our first meeting to go over the contract and expectations around teaching.

View Jonathan's capstone project.

Kate Rose

This year I aimed to build off the work of the previous fellow in contributing to the canvas site while teaching the pedagogy course. My project consists of a series of modules discussing conflict management and communication strategies for respectful, inclusive, and transparent class environments. Module topics include the importance of community agreements, preparing for different scales of conflicts with multiple stakeholder identities (undergraduates, TFs, instructors), and practicing active listening in group and one-on-one settings. I am hoping these modules will develop as interactive spaces for continued dialogue and shared experiences between TFs at all teaching stages.

View Kate's capstone project.

Buse Aktas

One way to test your assumptions about ‘effective teaching and learning’ is to turn it into an education research project, where you modify a class/unit and quantitatively and qualitatively assess the outcomes. In this project, I modified an existing engineering course (ENG-SCI 120) by designing and incorporating more diverse, playful, and applicable/relatable assignments and activities, as well as by making some structural changes. I measured the outcomes by looking at student self-efficacy, performance on a concept inventory test, and responses to an open-ended question. I’m currently analyzing the data to see if and how these modifications have improved outcomes. 

View Buse's capstone project.

Anna Hopper

My PF capstone this year was comprised of a series of reflections on how COVID has changed my communication with TFs. Interestingly, I've had many fewer TFs reach out through formal channels (e.g. requesting observations) and many more requests for help in informal ways (e.g. over Slack or in non-pedagogy-related Zoom meetings). In my presentation, I discussed some sample interactions with TFs and potential lessons learned.

View Anna's capstone project.

Olivia Miller

As a Bok Pedagogy Fellow, I had the opportunity to co-lead the undergraduate Course Assistant (CA) Training that took place before the beginning of the 2020 fall semester. Through the CA feedback on the fall training and my own experience as a TF working with CAs, I have realized the unique role of CAs and the insight they can bring to an undergraduate level course as well as the challenges they might face. I have focused on highlighting both the challenges and opportunities of the CA role and have provided suggestions for better supporting undergraduates in this role.

View Olivia's capstone project.

Suzanne Paszkowski

This poster represents the work I did in reading bell hooks's Teaching to Transgress. This started out as a PF reading group in the fall, and I was able to transform it into a Bok Seminar this spring. We met bi-weekly for an hour 6 times, reading approximately 30 pages each session, and each time the conversations were inspiring, challenging, and worthwhile--there are so many people in our community who care about teaching. The quotes on the poster capture some of the ideas in Teaching to Transgress, and the strategies in the bottom right are my advice to future PFs.

View Suzanne's capstone project.

Emily Kerr & Paloma Tuttle-Vasseur

This year the chemistry CCB pedagogy fellows focused on supporting TFs throughout their progression from novices in the fall G1 pedagogy course through their upper level or head TF positions later in graduate school. This work included assisting organizing and teaching the pedagogy course, rethinking how we give feedback and do observations partway through their G1 spring as they develop more skill, authority and autonomy in the classroom, and surveying and meeting with head TFs and upper level TFs to understand what challenges they face and what support the teaching faculty and PFs in the department could provide.

View Emily and Paloma's capstone project.

Julia Judge

My capstone project is an ongoing Canvas page that serves as a gateway to information, resources, teaching materials, and communication for graduate student TFs in the Classics department. Because Classics is an interdisciplinary field, our TFs teach a range of courses, and therefore require a lot of different tools and resources to teach effectively. The challenge has been to organize all these resources into a centralized, accessible place. The new Canvas page aims to be a one-stop-shop for all the information and resources that graduate student TFs need to meet any challenge they may face throughout their teaching careers at Harvard.

View Julia's capstone project.

Hudson Vincent

As a Pedagogy Fellow in Comparative Literature, I helped teach a graduate seminar on “Professing Literature,” organized new events for the department including a workshop on equity and inclusion in the classroom, and hosted an intensive pedagogy workshop for teaching online during the pandemic.

View Hudson's capstone project.

Sarah Bramao-Ramos

I was asked to bring in guests, specifically EALC faculty, to speak at the EALC Teaching Practicum in the Fall of 2020. In previous years, however, this has proved to be quite a difficult task, as faculty are notoriously difficult to schedule for such guest appearances. This semester I instead interviewed faculty on the topic of teaching and recorded them ahead of time, producing short videos on a variety of topics that students taking the course watched in advance of our class meetings. This resulted in a set of teaching resources that future PFs and TFs alike can use.

