As scholars, we are always developing our research, but how do we think about learning and growing as teachers? This spring, an interdisciplinary group of ten PhD students explored frameworks for teaching development to consider this question and become more reflective and effective teachers in our Bok Seminar, Taking Your Teaching to the Next Level: Practice, Feedback, and Reflection.

Students in the seminar considered their own goals and questions they...

This year, 146 students joined us for our Fall Teaching Conference, revamped for the fourth time in four years! The conference is an important part of our mission to help PhD students learn and develop as teachers, build community around teaching, and promote the role of teaching in professional development.

... Read more about Building a New Fall Teaching Conference 2023

This year marks the 18th cohort of the Bok Center’s Pedagogy Fellows Program, a collaboration between the Bok Center, academic departments, and the Office of Undergraduate Education. Each year, we teach more than 25 Pedagogy Fellows to be teaching consultants, to identify needs and develop resources on teaching and professional development for their peers, and, in many cases, to lead their departments’ pedagogy courses. The program aims to support all Harvard PhD students in their roles as undergraduate teachers, and to provide a cohort of excellent graduate student teachers with the...

At our Bok Graduate Community Celebration on April 28, we were excited to honor this year’s Teaching Certificate recipients and all of the graduate students who engaged in our programming over the past year. Students from Bok Seminars, the Professional Communication Program for International Teachers and Scholars, and Bok Fellows programs joined us to share their experiences and connect with fellow graduate students.... Read more about Learn, Practice, Reflect, and Celebrate!

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...

We have been working with international PhD students and scholars this year through a variety of seminars, workshops, and other learning opportunities offered by our Professional Communication Program for International Teachers and Scholars. Read on to learn more about how you can engage with the Bok Center throughout the year and learn more about our offerings this spring!

The Bok Center offers programs and resources on teaching and communication for all instructors in the FAS...

Planning a third revamped Fall Teaching Conference in three years, while challenging, really encouraged us to distill all of the lessons learned from previous conferences into what we hope will be the new template for the Fall Teaching Conference going forward. Going online and coming back in-person again prompted us to reflect on our core values, articulate our goals clearly, and reimagine a Fall...

As we close the books on the academic year, we are taking stock of what we’ve learned, and planning for the coming year. Our programs always strive to reflect the current moment, as we adjust to the needs of each year of teaching. 2021–22 was the year of being “back again” on campus, of teaching with masks, and of getting used to being together in the classroom again. Perhaps none of the Bok Center’s programs felt more responsive to these new circumstances than the Pedagogy Fellows. Each year, approximately 34...

The Bok Center’s Professional Communication Program for International Teachers and Scholars supports international PhD students at all stages of their academic careers through seminars and resources on teaching, cross-cultural communication, and English language proficiency development. Our team of undergraduate Culture and Communication Consultants (CCCs) serve as language partners, lead discussion groups, and organize special events such as Harvard House tours. The CCCs offer insights...

The Bok Teaching Certificate gives GSAS PhD students a tangible marker of their ongoing commitment to developing as teachers in higher education. Guided by three principles—Learn, Practice, Reflect—those who pursue the Certificate explore different topics in teaching and learning through departmental pedagogy courses and Bok Seminars, reflect on their own teaching practice, and compile a portfolio of written materials documenting their experience. We offer a tailored approach for students; no two students follow...

Teaching is an act of scholarly communication, and developing communication skills is an important component of professional development. We offer programs in teaching and scholarly communication for PhD students at every stage, from newly matriculated students who want to develop strategies to more easily explain their work, to dissertation-stage students preparing to share short versions of their research on the Sanders Theatre stage. This year we focused on communicating in person (both with masks and without) after more than a year of being confined to a small square on...

PhD students with teaching experience and a passion for teaching and learning are invited to apply for the 2022-2023 cohort of Pedagogy Fellows! Positions are available for Pedagogy Fellows based either in Departments or at the Bok Center. Applications are due by 5:00pm EST, Friday, February 25, 2022.

Pedagogy Fellows (PFs) enhance...

Faculty and Teaching Fellows often are in an excellent position to identify students and colleagues who are struggling, and to refer them to the right person or department for help. And yet, at the same time, many instructors understandably report that they feel uncomfortable and/or unprepared in reaching out to a student or colleague in distress. After all, most of us are trained to be teachers and scholars, not mental health professionals.

Recognizing this challenge, the Bok Center recently collaborated with...

After a Fall semester full of reconnecting with colleagues, friends, students, and instructors in person and teaching and learning on campus, we were excited to plan our Winter Teaching Week to be an opportunity for graduate student teachers to refresh their teaching and get new ideas before the spring term. We especially were looking forward to hosting our revamped programming at our Bok Center offices, building upon our successful return to in-person teaching in the Fall. But COVID was...

Planning the Fall Teaching Conference this summer felt like building an airplane while flying it: we knew we would be teaching in person, but the continually changing circumstances required us, like all instructors teaching this fall, to be intentional yet flexible in our planning. We had so many questions to consider: How should we prepare graduate student TFs to teach in physical classrooms? How could we most effectively apply the lessons we learned from our fully online conference in 2020 to this new “hybrid” moment of transition? How could we meet the needs of both new and experienced TFs facing another unprecedented semester?

... Read more about From Zoom Rooms to Classrooms: A Hybrid Fall Teaching Conference