Sanchita Saxena, Haas School of Business
“Authentic Learning Modules: Harnessing the Expertise of Practitioners in Classroom Teaching”
2021-2022 Lecturer Teaching Fellow
Many of our classes already utilize the expertise of practitioners—those who are “doing” something in the real world and have an expertise in a particular area, topic, or subject. As a participant in the LTF Program, I would like to not only harness the expertise of our practitioners, but make their impact long lasting by creating modules on their particular topic to be used as a teaching tool and resource. These “plug and play” teaching modules will include a short video, one or two related articles, and teaching notes/guidelines. Instructors will be able to plug these models into their already existing course to enhance the content by incorporating these additional topics. These modules will be put into a virtual library and indexed by theme for use by those at UC Berkeley (and eventually beyond).
Explore the project here!
Amm Quamruzzaman, Interdisciplinary Studies Field (ISF)
“Developing Resources for Teaching and Studying Climate Change from an Interdisciplinary Perspective”
2021-2022 Lecturer Teaching Fellow
Climate change is an existential threat and requires an interdisciplinary approach to address it. Teaching and research are important ways to inform our current and future policymakers (i.e., students) on climate change. But much of climate change pedagogy and research is done in silos using a single-disciplinary approach. Given the current situation, I feel the need to develop an interdisciplinary research, teaching, and knowledge-sharing platform. This platform will be developed and used by instructors and students from different disciplines to teach, learn, and study climate change from an interdisciplinary perspective. There are only a few undergraduate programs like Interdisciplinary Studies Field (ISF) Major that allow students to design their own research projects and courses of study from multiple disciplines. As a result, most undergraduate students do not get a chance to study climate issues from an interdisciplinary perspective. To fill this gap, I propose to develop an interdisciplinary forum and knowledge depository that will be composed of the following: (1) dedicated library resources and departmental web pages on climate change, (2) an online database of courses offered at UC Berkeley on climate and sustainable development issues, (3) an online database of research papers, working papers, course syllabi, data sets, and links of resources related to climate change, and (4) periodic conferences and seminars to showcase and present our research findings, pedagogical tools (e.g., course syllabi, readings, GIS mapping, and assignments), student works (e.g., data compilation, research papers, and brief reports), and policy briefs related to the field.
Explore my teaching website here!
Srijani Ghosh, Theater Dance and Performance Studies
“Pursuing Social Justice through Conversations between Course Readings and the Real World”
2021-2022 Lecturer Teaching Fellow
In my discussion-based R1A and R1B classes, I have frequently noticed that many students feel that issues such as racism, or gender inequality, or Islamophobia, happened “back then,” even when Black Lives Matter, the #metoo movement, or President Trump’s “Muslim ban” were the leading news headlines. This outlook that we live in a post-racist, post-sexist, or post-feminist world leads to the mistaken assumption that diversity, equity, and inclusion have already been achieved in the socio-cultural spaces that we inhabit and no further individual or community initiatives are particularly necessary. I would like to develop a website as a cross-disciplinary resource that will include activities and exercises that educators in the humanities and social sciences could use to stimulate students to make connections between their course readings and the real world and be cognizant of the ongoing need for our collective efforts to actively work towards social justice in our communities and foster a culture of equity and inclusion. This project will also aim to develop students’ critical thinking, research skills, and argumentative writing skills, boost peer interaction, and also contextualize student learning.
Explore my teaching project here!
Robin Ball, Molecular and Cell Biology
"Medical Racism Discussions: Bringing anti-racism pedagogy into the STEM classroom"
2020-2021 Lecturer Teaching Fellow
Covid-19 exposed the inequities inherent in our medical system that arise from biases and racist policies. It is important to teach biology students about medical racism, so they do not continue to perpetuate these stereotypes in their future healthcare careers. I designed a semester-long discussion assignment in my Introduction to Human Physiology course to introduce students to medical racism through readings and guided asynchronous discussions. Each discussion topic relates to the physiology we are covering that week. For example, when we learn about the kidneys, students read about the unscientific “race-correction” that is used to estimate kidney function and the consequences for the health of Black patients. Survey results revealed that students appreciated learning this material in a science course and their thoughts about race and biology shifted, with only 6% believing that there are physiological differences between races by the end of the semester.
