Teaching Philosophy
Teaching is not merely about conveying theories and research methods – it's about empowering students to develop a critical lens through which they can understand the social forces that shape their world. I have taught nine semesters at the University of California, Berkeley, a top-ranked public university that embodies excellence in education and diversity in student body. Over the course of this time, I have built a teaching philosophy that centers on three core principles: understanding student motivations, providing opportunities for application, and building classroom community. I structure my courses around student-led discussions, collaborative research projects, and hands-on fieldwork that allows students to connect theoretical frameworks with lived experiences. My own experience as an immigrant and non-native English speaker informs my approach to making the classroom a place that’s accessible to all.
Below are syllabi from three courses I designed: AI & Society, Berkeley Connect, and Writing for Social Theory.
© Natalia Luka
AI is fundamentally a social technology. It is designed by teams of developers who are employed by corporations, governments, academic institutions, or non-profit organizations. Using massive amounts of (mostly) human generated and annotated data, the technology learns from what it is fed. AI promises tremendous strides for human societies, for instance, improving the output of human workers and speeding the pace of scientific research and development. However, left unexamined, it also reflects and automates the biases that come both from its designers and the data it was trained on. It consumes tremendous amounts of natural resources and leads us to important questions about what sort of energy expenditures we can justify. Without careful consideration of how this technology is designed and integrated into the systems we use, it can reproduce and amplify existing social inequalities– even as it holds immense promise to solve some of our most intractable social problems. This class brings students into dialogue with current debates in sociology, moral philosophy, and political science and asks what decisions they would make as leaders in this space in order to build the sort of society they wish to see.
© Natalia Luka
The Berkeley Connect Program in Sociology is designed to enhance learning by strengthening contacts between undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty outside of the classroom. The core of the program is a one-credit, pass-fail course that seeks to create a community of students with similar intellectual interests and to link undergraduate students with experienced graduate mentors. The majority of students who participate are transfer students from community college or international students. During my course, I covered topics such as speaking up in class, building mentoring relationships, and looking for summer internships. This program has been shown not just to improve students’ sense of belonging at the university but also their academic performance.
© Natalia Luka
The idea behind this course is to give students the tools and preparation to excel in writing for Sociology 101: Classical Theory through a “workshop” format. Ideally it should actually save students time by building their self-confidence as writers and providing a supportive community that motivates them to get assignments done. Half of the course time is dedicated to a mini-lecture. Each week focuses on one common problem in student writing. First, we work together to identify this problem through realistic examples of student writing. From there, we discuss what makes some pieces of writing more effective than others and develop writing strategies directly from these examples.