View Sarah's capstone project.

Alex Creighton

In my dual roles as Bok Pedagogy Fellow and FAS Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Fellow, I served as a consultant for various English Department initiatives meant to foster a culture of diversity and inclusivity. I collated resources and presented on best practices for creating diverse and inclusive syllabi; I came up with a preliminary reading list to supplement the department's G3 Pedagogy Seminar (English 350); and I served as a consultant on the Development Committee, whose goal is to improve departmental culture. Through these efforts, I have helped in creating a foundation for future departmental D.I.B. efforts.

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Aleks Kudryashova

The GLL Department offers a yearly Pedagogy Course, monthly Professional Development Workshops and has, over the years, accumulated a lot of helpful resources and materials. However, 2020/2021 was the first year that our program had a departmental Pedagogy Fellow. My goal was thus to create a Canvas database (‘GLL Hub’) where current and future students, TFs and TAs can easily orient themselves and learn about the resources available to them. My hope is that this site with its simple and navigable design will function as a platform for formal and less formal exchanges; help us as a community maintain our institutional memory; and allow the department to build on the resources it already has.

View Aleks' capstone project.

Elizabeth Hentschel

As a Bok Pedagogy Fellow for the Global Health Education and Learning Incubator (GHELI), and also a PhD student in the Global Health and Population Department (GHP) at the School of Public Health (HSPH), I have learned that there are few existing collaborations between the two departments. As the PF for GHELI, I lead the hiring of TA's for the course, pulling primarily from the GHP department at HSPH. In doing so, I have seen first-hand the extent to which undergraduates benefit from their relationships with our TA's. Many students reach out to our TA's for summer internship, career, and overall life advice. Our TA's have been incredible mentors to our students. This experience has made me reflect on how great the opportunity is within the GHP department to foster these types of relationships. As such, I am proposing a Global Health Mentorship Program that I aim to launch in the 2021-2022 AY.

View Elizabeth's capstone project.

Belle Cheves

The History Department has a required year-long Pedagogy Colloquium, which the PF builds on every year. This year, based on feedback from prior years (and the current state of affairs), we incorporated more professionalization elements into the course, thematically combining pedagogical discussions with overviews and workshops of what else is expected of History G3s. For example, week three examines writing – how to effectively teach it, grade it, and manage doing your own (such as the prospectus and fellowship application essays).

I also developed a resource guide for History TFs, compiling advice from past TFs in an accessible, easily updatable format.

View Belle's capstone project.

Tasha Schoenstein

I faced two challenges as the History of Science PF this year: 1) the department had not had a PF for many years, and 2) COVID made written resources more accessible than workshops. Much of my work this year involved supporting a (highly successful) new, faculty-run 5-session syllabus design workshop. Part of this role entailed assembling syllabus design resources, which formed the core of a new teaching resources page on our graduate student resources website. While these asynchronous resources seemed helpful to graduate students this year, hopefully next year's PF will be able to provide more in-person pedagogy support.

View Tasha's capstone project.

Shannon Bryant

This project, an ongoing Canvas page for TFs in Linguistics, brings together teaching materials, pedagogy resources, and discussion space within one easy-access website. The primary goal of this website is to facilitate navigation of the wealth of resources and support available to TFs: help guides, worksheets, and relevant links are sorted into modules that can be expanded and organized to better fit the evolving needs and interests of TFs in the department. Additionally, the website’s discussion section provides a platform for TFs to connect with one another and may serve as a catalogue of common questions and teaching experiences.

View Shannon's capstone project.

Morgan Opie

One of my main projects this year was helping with the Teaching Undergraduate Mathematics Seminar (TUMS), a department requirement for first-year PhD students. As part of the TUMS teaching team, I worked with Robin Gottlieb and Brendan Kelly to revise the curriculum with the goal of making each lesson as concrete and engaging as possible. Beyond this, I held workshops and events for graduate students at all levels. Previous PFs have introduced a number of teaching-related panels. I continued many and designed some new events to meet the needs of our department’s graduate students in this unprecedented time.

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Matt Holmes

As the first MCB Pedagogy Fellow in several years, my goal was to reestablish and define my position. My capstone project, an attempt to pass the torch effectively, reflects my belief that the PF’s work extends beyond any one year or person. I have written a letter to my successor that describes our support network, the work that I’ve developed so far, and opportunities for their coming year. Accompanying this letter is a draft syllabus and lesson plans for a potential course on pedagogy for my graduate program. I hope this course will be a keystone for the PF position in the future.

