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Foundations of Teaching in STEM
Foundations of Teaching in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Teaching with Purpose: Critical Pedagogy in Practice
Designing “Alternative” Assignments & Activities (a Learning Lab Seminar)
Public Speaking for Teachers & Scholars
Teaching Practice for International Teachers and Scholars
Teaching and Learning Across Cultures
English, Culture, and Communicating Science: A Seminar for International SEAS Graduate Students

Foundations of Teaching in STEM

Led by Marty Samuels
Schedule: Mondays, 2:00- 4:00 pm, January 29- March 5 | Location: 50 Church Street, Room 375

This seminar is designed to help cultivate the knowledge and skills necessary for effectively teaching collegiate science and engineering. We aim to help you make your classes as inspiring and empowering as the research you conduct at your lab, studio, or office by importing the enthusiasm of discovery into your classroom. In so doing, this seminar will rely heavily on the evidenced-based practices on teaching and learning in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), and provide ample opportunity for students to practice applying this research to their own teaching. We will focus on identifying and writing student-centered learning goals, developing a variety of active learning exercises that facilitate student learning, and writing effective problem set and exam questions to inspire and measure learning, while fostering an inclusive classroom environment. These skills will be discussed as both applicable to leading a section in a class as a new TF or to developing a class of your own as a more experienced teacher.  Canvas

Focus Areas: Pedagogy

Foundations of Teaching in the Humanities and Social Sciences

Led by Adam Beaver, Jonah Johnson and Noelle Lopez
Schedule: Tuesdays, 2:00- 4:00 pm, January 30- March 6 | Location: 50 Church Street, Room 375

Teaching in the humanities and social sciences presents many challenges, not least of which is that it is very hard to prepare a script or to identify foolproof “tips and tricks.” Because these disciplines are attracted to ambiguity and value interpretive richness, every class discussion could, in theory, go in an infinite variety of directions; frequently you, as the teacher, are learning something completely new about the material at the very same time as you are teaching it to the students. How, then, can you learn to reside comfortably in your own authority, and to feel confident in your ability to manage complex discussions? Are there any reliable ways to improve your students’ writing? What are the most important things you want to achieve with your students? In this seminar we will equip you to teach your students how to read, how to discuss, and how to write like a humanist or social scientist. While our focus on these foundational activities should prove especially useful to new and early-career teachers, more experienced teachers are also welcome to share their wisdom and revisit their approaches.

Focus Areas: Pedagogy

Teaching with Purpose: Critical Pedagogy in Practice

Led by Eleanor Craig and Noelle Lopez
Schedule: Thursdays, 10:00 am- 12:00 pm, February 1- March 8 | Location: 50 Church Street Room 375 

What makes learning meaningful and empowering for students? How can we as teachers develop classroom practices that reflect our social values and commitments? How do we support students in bridging life experience and rigorous study? This seminar will engage these questions through the lens of critical pedagogy. We'll consider the emergence of critical pedagogy in particular contexts of social justice struggles, and we'll explore ways to bring critical power analysis to teaching in a variety of disciplines. Participants will reflect individually and collectively on how critical pedagogical theories might transform teaching practice in Harvard classrooms and beyond.  Participants should plan to do light reading -- a maximum of 2 hours -- between meetings. Readings will include works by authors such as Paulo Freire, Henry Giroux, and bell hooks. Participants must be able to attend all six sessions. All levels of teaching experience welcome!

Focus Areas: Pedagogy, Language and culture of the classroom

Designing “Alternative” Assignments & Activities (a Learning Lab Seminar)

Led by Marlon Kuzmick
Schedule: Wednesdays, 2:00-4:00 pm, January 31- March 7 | Location: 50 Church Street, 3rd Floor Open Space

In the average course, students will spend a large chunk of their time listening, a large chunk of their time reading, and some of their time making things.  This seminar is devoted to the making chunk, and, within this chunk, to modes of making that are either newly emergent or overlooked.