Explore my teaching website here!
Jennifer Cho, English
“Student/Citizen: Enhancing Diversity Literacy in the Writing Classroom”
2020-2021 Lecturer Teaching Fellow
My project sets out to identify modes of improving literacy around issues of diversity, equity, and social justice in the composition classroom. I ask how students and instructors’ explicit and implicit biases and our own social positionalities might inform our reception to and interpretation of literary texts, while developing strategies that encourage students to participate in discussions around racism, white supremacy, and other forms of systemic oppression with safety and support. In addition, I am interested in compiling a resource for instructors who are committed to incorporating diversity and anti-racism initiatives in their writing pedagogies.
Kenneth Wong, Department of South & Southeast Asian Studies
“Social Justice & Social Media: Raising Critical Awareness & Community Engagement Among Language Learners”
2020-2021 Lecturer Teaching Fellow
In 2018, Reuters published a story titled "Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar," showing how hate speech on social media is posing a threat to the Rohingyas, a Mulsim minority in western Burma. With the recent military coup in Burma, Facebook and other social media platforms play a different role, allowing the protesters to spread their pro-democracy messages with viral memes.
In Burmese 100B (Spring 2021), students study the puns and deliberate misspellings in the anti-coup memes, and interview native Burmese speakers in their social circles for the definition of hate speech. In doing so, students learn not only the target language but how recent events reshape language usage in a society.
Explore my teaching website here! This LTF project website is developed in collaboration with Karen Llagas.
Lindsey Lanfersieck, College Writing Programs
Enhancing Collaborative Learning in the Hybrid Writing Classroom”
2021-2022 Lecturer Teaching Fellow
With the forced isolation of shelter-in-place, we could say that building community through collaborative learning is important now more than ever. Even for those of us back in the classroom, this can prove challenging with the recent surge in new COVID-19 variants and the necessity of social distancing. For that reason, my project develops a framework for structuring collaborative learning in the hybrid classroom with a particular focus on collaborative activities and assignments. I offer practical advice on the implementation and design of group work in the blended or hybrid classroom with a specific focus on activities and assignments that promote cooperation and foster a sense of community in first-year writing or introductory courses. These collaborative assignments not only emphasize a student-centered approach but also transferable skills and real-world value.
Explore my teaching project here!
Margaret Kolb & Mark Bauer, College of Engineering
“Peer Mentoring for Scientific Writing”
2021-2022 Lecturer Teaching Fellow
In our one-unit communications course for Engineers, we work with students whose writing abilities and confidence levels vary dramatically, but who hold in common a commitment to become better writers. Students thrive in one-on-one mentoring sessions. But with more than 180 students between us, mentoring our students individually has proven both rewarding and structurally infeasible. We aim to institutionalize peer mentoring, both within and across sections of the course we teach, to enable confident writers to develop beyond the confines of the course, and to offer fledgling writers increased support. We propose an eight-week training course for mentors in the fall, followed by ongoing mentoring of peer writing mentors for the remainder of the year. This project includes creating training materials for peer mentors, envisioning syllabi that include this training, and then mobilizing mentors to engage their peers.
Explore my teaching website here!
Jhonni Carr & Román Luján, Spanish & Portuguese
"Developing a Linguistic Solidarity Curriculum in the Language Classroom"
2021-2022 Lecturer Teaching Fellow
In recent years, linguistic discrimination—along with racial discrimination—has led to increased attacks on individuals who speak a language other than English in public. These discriminatory events are often filmed and shared online where they “go viral.” Despite their pervasiveness, there is very little discussion on how to prevent the occurrence of these episodes in the future; as a society, we remain without a coherent response. To address this, we propose the concept of “Language Solidarity,” which entails concrete strategies that linguistic allies can implement to engage in preventative measures to protect speakers of languages besides English and their freedom of language choice (Carr & Luján, 2020)(link is external). For our collaborative Lecturer Teaching Fellows project, we seek to further develop the concept of Language Solidarity and create instructional materials and assignments that allow us (and other language educators) to help our students achieve the following objectives:
1. Learn about the concepts of language justice and language solidarity in their academic endeavors and daily lives.
2. Discover and put in practice strategies to address language discrimination through preventative measures in the public space.
