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  • Custom Course Bots & Learning Analytics

    Join The Learning Data & Analytics Affinity Group for their next online event: Custom Course Bots & Learning Analytics Tuesday, April 30, 12:00pm – 1:00pm Online Zoom event: Register here! Many courses are beginning to offer custom genAI bots in the course site. We’ll convene for an open discussion guided by these questions: (a) When […]

  • Research Your Teaching: A Panel Discussion

    Research Your Teaching: A Panel Discussion Hosted by the Research-Informed Teaching & Learning TLC Affinity Group   Date: Thursday, May 2, 2024 | Time: 1:00-2:00 pm | Location: Online via Zoom Register here for this event!   Teachers are always innovating, but how can we measure the effectiveness of these changes? Join us for a […]

  • Effective Learning Strategies: What Students Understand Versus What They Do

    A Journal Club led by the Research-Informed Teaching & Learning TLC Affinity Group Location: Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, 125 Mt Auburn Street, 3rd Floor Date: Thursday, December 7 Time: 3:30 – 4:30 pm ET Click here to register In recent decades, research has demonstrated that certain learning strategies—such as spacing, interleaving, pre-testing, and […]

  • The nuances of calculating “time on task”

    Learning Data & Analytics December Event The nuances of calculating “time on task” Facilitator Patrice Torcivia Prusko, Director of Learning Design (HGSE) Date: Tuesday, December 5th, 2023 Time: 12:00 – 1:00 pm ET Click here to register After the launch of How People Learn (HPL) we found that students were spending a disproportionate amount of […]

  • 2023 HILT Conference

    The 2023 HILT Conference comes at a pivotal time when artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly discussed and experimented with in higher education. AI holds immense potential to enhance personalized learning experiences, automate administrative tasks, and provide data-driven insights to improve educational outcomes. However, its deployment also raises important questions and challenges. It is crucial to address concerns related to privacy, bias, transparency, disinformation, and the impact on human agency and social dynamics within educational settings. Together, we will explore how AI can be designed, implemented, and governed in a way that prioritizes human relationships and connection in education. By considering the ethical and social implications, as well as the affordances, we aim to shape a future where generative AI tools are used to empower learners, support educators, foster inclusivity, and promote a holistic approach to education.

  • Learning AI with Learning Design: Fall 2023 Meetup

    Learning Design Affinity Group Hands-on social event! Wednesday, September 13, 2023: 12:00pm – 2:00pm Wusong Road Tiki Bar. RSVP here Let’s jumpstart the fall semester! A Learning Design Affinity Group Event: The HILT Learning Design Affinity Group invites you to join an in-person hands-on social with the discussion topic on how to leverage AI tools […]

  • Teaching in the Age of Misinformation

    What do you do as an educator when someone brings up misinformation in your class? Moderated by Meira Levinson, join Neil McGaraghan (HLS), Eric Torres (HGSE), and Shifali Singh (FAS/HMS) as they discuss teaching in the age of misinformation and how we engage in thinking about and understanding misinformation. This is a follow up to HILT's 2022 Conference. 

  • Capturing conversation to build ideas collectively

    Ryan Buell, Finnegan Family Associate Professor of Business Administration, leveraged Scribble for his remote course to help students engage with case discussion longitudinally and collectively. The virtual board platform allowed students to engage online in lieu of an in-person experience in which the blackboard operates as a coordinating element for case discussion. “It helps students put the pieces together, allowing them to track any idea shared by the faculty and shared by the students.”

  • Bridging practice and theory in the professional classroom

    Dr. Richard Schwartzstein, Ellen and Melvin Gordon Professor of Medicine and Medical Education, is revolutionizing textbook-dependent classrooms by incorporating real-life applications. In this case, first-year Harvard Medical School students apply their reading through case simulations. A robot functions as the patient, and a small group of students take on various roles to work together and treat the patient. Students are supported by a facilitator, who offers guiding questions but no direct answers, as well as the rest of the class, who serve as consultants or in other supporting roles in the case, like the patient’s family. “Instead of a paper case, now it feels much more real. And suddenly, they’re immersed in taking care of a patient,” Dr. Schwartzstein reflects. After a simulation ends, the whole class debriefs the case, including what students struggled with and how they felt during the exercise.