Over the course of six weeks in the Bok Center’s Learning Lab, we will experiment with a number of different media and tools, from speaking to 3D-modeling to photography.  No previous experience of any sort is required, as we are not aiming to become experts.  Instead, our procedure will involve 1) experimenting with the new medium or tool, 2) reflecting on how a student might use it to develop skills and express ideas, and, 3) designing and testing assignments and activities related to our disciplines (we will be getting feedback from the Learning Lab Undergraduate Fellows, who test the various materials we produce in the Learning Lab).

Focus Areas: Pedagogy, Course and assignment design

Public Speaking for Teachers & Scholars

Led by Jen Doody
Schedule: Section 1: Tuesdays, 9:00-12:00 pm, April 3rd, 10th, 17th, and 24th | Section 2: Thursdays, 12:00- 3:00 pm, April 5th, 12th, 19th, and 26th.  
Location: 50 Church Street, Room 375

As graduate students and scholars, we are constantly being asked to verbally represent ourselves and our ideas -- in classrooms, conferences, interviews, and a range of personal and professional relationships. The seminar is designed to help you become aware of your habits of communication – both good and bad – and to provide you with concrete strategies to improve your public speaking skills in a variety of contexts. In this seminar, you will develop a new talk each week; learn the basics of powerful speechwriting; understand, address, and overcome their individual, public-speaking anxieties; and develop the skills to make any presentation compelling and memorable. By presenting to the class each week, you will build exceptional hands-on experience in projection, gesturing, interacting with the audience, vocal and emotional variety, using volume to command attention, and the subtle but immense power of silence. Students must be able to attend all sessions, and additionally must be available for an additional two-hour small-group meeting time each week.

Registration for this seminar is closed.

Focus Areas: Professional Communication

Teaching Practice for International Teachers and Scholars

Led by Pamela Pollock
Schedule: Thursdays, 10:00-12:00pm, February 1-March 8 | Location: 125 Mt Auburn Street, Room 307

Do you feel nervous about teaching? Do you worry about how your English sounds to your undergraduates? Are you interested in reflecting on and practicing your teaching? This practice-based seminar is designed to help international graduate students practice and get feedback on their teaching and speaking. Each week we will explore a new teaching strategy, and the following week we will practice it in microteaching.

Due to under-registration, this seminar is cancelled.  Intersted students are encouraged to enroll in Teaching and Learning Across Cultures (below).  

Focus areas: Pedagogy, Language and culture of the classroom

Teaching and Learning Across Cultures

Led by Pauline Carpenter
Schedule: Thursdays 2:00-4:00pm, February 1 to March 8 | Location: 125 Mt. Auburn Street, Room 307

Harvard students and teachers come from a variety of backgrounds and bring to the classroom their own culturally-based norms and expectations. As a TF, what culturally-based expectations do you bring; and what about your students? How can you create productive learning experiences that are inclusive of diverse cultural backgrounds? In this interactive seminar, we will explore teaching and learning across cultures by reflecting on how cultural values and communication styles influence classroom interactions like participating in discussions, presenting information, asking questions, building rapport, or giving and receiving feedback. We will discuss how to foster inclusive learning environments that recognize and value cultural differences and brainstorm approaches to leading intercultural classrooms more effectively. Sessions will be devoted to a variety of topics on intercultural communication and participants will have opportunities to learn about, practice, and get feedback on strategies for teaching across cultures in Harvard classrooms. This seminar is designed for international TFs and scholars, but is open to anyone interested in developing their ability to teach interculturally.