3. Propose new strategies to promote language solidarity outside of the classroom, including through the use of social media.
Explore my teaching website here!
Rose Carmen Goldberg, Berkeley Law
“Op-Ed Writing Pedagogy: Helping Students Find and Amplify Their Voices”
2020-2021 Lecturer Teaching Fellow
The power of opinion is concentrated with a narrow and privileged set of voices. The vast majority of op-eds are written by men and the data on race are no better. This Lecturer Teaching Fellow project will help diversify public discourse by developing a publicly available op-ed writing pedagogy tool. Op-eds are especially important now, as society grapples with overlapping crises and ethical conundrums. Students, faculty, and community members of all backgrounds and disciplines have much to contribute to these conversations.
Carmen Acevedo Butcher, College Writing Program
“Inclusive Language as Praxis, Not Checklist”
2020-2021 Lecturer Teaching Fellow
This LTF project sparks dialogue on small ways to make powerful, influential changes in our communication with each other and with students. It engages us in approaches that give us all new ways to be aware of language used in our pedagogy, and to mindfully practice listening actively and using words more thoughtfully, with a people-first mindset. As Awaken CEO Michelle Kim teaches, “I implore [people] to stop asking for the list of words to memorize and instead, think of inclusive language as an *APPROACH* and an ongoing *PRACTICE*.”
Explore my teaching website here! An LTF collaboration of College Writing students and Carmen Acevedo Butcher, Ph.D., this teaching website offers resources that Cal students asked for, constantly add to, and learn from.
Karen Llagas, Department of South & Southeast Asian Studies
“Social Justice & Social Media: Raising Critical Awareness & Community Engagement Among Language Learners”
2020-2021 Lecturer Teaching Fellow
My project aims to explore the use of social media and news media outlets as resources for authentic and current materials in the Filipino language classroom, and to increase student engagement with different intersections of their communities. The project aims to explore ways to raise critical thinking in language classrooms that go beyond communicative goals. By examining how certain Filipino words (like “freedom,” “women,” “power”) appear in different contexts (FB posts & Twitter, academic journals, newspaper articles, memes, for instance), interactive and dynamic opportunities can be created to learn relevant vocabulary that is contextualized in real-time use, and can empower students to examine their sources more critically.
Exploring my teaching website here! This LTF project website is developed in collaboration with Kenneth Wong.
Sarah Gold McBride, American Studies
“Making Senior Thesis Mentorship Meaningful During Remote Instruction”
2020-2021 Lecturer Teaching Fellow
This project will develop a framework for engaging undergraduate students in a robust, rigorous, and meaningful senior thesis seminar taught through remote instruction. For many students in humanities and social science disciplines, the process of writing a senior thesis can feel solitary, even during face-to-face instruction; the conditions of remote instruction can amplify students’ sense of disconnect from their work, their instructor, and their classmates. Moreover, students conducting thesis research without access to university services (such as the library or on-campus wifi) are, in my experience, more likely to struggle with their research, exacerbating equity of access for students who want to engage in the highest level of undergraduate research. This project will work to ameliorate these issues by developing a course framework and course materials—available for adoption by faculty across campus—that will provide remote students with the structure, resources, and sense of community they need to produce substantial and significant thesis projects.
Vesna Rodic, French
“Teaching Reading and Writing in L2 Through a Multiliteracies Approach”
2020-2021 Lecturer Teaching Fellow
This talk focuses on strategies that emphasize the link between reading and writing processes in Advanced French courses. Using the multiliteracies framework (Cope and Kalantzis, 2000) and its chief segments (situated practice, overt instruction, critical framing, and transformed practice), I designed a series of activities that provide ongoing opportunities for collaborative student work on the reading and writing processes while studying forms of analytical writing in French. These strategies involve both individual and group work on texts and encourage group work as well as student-to-student engagement. At the same time, they help students get familiarized with the research process and the use of technologies and tools that support research and collaborative tasks.