The Teaching and Learning Center and the Academic Senate held the 3rd Annual Teaching Week at UC Santa Cruz in late February.
Teaching Symposium
Approximately 100 people attended the Second Annual Teaching Symposium held in the Cultural Center at Merrill College on February 25. The event showcased over 30 presentations from instructors in all divisions and included faculty, graduate students, postdocs, and staff.
These campus leaders in teaching shared innovative ways to build belonging in classrooms, pedagogy for supporting students in community-engaged learning, innovative ways of using GenAI in the classroom, strategies for supporting tutors, and new methods of assessing student learning among many other topics. The Teaching Symposium, part of UC Santa Cruz’s Teaching Week, is sponsored by the Teaching and Learning Center and the Committee on Teaching to celebrate and elevate the dedicated and transformative teachers on our campus.
Experiments with AI in Teaching & Learning
How can generative AI be used to simulate historical narratives? Can it be used as a tool for understanding mathematical reasoning (not just answers)? How about for personalized student support? These questions and others were explored through short presentations by faculty leaders in experimenting with AI, including associate professor of History Benjamin Breen, associate teaching professor of Mathematics Pedro Morales Almazan, and associate professor of Computational Media Adam Smith.
Vice Chancellor of Information Technology, Aisha Jackson, addressed the audience on the newly formed AI Council, which has been working to develop an ethical framework, a secure environment to foster experimentation, and to provide advice to campus leadership.
The event concluded with a panel discussion to engage with audience questions, including on the tensions between teaching with AI and student learning, use of AI in ways that have traditionally been responsibilities of instructors or teaching assistants, and on campus infrastructure for using AI.
The event was recorded and we hope you will find yourself inspired by the presentations. If you are, we’d love to hear from you — reach out at tlc@ucsc.edu.
Distinguished Teaching Award
POSTPONED UNTIL May 15, 4–6 PM
University Center, Alumni Room or Live Stream
Teaching is Like a Third Birthday by Nathan Altice, Associate Teaching Professor of Computational Media and the 2023–24 Distinguished Teaching Awardee.
In Person Registration
Add streaming to Google Calendar
In keeping with the enthusiasm for teaching and learning on our campus, we look forward to the annual TLC Convocation being held this year on Thursday, April 24.