Focus Areas: Language and culture of the classroom

English, Culture, and Communicating Science: A Seminar for International SEAS Graduate Students

Led by Suprawee Tepsuporn
Schedule: Tuesdays and Thursdays 5:30-7:00pm, January 30 to April 26| Location: Maxwell-Dworkin, Room 221

Are you an international graduate student who wants to communicate more effectively in English? Do you want to build your confidence for teaching or explaining your research? This seminar offers non-native English speaking graduate students the opportunity to develop the oral and intercultural communication skills necessary to be successful in their graduate programs and beyond, with a particular emphasis on skills for teaching and communicating in the STEM disciplines at Harvard. Students will work on oral English comprehensibility and accuracy, learn and practice teaching and presentation strategies, improve impromptu speaking skills, and build the ability to interact with a diverse group of undergraduates. Students will also hone science communication skills fundamental to engaging with others about their fields, whether it be sharing updates with research teams, giving talks to non-specialist audiences, or presenting at conferences or in interviews. This seminar is designed for SEAS students who have not met the GSAS English language requirement, or who want to focus on the fluency, vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar of spoken English for teaching and other professional contexts.

Focus areas: Pedagogy, Language and culture of the classroom

Visual Teaching Studio

Led by Marlon Kuzmick
Schedule: Wednesdays, 2:00-4:00 pm, September 19-October 24
Location: 50 Church Street, Learning Lab Studio

Many of the things we need to explain as teachers are best explained visually.  Sometimes the data that we are analyzing is itself visual (a Frida Kahlo painting, C. elegans anatomy); sometimes we find it useful to visualize something that is actually quite abstract in order to render it more concrete to students (a process, a hierarchy, a dataset).  In this seminar we will expand our repertoire of visual moves by learning new tools (both digital and physical), by repeatedly practicing our skills in a low-stakes environment, and, crucially, by getting constructive feedback from undergraduate students. Each week we will meet in the Bok Center’s Learning Lab Studio to experiment with something new—art supplies, video equipment, visualization software—and we will produce works of visual teaching that we’ll present to our Learning Lab Undergraduate Fellows (LLUFs) for feedback.  No previous experience with artistic or technological tools is required.

Focus Areas: Professional Communication, Course and Assignment Design

Unfortunately, this seminar has been CANCELED. 

Foundations of Teaching in STEM

Led by Marty Samuels
Schedule: Mondays, 3:00-5:00 pm, September 17-October 29 (no class Columbus Day)
Location: 50 Church Street, Room 375

This seminar is designed to help cultivate the knowledge and skills necessary for effectively teaching collegiate science and engineering. We aim to help you make your classes as inspiring and empowering as the research you conduct at your lab, studio, or office by importing the enthusiasm of discovery into your classroom. In so doing, this seminar will rely heavily on the evidenced-based practices on teaching and learning in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), and provide ample opportunity for students to practice applying this research to their own teaching. We will focus on identifying and writing student-centered learning goals, developing a variety of active learning exercises that facilitate student learning, and writing effective problem set and exam questions to inspire and measure learning, while fostering an inclusive classroom environment. These skills will be discussed as both applicable to leading a section in a class as a new TF or to developing a class of your own as a more experienced teacher.

Focus Areas: Pedagogy

Registration for this seminar is now closed.

Teaching and the Job Market: Getting From “TF” to “Colleague”

Led by Adam Beaver
Schedule: Tuesdays, 2:00-4:00 pm, September 11-October 30
Location: 50 Church Street, Room 375

Are you on or near the job market? Enthused or concerned about the prospect of assembling a teaching portfolio, writing a syllabus, or giving a teaching demonstration? Wondering what, exactly, a “teaching philosophy” is, and how you get one? While Harvard hopefully has given you opportunities to practice and receive feedback on your teaching, it is often the case that your career as a TF is shaped by forces beyond your control: that is to say, that you’ve taught in courses, in modalities, and with assignments set by someone else, which may or may not reflect your own personality as an instructor. When you hit the job market, then, it’s natural to feel some anxiety about how to explain who you are as a teacher in a coherent and compelling way. Do you have enough experience? The right kind of experience? The answer, of course, is yes: yes, you do. The challenge is how to organize and communicate that experience in a way that will show a search committee not just what you have done, but also how much you’ve learned from it, and that you are likely you keep developing in the right direction as a colleague. In this seminar you will get intense, hands-on experience designing a teaching statement, a syllabus, a portfolio, and a teaching demo.  

Focus Areas:  Professional Communication, Pedagogy, Reflections on Teaching

Registration for this seminar is now closed.

