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Hands-On Learning Through Objects


image of Ewa Lajer-BurcharthEwa Lajer-Burcharth, William Dorr Boardman Professor of Fine Arts, is an art historian who focuses on 18th- and 19th-century European and contemporary post-1970s art. Lajer-Burcharth uses physical objects – such as paintings, sculptures, and textile arts – to enable more immersive forms of learning that enable students to experience objects of study in a hands-on way that is not possible with text-heavy teaching methods. These objects serve as a primary teaching tool for encouraging new perspectives and interrogating original sources. Students examine various objects from museum and library collections under the expert guidance of curators, and eventually assist in the curation of an exhibit. This allows students to have hands-on experience in both understanding and creating, rather than be solely trapped by reading and speaking.  While her courses use physical objects as a point of reference, similar opportunities exist in other classroom contexts where students can contextualize the motivations of authors, musicians, and inventors, for example.

Preparing students to meaningfully engage with and learn from community experts


image of Shoba RamanadhanShoba Ramanadhan, Associate Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences (HSPH), creates curricular experiences that highlight community partnerships and incorporates diverse student experiences for shared knowledge building in the classroom and within the community. To do this, Ramanadhan integrates principles of Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) into her teaching methodology—an approach that includes collaboration with community partners on research design and implementation. Bringing this style of research into the classroom models critical practices of partnership and setting shared goals in collaborative work. As part of this, students are encouraged to share their experiences, especially practice-based expertise from their public health backgrounds. This allows students to learn how they might work within communities based on the experience of peers and community members, rather than just the expertise of the instructor. This informs classroom discussions when approaching a public health research topic. This approach has been transformative for students: “When I started this work about 19 years ago, I had to learn about  what a community-based organization practitioner’s day actually looks like, how their organizational structure works, how poorly paid they are. And so, to me, the teaching is really understanding what you don't know and who you can ask, filling those gaps, so that you can be better equipped to be useful to the community you’re working with.”

Using Social Annotation Tools to Unlock Collective Wisdom


image of Gavin PorterGavin Porter, Lecturer in Immunology (HMS), helps students develop critical skills for research paper analysis. Prior to 2019, his students would individually read papers and submit their analysis through a traditional templated question approach. Due to the repetitive nature of the assessment product and after realizing that all students could benefit from each other’s questions and ideas, Dr. Porter transitioned this assignment to a collaborative one using a social annotation platform created at Harvard called Perusall. The platform embeds the research paper PDF that students read asynchronously and mark with comments or questions throughout. Students see each other’s annotations and can build upon each other in collaborative threads and answer each other’s questions. Comments are situated directly within the margins of the course documents, instead of a disembodied discussion forum. Paper figures can be annotated, and so can video content.

Empowering students to practice essential learning strategies


image of Brendan KellyThe debate over assessments—their frequency, structure, and value—has become more vibrant in recent years, first with the onset of COVID-19 and now with the advent of Generative AI. As instructors experiment with different approaches, the Math Department has increased its emphasis on assessments, yielding some early successes. 

Brendan Kelly, Senior Preceptor and Director of Introductory Mathematics, notes that one of the main objectives in Harvard’s Math preparatory sequence is to provide students with a consistent, cumulative experience so that each course effectively builds off prior ones, or hands off to subsequent ones. However, the COVID-19 pandemic brought about a unique challenge. Kelly and his team observed that course-by-course experimentation with assessments during this period resulted in inconsistencies across courses, and as a result students being inadequately prepared for higher level Math courses - in turn prompting a reevaluation of their approach.

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