The College Classroom Through a Photographer’s Lens
Photo: Martin Springborg
In a stark black-and-white photograph, Mike Brown, the Richard and Barbara Rosenberg Professor of Planetary Astronomy, stands at a whiteboard alongside students from his planetary science course as they work out equations together. In another, Melany Hunt, the Dotty and Dick Hayman Professor of Mechanical Engineering, wields a handheld model of a Stirling engine to explain to a mechanical engineering class how it works. And in another, Caltech students talk through their prose during a session at the Hixon Writing Center.
Caltech is one of several colleges and universities featured in the new open-access book What Teaching Looks Like: Higher Education through Photographs by Cassandra Volpe Horii and Martin Springborg. Before joining Stanford earlier this year, Horii served as the assistant vice provost and founding director of Caltech’s Center for Teaching, Learning, and Outreach (CTLO), which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. With CTLO, she led efforts to advance inclusive, evidence-based teaching. Springborg, now the director of teaching and learning at Inver Hills Community College in Minnesota, shot tens of thousands of photographs for the book, some of which were featured in the Fall 2013 issue of Engineering & Science, the predecessor to Caltech magazine.
The book is a fascinating look at classroom and student life through a photographer’s lens. More than that, it is meant to inspire reflection and conversation on how to improve both teaching practices and student support services.
“Martin Springborg and I are so glad that more people now have this window into how compelling and complex teaching in higher education is today,” Horii says. “Caltech was the first institution to participate in the larger photo documentary effort, The Teaching and Learning Project, as it expanded to a national scale. The book showcases and offers new reflections on teaching across many institution types, including research-intensive places like Caltech. I think you can really see the energy that Caltech faculty, teaching assistants, and students bring to teaching and learning through the interactions shown and discussed in the book.”