May 5-6, 2016
Over the past 40 years, the Derek Bok Center has supported and enhanced instruction at Harvard through the training of faculty and graduate students in effective pedagogy. This commitment to the development of current and future faculty remains a cornerstone of how we foster effective instruction. The Center developed groundbreaking approaches to reflective microteaching, and having set the standard in the field for consultative services combined with a cutting-edge professional development curriculum, it is now time to build on this foundation and redefine what a teaching and learning center can do in the 21st Century.
Today, we must deeply engage current educational research, multi-modal approaches to student engagement, and the use of technology and the Internet as educational tools. To this end and at the 40th anniversary of its creation, the Bok Center rededicates itself to the mission of enhancing learning at Harvard by integrating our traditional strengths in cultivating better instructors with an expanded focus on discovering new approaches to teaching and learning coupled with researching their efficacy in the classroom and beyond. The three programmatic foci that now define the Bok Center and its path forward are Discovery, Cultivation, and Research.
We invite you to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Bok Center at a two-day symposium featuring conversations and activities that explore the possibilities for Discovery, Cultivation and Research in higher education. This is an opportunity for participants to develop and share their own ideas, and as the Bok Center becomes increasingly intergenerational, we welcome undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty to the symposium. We therefore look forward to celebrating, exploring, and envisioning the future of learning together.
Robert Lue
Richard L. Menschel Faculty Director of the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning