HOME / NEWS / BOK NEWS /

Pedagogy & Practice News

A pedagogy fellow stands in front of a group of her peers answering a question.

Make an Impact as a Pedagogy Fellow

January 21, 2021

We are now accepting applications for the 2021-2022 cohort of Pedagogy Fellows. Pedagogy Fellows enhance training and support for teaching fellows within their departments and across the FAS. They lead pedagogy seminars and workshops, consult with TFs, and develop resources on teaching and professional development for their peers.

Through their work and the Bok Center’s training, Pedagogy Fellows grow in their own careers as teachers and scholars. Each year, fellows report on how much they learn...

Read more about Make an Impact as a Pedagogy Fellow
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...

Read more about Championing Equity and Inclusion at the HILT Conference
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...

Read more about Bok Helps “School Go Remote”
three glasses of white wine touching in "cheers"

Congratulations to the 2020 Derek C. Bok Award Recipients

July 1, 2020

Congratulations to the recipients of the 2020 Derek C. Bok Award!

The Derek C. Bok Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Teaching of Undergraduates is given each year by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences to five teaching fellows who have been nominated by their departments. The award includes a $1,000 prize from a gift given by David G. Nathan '51, M.D. '55 (Robert A. Stranahan Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School) and his wife Jean Louise Friedman Nathan.

... Read more about Congratulations to the 2020 Derek C. Bok Award Recipients

Erin Hutchinson

Reflections from a Recently Graduated Pedagogy Fellow

June 30, 2020

With the celebration of Harvard’s first-ever virtual Commencement now complete, the Bok Center bids a fond farewell to another cohort of alumni, including dozens of undergraduate and graduate student fellows. Though they may have received their degrees in topics ranging from Hebrew Philology to Human Evolutionary Biology, their shared commitment to cultivating a community of thoughtful and reflective teachers and communicators here at Harvard will serve all of them well in their future careers. We are proud of their many accomplishments, and look forward to hearing great things...

Read more about Reflections from a Recently Graduated Pedagogy Fellow
person writing on board with sticky notes

New Pedagogy Fellows Opportunity for Departments

June 12, 2020

The Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning is excited to announce that as part of the enhanced instructional support for remote teaching, departments that currently do not participate in the Pedagogy Fellows Program will be invited to apply to join for the 2020–2021 academic year. Pedagogy Fellows collaborate with faculty, administration, and the Bok Center’s senior staff to enhance training and support for teaching fellows within their departments and across the FAS. Consult the...

Read more about New Pedagogy Fellows Opportunity for Departments
UPFs Ashley and Skylar deliver a faculty workshop.

Student Identities Online: Equity and Access in the Zoom Classroom

May 22, 2020

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.

... Read more about Student Identities Online: Equity and Access in the Zoom Classroom
participants on a zoom call

The Showcase Must Go On: Pedagogy Fellows’ Capstone Projects Go Virtual

May 21, 2020

As classes at Harvard moved online, so too did the Bok Center’s Pedagogy Fellows Program, comprising 33 experienced and creative graduate students who support their peers in their roles as undergraduate teachers. Pedagogy Fellows (PFs) collaborate with faculty, department administrators, and the Bok Center’s senior staff to enhance training and support for teaching fellows within their departments and across the Faculty of Arts and Sciences by leading pedagogy seminars and workshops, consulting with TFs, and developing...

Read more about The Showcase Must Go On: Pedagogy Fellows’ Capstone Projects Go Virtual
book open on table

Poetry Without Borders—or a Classroom

May 11, 2020

On 11 March, as Harvard students hurriedly packed up their dorm rooms, attended their final face-to-face course meetings, and said tearful goodbyes to their friends and mentors, Ernest E. Monrad Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures Stephanie Sandler composed an email to her students in GENED 1057: Poetry Without Borders. Reassuring them that their course would carry on with a refreshed...

Read more about Poetry Without Borders—or a Classroom