Tools and Techniques for Leading Classroom Discussions

Led by Thomas Wisniewski
Schedule: Mondays, 4:00-6:00 pm, October 1-November 12 (no class Columbus Day)  
Location: 125 Mt. Auburn Street, Room 325 
 
How can you lead an exciting discussion and keep participants engaged from beginning to end? Which pedagogical techniques and strategies might be the most useful for working with Harvard undergraduates? This Bok seminar will offer both a theoretical and hands-on approach. Because discussion techniques can be used in discussion sections, seminars, and classes of all sizes, the material we practice in seminar should prove useful to your current and future teaching. To that end, we will discuss short articles on discussion pedagogy, awkward versus meaningful silences, and active and embodied learning. We will read case studies and evaluate taped discussion sessions. In examining the pros and cons of various methods of how to start, structure, save, and conclude a discussion, we will also strategize how to deal with “hot moments” in the classroom and take turns teaching short simulations of discussions followed by collaborative peer feedback. This seminar will be useful for building your confidence as a new TF as well as interrogating your methods and refining your skills as an experienced teacher.

Register for this seminar here.

Focus Areas: Pedagogy, Language and Culture of the Classroom 

Power and Ethics in the Classroom

Led by Eleanor Craig and Noelle Lopez
Schedule: Wednesdays, 10:00 am-12:00 pm, October 3-November 7
Location: 50 Church Street, Room 375 
 
How can ethical challenges be named and explored fruitfully, even amidst pressures to teach pre-specified content? What can you, as an instructor, do to acknowledge and counteract classroom dynamics that replicate social injustices? When is it productive to be transparent about your ethical and political commitments in the classroom? This Bok seminar is geared toward anyone with a teaching role at Harvard who is motivated to explore these questions. Throughout the seminar we'll use short readings, discussion, journaling, and other in-class activities to refine our awareness of how structural inequalities impact the classroom and develop techniques for fostering equity in our pedagogy.

Register for this seminar here.

Focus Areas: Pedagogy, Language and Culture of the Classroom
 

Public Speaking for Teachers and Scholars

Led by Jen Doody
Schedule: Wednesdays, 12:00-3:00 pm, October 3-October 24
Location: 50 Church Street, Room 375

As graduate students and scholars, we are constantly being asked to verbally represent ourselves and our ideas -- in classrooms, conferences, interviews, and a range of personal and professional relationships. The seminar is designed to help you become aware of your habits of communication – both good and bad – and to provide you with concrete strategies to improve your public speaking skills in a variety of contexts. In this seminar, you will develop a new talk each week; learn the basics of powerful speechwriting; understand, address, and overcome their individual, public-speaking anxieties; and develop the skills to make any presentation compelling and memorable. By presenting to the class each week, you will build exceptional hands-on experience in projection, gesturing, interacting with the audience, vocal and emotional variety, using volume to command attention, and the subtle but immense power of silence. Students must be able to attend all sessions, and additionally must be available for an additional two-hour small-group meeting time each week. 

Register for this seminar here.

Focus Areas: Professional Communication
 

Public Speaking for Teachers and Scholars, Part II

Led by Jen Doody
Schedule: Wednesdays, 3:00-6:00 pm, October 3-October 24
Location: 50 Church Street, Room 375

Building upon the public speaking skills mastered in Public Speaking for Teachers and Scholars, Part I, this seminar delves more deeply into the speechwriting, preparation, and on-stage follow-through for exceptional presentations and job talks. In learning the basics of powerful speechwriting, participants will fine-tune their presentation's text for maximum impact. In workshopping their presentations, participants will also learn how to respond to uncomfortable or unexpected conversations (including presentation interruptions), as well as how to diffuse negative interactions. At the end of the seminar, participants will finish by presenting a dry run of their new, fully-workshopped presentation, demonstrating skills learned in the seminar. Participants must have completed Public Speaking for Teachers and Scholars, and must be able to attend all sessions. 

