Bruin Educator Spotlight: Olivia Osei-Twumasi
Student-centered Course Design
Welcome to our first L@L Bruin Educator spotlight! Periodically, we will highlight the pedagogical accomplishments and/or innovations of a UCLA educator. If you would be interested in sharing an aspect of your approach to teaching, please reach out to us at consult@teaching.ucla.edu!
Meet Professor Olivia Osei-Twumasi! She is an Assistant Adjunct Professor and Director of Undergraduate Initiatives in the Department of Economics at UCLA. Professor Osei-Twumasi attended CAT’s 2021 Summer Faculty Institute on Course Re-Design. When describing the institute, Professor Osei-Twumasi wrote, “The summer institute definitely inspired me to be more flexible and creative in teaching and provided helpful information about useful tools to facilitate that as well as clear guidance for how to align these kinds of activities with course goals and assessment.”
After re-considering her course objectives and how best to align these goals with course activities, Professor Osei-Twumasi partially flipped her Econ 111 classroom. In this course, Theories of Economic Growth and Development, students watched some lectures as pre-recorded videos asynchronously so that class time could be spent actively exploring the materials through games, polls, and discussion.
One activity in particular captured the attention of her students. Professor Osei-Twumasi describes it in her own words:
“One activity made use of the grass square between Powell Library and Royce Hall. We made a scatter plot where each student was a data point representing the country they had chosen for their case study (though for some countries, multiple students were doing the same country - they worked together for the ranking but only one student went up to be the data point). The x-axis was a property rights ranking that the students developed themselves. The y-axis was the country's score on the HDI index (which combines average income, years of education, and life expectancy). The line of correlation was quite steep and fairly tight - I was actually surprised by how clear the outcome was! Students participated very actively and seemed to enjoy the activity. Working together to define property rights along a one-dimensional scale was also a valuable exercise which helped students better understand the challenges of reducing complex concepts in such a way that facilitates clear data visualization.
Two central goals of Professor Osei-Twumasi’s teaching approach are making course content relevant to students and encouraging critical thinking. This activity which was communicated with clear objectives that aligned with the overall course’s mission created an opportunity for students to internalize their learning through active participation. Professor Osei-Twumasi hopes to continue to incorporate these types of activities and innovations into her future course designs.
We’re always excited to collaborate with campus educators to highlight innovative teaching practices and strategies. Reach out to us at consult@teaching.ucla.edu if you’re interested in sharing your own experiences!