  • Establishing a rigorous and invigorating classroom

    Robert Reid-Pharr, Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality and of African American Studies strives to create a “rigorous but not frightening” classroom experience for the course Gender, Sexuality, and the Archive, in which students take turns leading class discussion—presenting thoughts on, challenges to, and questions about course readings derived from essays they have written. With facilitation from Reid-Pharr, their peers then ask difficult questions of the discussion leader that begin to generate meaningful conversation.

  • Motivating students to transition from learning-for-testing to learning-for-learning

    In his Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics course (a core class for physics concentrators) Matthew Schwartz, Professor of Physics, tries to move his students away from a binge-learning exam-based model, common in science classes, to one of sustained learning throughout the semester. To do this, he persuades students to read the course materials before class through comprehensive pre-class quizzes, replaces the midterm with a non-collaborative problem set, and assigns a take-home final weighted the same as two problem sets.

  • Engaging Students with Difficult Text Through a Flipped Classroom

    In his general education courses, Jay Harris, Harry Austryn Wolfson Professor of Jewish Studies, posts two different videos prior to class for students to view: pre-reading videos contextualize and provide guidance for the week’s readings, and lecture videos replace Harris’s in-class lectures on the material. Students then send their questions and comments to Harris through Canvas, which he uses to build the class discussion. 

  • Physically inhabiting new and different spaces

    Virginie Greene, Professor of Romance Languages and Literature, transfers the theme of her Freshman Seminar course, The Grail Quest of Marcel Proust, to the classroom by holding every class session in a different location around the Harvard campus or in the Boston area. “Teaching a freshman seminar allows you to do something a little rash and provoke students. A knight going on a quest never stays in the same spot twice.” Whether they are exploring Sanders Hall, the Harvard Art Museum, or the Boston Public Library, class time is split between exploring the space and discussing the week’s reading.

  • Instructional Moves

    IM spotlights reflective instructors from across the university using high-leverage teaching strategies applicable to multiple settings and grounded in teaching and learning research. Moves are anchored in videos that combine class footage with reflections from instructors and students, and these videos are supplemented by relevant research on the move’s efficacy, tips for enacting this move in diverse settings, and related resources that facilitate deeper exploration.

  • Incorporating social support and love into the classroom

    Gretchen Brion-Meisels, Lecturer on Education, focuses on ensuring that holistic support is apparent and felt deeply in her classroom. From listing mental health resources on all her syllabi to convening opening circles to build relationships at the start of class, Brion-Meisels incorporates ways of “checking in.” In her course Establishing Loving Spaces for Learning, students are asked to keep reflective journals and share them with a peer to engage in a conversation around their experiences. “Fundamentally, my biggest goal is to normalize the idea that everyone needs support. We’re all works-in-progress, learning and growing, but also with a lot to contribute to each other’s growth.”

  • Usable Knowledge

    A digital publication based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education produced for educators everywhere. Usable Knowledge was founded to connect research to practice. They make education research and well-vetted strategies accessible to a wide audience: teachers and principals, district leaders, policymakers, university faculty and higher ed professionals, nonprofit leaders, entrepreneurs, members of the media, and parents.

  • Structuring intellectual collaboration and play

    Emily Dolan, Gardner Cowles Associate Professor of the Humanities, co-teaches the graduate seminar Instruments and Instrumentalities with Professor and James McGill Chair in Culture and Technology Jonathan Sterne of McGill University in which students from both Harvard and McGill (representing a range of disciplines) engage with one another via audio and video conferencing, trips to each campus, online documents, and other tools.

  • Enriching learning through student-led provocation

    Though Timothy Patrick McCarthy, Lecturer on History and Literature, Public Policy, and Education, plays an integral role in class discussions for his course Stories of Slavery and Freedom, students are responsible for leading the majority of classes through an exercise McCarthy refers to as “provocation.” “The provokers do not come in and give a summary of what we’ve read or a mini-lecture about the top-line themes that might emerge from the assigned readings. I really want them to find some way to literally provoke us into conversation, get the juices flowing, and try to get all the students to think about something urgently at the outset of class.”

  • In the Classroom

    Resources on in-class teaching from the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, including 1) Building Rapport, 2) Classroom Contracts, 3) Active Learning, 4) Instructional Strategies, and 5) Technology and Student Distraction.

  • The Science of Learning

    Key concepts in learning sciences from the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, including 1) How Memory Works, 2) Comprehending and Communicating Knowledge, 3) Metacognition and Motivation, and 4) Promoting Engagement.
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