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Creating inclusive learning spaces for all or most students is an important and challenging task whether you’re teaching a class of 20 students or 500. Each class you teach is unique as you have new students semester to semester and their needs and interests change over time. Yet, keeping students engaged and focused so they are able to succeed in the class remains a central goal for all instructors. One way to ensure students continue to be engaged in your class semester after semester is to take a learner-centered approach.

Understanding how and when students are engaged in your class can be challenging in both physical and virtual spaces since students participate differently depending on personality type, cultural background, language fluency, and individual ability. Instructors can use an online discussion platform like Ed Discussion to provide an additional channel for students to express themselves, whether they are teaching in-person or online.

In May 2022, the Center for Teaching and Learning hosted a campus-wide virtual event to spotlight teaching and learning projects developed by Fellows in the Presidential Chairs Fellowship Grant Program and the Lecturer Teaching Fellows Program.

At the start of the Spring semester, 22 educators from across campus gathered to discuss lessons learned from their experiences teaching during the pandemic. We noted a commonality rather quickly: our tried-and-true pedagogical strategies produced unexpected learning outcomes as students faced new and protracted challenges. Many of us found ourselves innovating existing strategies, trying new ones, or dusting off previously-shelved strategies to use in our classrooms last fall.

As we approach RRR Week and Final Exams, it’s a good time to remember that some students may benefit from specific cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies for how to learn your course content. You can introduce students to general cognitive learning strategies, actions and frameworks to encode new information, and share metacognitive learning strategies, activities to guide them in thinking about their learning process. Most students are likely familiar with the structurally cognitive strategies such as concept maps, but may not be familiar with others relevant to your course.

Asynchronous discussions have long been a feature in online classes as a way to provide opportunities for students to interact with each other and build a community. Many instructors included asynchronous discussions in their remote instruction classes this past year to achieve this same goal. Even if you are teaching in-person this semester, asynchronous discussions can be a useful component to your class as they give opportunities for students to interact outside of scheduled class time and allow for students who are participating remotely to still engage with the class community.

Students, like many faculty and staff, are returning to campus after more than a year of remote teaching and learning. What are some of the challenges students are likely to face as they prepare for an in-person Fall semester? How can instructors support student learning in a way that is inclusive and responds to students’ new and ongoing needs? We share a summary of recent findings on students’ experiences with remote learning and offer instructional strategies designed to enhance student learning as we prepare for a different kind of “normal.”

Mid-semester check-ins are an opportunity to learn more about students’ learning and their experiences in the classroom. In October’s Spotlight on Teaching and Learning, CTL highlighted the benefits of implementing a mid-semester check-in and shared strategies for navigating student feedback productively. We’re taking a second look at mid-semester check-ins to share new strategies for implementing student feedback activities in remote classrooms.

At the end of the Fall semester, we shared a “Spotlight on Teaching and Learning” featuring strategies for reflective teaching. In this post, we also solicited reflections and insights from our UC Berkeley teaching community. Many wonderful ideas and considerations were submitted. In perusing the responses, we identified three themes that surfaced across multiple reflections.

There are a number of benefits to implementing a mid-semester check-in. In addition to the targeted feedback provided to instructors, some studies suggest that soliciting student input can influence how students view their roles as members of the learning community and can bolster positive perceptions of their learning and the learning environment (Hurney, et al, 2014; Hunt, 2003; McGowan & Osguthorpe, 2011).

As we prepare for fall, many of us are considering how best to welcome students to our remote classrooms, our disciplines, and our campus. A number of studies have demonstrated that activities like values affirmations and social belonging interventions can be small but powerful tools to support student learning and self-acceptance. These techniques, or variations upon them, have been applied by faculty here on the Berkeley campus and elsewhere.

Are you considering ways to promote student interaction and engagement in your fall courses? There are numerous evidence-based teaching strategies that support student learning and facilitate connections to course content and among peers. One strategy, the “Jigsaw," is a collaborative learning technique that was recently discussed by Berkeley faculty colleagues attending one of this month's Remote Teaching Circles.

“Are you an inclusive instructor?”  Someone recently asked me that question and I hesitated before I replied “I think so” and in the back of my mind I was thinking “but how do I know if I’m being successful at being inclusive or not?”

It’s May and the first line of that old Frank Sinatra song “My Way” keeps running through my head:  “And now the end is near, and so I face the final curtain…"