View Matt's capstone project.

Alex Cowan

As a capstone, I have prepared a resource guide for teaching music history and theory online, focusing on techniques I observed from the experiences of our TFs this year. It covers technical aspects of teaching music over zoom, as well as some bespoke software solutions, and general pedagogical technique. It is set up as a Google Doc, and my intention is that it will be a living document to be edited by future TFs.

Nick Herrmann

One goal of OEB’s pedagogy course is to help first-year students form a positive community. To that end, I gave students the opportunity to “share their story,” which I modeled during our first class. I talked for about 8 minutes about where I’m from, my family, my work, and my hobbies, and then I took questions. Over the rest of the year, 15 of 18 students opted to share their own stories. Acclimating to graduate school remotely is not easy. Still, I think many students ended the year feeling connected to their classmates and to the department.

View Nick's capstone project.

Caitlin Fitchett

The pedagogy seminar in the Philosophy Department is an established program, which is compulsory for graduate students who will be teaching at Harvard for the first time. Typically, the participants are G3 students. Some G3s have taught before while others are new to teaching. One of my aims has been to align the way we teach pedagogy with how we teach philosophy. This approach has two core benefits: it speaks to the interests and learning style of the seminar participants, and it provides a way of engaging more experienced teachers as well as those new to teaching.

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Adam Mastroianni

Fall 2020 was a moment of crisis: we were mid-pandemic and just coming off a summer of protests for racial justice. The syllabus I inherited was from a different time and needed some redesigning to reflect the current moment. I made the following changes:

• Starting off with microteaching so that the first time TFs were teaching was not in their own classroom
• Bringing in a guest from Minerva, an online startup university that has been teaching online since before it was cool
• Then shifting to diversity, equity and inclusion by bringing in a group of students to talk about their experiences in the psych department. You can’t include people if you don’t know who they are.
• Finally, I brought in our new Director of Graduate Studies for an exercise in which we read some DEI scenarios that might come up, then discussed solutions.

View Adam's capstone project.

Carleigh Beriont

This year, the HDS Teaching Liaison, Lucy Ballard, and I, created a canvas site for Teaching Fellows in Religion. Primarily aimed at current teaching fellows, it is a virtual space for us to gather and share resources related to pedagogy and professionalization and serves to connect teaching fellows and graduate students to events around Harvard and content related to the study and teaching of religion more broadly. It is our hope that future pedagogy fellows provide access to the site in the form of an archive or continue to update and maintain the site.

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Emily Epperson & Luca Politi

For new TFs, we modeled successful teaching practices and consulted with them on recordings of their classes. For experienced TFs, we convened a panel of alumni to speak about the job market. We also offered events for all TAs and TFs: a reading group discussing the practical side of virtual teaching, and listening hours (“Getting ReaLL with Emily and Luca”) for instructors to chat about challenges of virtual instruction. We also helped organize a talk series about social justice in language pedagogy.

View Emily and Luca's capstone project.

Lillian Pentecost

Teaching Fellows (TFs) across the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have varied backgrounds, teaching roles, and support needs. Micro-teaching sessions for first-time TFs provide the opportunity to practice teaching, give feedback to peers, and to reflect and discuss their role as a TF. Framing the micro-teaching as an approachable, low-stakes small group discussion encourages TFs to attend and to engage with one another. Additional efforts like the SEAS Teaching Practicum, an inclusive pedagogy graduate student reading group, and peer teaching consultations provide additional opportunities for SEAS TFs to become more reflective and intentional teachers.

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Raymond DeLuca

For my capstone project, I made a “how-to-guide,” a series of (seven) handouts, for graduate students, especially incoming ones, on navigating the department and professional field as young scholars. Though this information is tailored to Harvard’s Slavic program specifically, it can be easily retooled for another department. The information covered in these documents includes conferences, teaching assignments, funding, publishing, fellowships, a departmental timeline, general exams, and Bok Center resources. The advice here is meant neither to be exhaustive nor fully authoritative but a useful starting point in acquainting new graduate students with the professional field.

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Derek Robey

Advising senior theses is common graduate students in the Department of Sociology that are in the dissertation phase. For my capstone project, I created an advising guide for graduate students who are preparing to advise an undergraduate senior thesis. This guide compiles university and department resources related to advising and mentoring. I also surveyed previous senior thesis advisers to get their suggestions for best practices and their tips for overcoming obstacles that are commonly faced during this process. This guide will help reduce the ambiguity and uncertainty experienced by first-time thesis advisers.