Register for this seminar here.

Focus Areas: Professional Communication
 

Public Speaking for International Teachers and Scholars

Led by Pamela Pollock 
Schedule: Thursdays, 2:00-4:00 pm, September 20-October 25
Location: 125 Mt. Auburn Street, Room 307 

This seminar is designed to help non-native speakers of English become aware of their habits of communication, both good and bad. Public speaking is stressful for everyone, and the norms associated with it can be quite culturally based. In this seminar we will address these issues with a specific lenses for international teachers and scholars. You will learn concrete strategies to improve your pronunciation and public speaking skills in a variety of contexts, including classrooms, conferences, interviews, and a range of personal and professional interactions. Each week we will focus on a different speaking task and focus. This seminar is suitable for non-native English speakers of all levels, backgrounds and abilities. 

Focus Areas: Professional Communication, Language and Culture of the Classroom

This seminar has been CANCELED.

Classroom Communication Skills for International TFs

Led by Sarah Emory
Schedule: Tuesdays/Thursdays, 10:30-12:00 pm, September 10-December 4
Location: 125 Mt. Auburn Street, Room 307 

This seminar is designed to help international graduate students develop the oral communication skills necessary to be successful in their graduate programs, with a particular emphasis on skills necessary for teaching in the Harvard classroom. Students will work on improving their oral English comprehensibility and accuracy, learn and practice general pedagogical strategies for teaching interactively, improve their impromptu speaking skills, and build their ability to interact effectively with undergraduates. This seminar is designed for students who have not met the GSAS language requirement, or who want to focus on the nuts and bolts of fluency, vocabulary, and the pronunciation and grammar of the spoken English in the Harvard classroom context.

Application required. The application period for this seminar is now closed.

Focus Areas: Professional Communication, Language and Culture of the Classroom, Pedagogy

Problems and P-Sets: Creating and Teaching Questions in STEM

Led by Marty Samuels
Location: 50 Church Street Room375 | Schedule: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, July 9-20, 3-5pm

When you first begin teaching, you may be confronted with the task of writing problem set questions. What considerations should you keep in mind when doing so? This seminar will focus on developing problems and questions for science and math courses. We will focus on crafting meaningful problems that motivate student learning and that are based on the concepts and skills taught in class. By writing problems for our own disciplines, we will consider the rhetorical questions students should ask themselves as they solve the problems, and how these rhetorical questions mirror the prompting questions you can use to lead problem solving sessions during a weekly section or office hours.  Additionally, we will get practice and feedback on teaching the problems that we create.

Focus Areas: Pedagogy, Course and Assignment Design, Assessment

Teaching and the Job Market: Getting From “TF” to “Colleague”

Led by Adam Beaver
Schedule: Wednesdays and Fridays, July 11- August 3 (8 sessions), 10:00 am-12:00 pm  | Location: 125 Mount Auburn Street 3rd Floor Open Space

Are you on or near the job market? Enthused or concerned about the prospect of assembling a teaching portfolio, writing a syllabus, or giving a teaching demonstration? Wondering what, exactly, a “teaching philosophy” is, and how you get one? While Harvard hopefully has given you opportunities to practice and receive feedback on your teaching, it is often the case that your career as a TF is shaped by forces beyond your control: that is to say, that you’ve taught in courses, in modalities, and with assignments set by someone else, which may or may not reflect your own personality as an instructor. When you hit the job market, then, it’s natural to feel some anxiety about how to explain who you are as a teacher in a coherent and compelling way. Do you have enough experience? The right kind of experience? The answer, of course, is yes: yes, you do. The challenge is how to organize and communicate that experience in a way that will show a search committee not just what you have done, but also how much you’ve learned from it, and that you are likely you keep developing in the right direction as a colleague. In this seminar you will get intense, hands-on experience designing a teaching statement, a syllabus, a portfolio, and a teaching demo.    

