Sara Harris
Professor of Teaching, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences University of British Columbia
Media
Social
Biography
Industry Expertise
Areas of Expertise
Accomplishments
Jim Millinger Award for Excellence in Teaching
2005
Awarded by the Sea Education Association.
Undergraduate Instructor of the Year Award
2007
Awarded by Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of British Columbia.
Killam Teaching Prize
2011
Awarded by the University of British Columbia.
3M National Teaching Fellowship
2015
Awarded by the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education and 3M Canada to recognize exceptional contributions to teaching and learning in Canadian post-secondary education.
Education
Wesleyan University
B.A.
Earth Science
1991
Oregon State University
Ph.D.
Oceanography
1998
Media Appearances
How to build a world-wide classroom
Maclean's Magazine
2015-02-16
Sara Harris’s mission is to shake up the usual method of science education, which she describes as, “listen, write notes and try to make sense of it later” ...
B.C. fire season flares up early forcing province to turn down Alberta request for help
Vancouver Sun
2016-05-04
Sara Harris, a senior instructor in UBC’s department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, said data suggest that over the long term wildfire seasons around the world are getting worse ...
Conversations that Matter: Dr. Sara Harris a senior instructor at the department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science at UBC
Vancouver Sun online
2014-11-30
Video interview.
A Nobel Laureate's Education Plea: Revolutionize Teaching
National Public Radio radio
2016-04-14
Ironically, it was one of his lectures on the death of lectures that inspired a professor of teaching there, Sara Harris to put aside her research on paleoceanography to work full time on improving science education ...
Event Appearances
Overcoming the Obstacles to Teaching Reform
Earth Educators' Rendezvous Madison, WI
2016-07-22
Dirty Slates: Student Ideas as Catalysts for Learning
Vancouver Island University Teaching and Learning Conference Nanaimo, BC
2016-05-06
The Change in Climate Change
A Taste of Pi Series, Simon Fraser University Vancouver, BC
2016-04-09
(Re)Designing Your Course For Improved Student Learning
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, CA
2016-03-28
Online and Hybrid Learning Workshop
Earth Educators’ Rendezvous Boulder, CO
2015-07-13
Articles
Transforming the lowest performing students; an intervention that worked
Journal of College Science Teaching2012
We conducted a small-scale study to investigate if a brief timely intervention focusing on specific study strategies would improve student performance in university science courses.
Benefits and Drawbacks of Using Multiple Instructors to Teach Single Courses
College Teaching2012
We set out to identify the benefits and drawbacks of using more than one instructor to teach single section science courses at a large research university. Nine courses were investigated involving widely differing subjects and levels.
Measuring student knowledge of landscapes and their formation timespan
Journal of Geoscience Education2013
Geologic time is a crucial component of any geoscientist's training. Essential knowledge of geologic time includes rates of geologic processes and the associated time it takes for geologic features to form, yet measuring conceptual thinking abilities in these domains is challenging. We describe development and initial application of the Landscape Identification and Formation Test (LIFT), a concept inventory for measuring abilities to identify landscapes and their formation timespans.
A Massive Open Online Course on climate change: The social construction of a global problem using new tools for connectedness
Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change2014
Climate change is a pervasive and challenging phenomenon that takes on a variety of meanings and frames, each of which suggests different victims, villains, and solutions. New tools are emerging that may facilitate a reframing, or at least the collaborative coproduction, of the climate change conversation.
A New Tool for Measuring Student Behavioral Engagement in Large University Classes
Journal of College Science Teaching2015
We developed a classroom observation protocol for quantitatively measuring student engagement in large university classes. The Behavioral Engagement Related to Instruction (BERI) protocol can be used to provide timely feedback to instructors as to how they can improve student engagement in their classrooms.
