Teaching Week 2024
February 26 – March 1, 2024
The Teaching & Learning Center in collaboration with the Committee on Teaching is pleased to announce that UCSC Teaching Week will be held February 26 – March 1, 2024. Teaching Week is an opportunity to celebrate and elevate the innovative teaching that is happening at UCSC in support of our shared goals of equity-minded and transformative learning for all of our students. Teaching Week events will include:
UCSC Teaching Symposium — Feb 27, 2024; 3:30–6 PM; Cultural Center at Merrill College
The symposium will showcase the work of instructors (including grads, lecturers, senate faculty) presenting on a teaching innovation, activity, program, or scholarly work. Presentation modalities include posters, digital work, and short spoken presentations. This is an in-person event.
Teaching in the Age of Generative AI — Feb 28, 2024; 2:30–4 PM; Zoom
How does artificial intelligence show up in our classroom? How do we prepare to teach our students to think critically about these new generative models? This joint Academic Senate and Teaching & Learning Center (TLC) forum will create a space to reflect on the challenges, opportunities, and affordances offered by these fast-moving algorithmic technologies.
In the first part of our program, we’ll hear from participants in the TLC’s Artificial Intelligence Learning Community, which brought faculty and staff together in a series of regular meetings in the fall quarter to discuss what we were seeing in our classrooms, and to showcase faculty successes in integrating large language models (or LLMs) into teaching practice. We will also hear from students about their perspectives and experiences with AI and learning.
In the second part of the program, we’ll turn our attention to how these Generative Pretrained Transformers are changing our ability to learn how to interact with computational systems. Code is, after all, the native language of artificial intelligence. Our faculty panel will address how AI tools like Copilot are changing the computer science classroom, and how they allow instructors in other non-CS courses to integrate new activities and assignments that previously would have been impossible to teach while also covering course content.
This will be a Zoom event, joint-sponsored by the TLC and Academic Senate and facilitated by Zac Zimmer, Associate Professor of Literature and Chair of Academic Senate’s Committee on Information Technology; Academic Senate, and Michael Tassio, Assistant Vice Provost for Educational Innovation; Teaching and Learning Center.
Distinguished Teaching Award Lecture — Feb 29, 2024; 4–6:30 PM; Cultural Center at Merrill College
Please join us for a conversation about being authentic in our roles as teachers and mentors with Prof. Alegra Eroy-Reveles, the 2022–23 Distinguished Teaching Awardee and Associate Teaching Professor in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department. She will be joined by friends Dr. Mica Estrada of UCSF and Yuliana Ortega of UCSC. The conversation will be facilitated by Dr. Yvonne Rodriguez of The Surge Institute. Together they will explore the many paradoxes of joining “soul and role” in teaching and mentoring, while also balancing life as Latina mothers and grandmothers.
This is a hybrid event and is co-sponsored with the Office of the Chancellor and the Hispanic Serving Institute (HSI) Initiatives.
Program
4:00–4:45 PM: Refreshments
4:45–6:00 PM: The Paradox of Authenticity in Teaching and Mentoring
6:00–6:15 PM: Q & A
6:15 PM: Event wraps up
Yuliana Ortega (BA in Biology and Latin American and Latino Studies from UCSC) is the Director of STEM Diversity Programs at UCSC working with hundreds of students at the start of their research careers. Born in Oaxaca, Yulianna’s family went back and forth between Oaxaca and Santa Cruz for much of her childhood until they finally settled permanently in the Santa Cruz area when she was 12 years old. As an undergraduate, she found her preferred balance between science and social justice in the STEM Diversity Programs, which she now directs. She has two children and is currently enrolled in a doctoral program in Educational Leadership at UC Davis. Yulianna was the 2020 UCSC Outstanding Staff Awardee for her important roles as leader and mentor to students and beyond.
Dr. Mica Estrada (PhD in Social Psychology from Harvard U) is the Associate Dean of Diversity, Inclusion and Equity for the School of Nursing and a Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. After completing her doctoral degree, she stepped out of academia for more than 10 years to raise her three children, while also volunteering for nonprofit organizations. She then got back into research working as an adjunct researcher at CSU San Marcos, then later moved to UCSF and is the PI on several NIH grants. Dr. Estrada sits on numerous National Academies committees, recognizing her leadership and expertise on issues of undergraduate STEM student retention.
Dr. Yvonne Rodriguez (PhD and BS in Physics from UCSC, MBA from Bentley U) is the Director of National Program Impact and Talent for The Surge Institute, which provides leadership acceleration programs for leaders of color who are looking to transform the education space. She also runs her own business as a STEM Equity Coach and Consultant. Dr. Rodriguez transferred to UCSC from Chabot College along with her three children and completed bachelor’s and doctoral degrees in Physics. She later earned her MBA and Coaching Certificate. She has worked for various national organizations in science and education, including SACNAS, AWIS, and SWE, providing leadership on how to engage, support, and advance leaders of color.