Focus Areas:  Professional Communication, Pedagogy, Reflections on Teaching

Teaching with Purpose: Critical Pedagogy in Practice

Led by Eleanor Craig and Noelle Lopez
Schedule: Tuesdays and Thursdays, July 10- 26, 10:00 am-12:00 pm | Location: 50 Church Street Room 375

What makes learning meaningful and empowering for students? How can we as teachers develop classroom practices that reflect our social values and commitments? How do we support students in bridging life experience and rigorous study? This seminar will engage these questions through the lens of critical pedagogy. We'll consider the emergence of critical pedagogy in particular contexts of social justice struggles, and we'll explore ways to bring critical power analysis to teaching in a variety of disciplines. Participants will reflect individually and collectively on how critical pedagogical theories might transform teaching practice in Harvard classrooms and beyond.  Participants should plan to do reading between meetings. Readings will include works by authors such as Paulo Freire, Henry Giroux, and bell hooks. All levels of teaching experience welcome!
 

Focus Areas: Pedagogy, Language and Culture of the Classroom

Hit the Ground Running: A Seminar for New TFs

Led by Pamela Pollock and Rebecca Miller
Location: 125 Mt. Auburn Street, 307 | Schedule: Schedule: Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, June 11-21, 10:00 am-12:00 pm

What can new TFs do to get ready for the first day of class and beyond? In this seminar, you will practically prepare to teach for the first time, learn about resources available to you as you begin your teaching career, and build confidence in the process! We will follow the arc of the semester; each session will be devoted to a teaching topic, including the first day of class, inclusive teaching, lesson planning and delivery, giving and receiving feedback, and using Canvas effectively. Participants should have a syllabus to use throughout the seminar (their own or one for a class they might teach) and they will have access to a sandbox Canvas site to use for practice. This seminar is ideal for students teaching for the first time in the Fall term, but is open to anyone at the early stage of their teaching career who would like more guidance on basic pedagogy as well as on how to use Canvas. 

Focus Areas:  Pedagogy, Course and Assignment Design, Assessment

How Am I Doing? Using Feedback to Improve Your Teaching 

Led by Pauline Carpenter
Schedule: Mondays and Wednesdays, 2pm-4pm June 11-June 27 | Location: 125 Mt. Auburn Street, 307

We may wonder or worry about how we’re doing as teachers-- but how do we know? Our own interpretations may not be accurate, and end-of-semester Q-evaluations come too late to make any changes in the current semester. But it doesn’t have to be this way! In this seminar, participants will begin by exploring the nature of feedback and the role of feedback in developing as teachers. We will review, discuss, and model effective mechanisms for collecting feedback, making sense of it, and using it to improve our practice-- in the pursuit of better learning, classroom experiences, and final course evaluations. By the end of the seminar, each participant will create their own plan for collecting feedback, which may include some combination of early feedback, classroom assessment techniques (CATs), critical reflective practice, and peer observations within and/or across disciplines. Participants will also start thinking about how to document the process of collecting and responding to feedback for the purpose of developing a teaching portfolio. 

Focus Areas: Pedagogy, Assessment, Reflections on Teaching

Public Speaking for Teachers and Scholars

Led by Jen Doody
Location: 50 Church Street, Room 375 | Schedule: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, June 25, 27, 29, Monday, July 2 (4 sessions), 12 pm-3pm

As graduate students and scholars, we are constantly being asked to verbally represent ourselves and our ideas -- in classrooms, conferences, interviews, and a range of personal and professional relationships. The seminar is designed to help you become aware of your habits of communication – both good and bad – and to provide you with concrete strategies to improve your public speaking skills in a variety of contexts. Students in this seminar will develop a new talk each week; learn the basics of powerful speechwriting; understand, address, and overcome their individual, public-speaking anxieties; and develop the skills to make any presentation compelling and memorable. By presenting to the class each week, participants will build exceptional hands-on experience in projection, gesturing, interacting with the audience, vocal and emotional variety, using volume to command attention, and the subtle but immense power of silence. Students must be able to attend all sessions, and additionally must be available for an additional two-hour small-group meeting time each week. 

Focus Area: Professional Communication