News

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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 Championing Equity and Inclusion at the HILT Conference

Championing Equity and Inclusion at the HILT Conference

October 23, 2020

Bok Center staff played an active role in last Friday’s annual Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching (HILT) conference on Championing Equitable Instruction and Inclusive Classrooms, a topic at the core of our work with instructors at all stages. In addition to our many staff who attended the conference as participants, two Bok staff members led breakout sessions. Pamela Pollock, Director of Professional Development, co-facilitated a breakout session on...

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Bok Helps “School Go Remote”

Bok Helps “School Go Remote”

October 21, 2020

This summer was a busy time at the Bok Center. In the November-December issue of Harvard Magazine, the Bok Center’s Director of Pedagogy Adam Beaver describes some of the ways in which the Bok Center worked with the Office of Undergraduate Education to help faculty prepare to teach remotely this fall. One of the unique challenges facing fall term faculty—one that they did not face in the spring, when they pivoted online halfway through the semester—was the absence of in person meetings where faculty and students  could build rapport and community that could be sustained...

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Noelle Lopez leads a discussion

Computer Science Debuts Inclusive Teaching Pilot

October 9, 2020

This week in The Harvard Crimson, Bok Center Assistant Director for Equity and Inclusion Noelle Lopez described an asynchronous practice teaching scenario in which an undergraduate course assistant receives text messages late at night from friends in their course asking for help with an assignment. “I think it helps surface some of the complex dynamics around how there can be inequity in community or in exposure to different resources in C[omputer] S[cience],” Lopez said. The practice scenario was developed as part of a new inclusive teaching...

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Rob Lue in the Learning Lab

Launching a program to solve global challenges

October 7, 2020

In a recent article in the Harvard Gazette, Bok Center Faculty Director Robert Lue invites Harvard undergraduate students to join the Lemann Program on Creativity and Entrepreneurship (LPCE) and embrace their potential as change agents. "Do you have an idea that could positively transform society?" he asked. Our groundbreaking program develops the ability of students to propose and implement innovative projects. Its inaugural focus is on ideas, ventures and...

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