Prof. Levy is passionate about effective teaching and learning, and enjoys sharing his experience and enthusiasm with others. He has won several teaching awards, including the university-wide David Pickard Award for Teaching and Mentoring (awarded by the Harvard Statistics Department to a faculty member who has made important contributions to the teaching of statistics) and the Manuel C. Carballo Award for Excellence in Teaching at the Harvard Kennedy School. His teaching was featured in Instructional Moves, a project conducted by the Harvard Graduate School of Education aimed at helping faculty incorporate and refine high-leverage teaching practices. He also delivered a “master class” at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The class, available here, was part of a series launched to celebrate excellent teaching at Harvard. An interview with him on this class is available here.
Prof. Levy is particularly interested in leveraging technology and data to improve teaching and learning. He co-founded Teachly, a web application (featured here) aimed at helping faculty members to teach more effectively and more inclusively. It does so by providing faculty with easy and real-time access to data about their students and their teaching practices. He has become increasingly interested in digital learning as a way to complement and strengthen residential education. He has worked with his teaching team to develop interactive online units (work highlighted here and demos available here) that students engage with before class in order to shape what happens in the classroom. He also served as a co-principal investigator of BCURE, a project aimed at building the capacity of policymakers to use research evidence. In this project, he led the team in charge of training, which involved designing and deploying six interactive online units as part of a blended learning experience for senior policymakers in India and Pakistan (more info available here).
Prof. Levy has played several leadership roles related to teaching and learning, including serving as one of the founding faculty members and latter Faculty Chair of the Kennedy School's SLATE (Strengthening Learning and Teaching Excellence) Initiative (2008-2018), Faculty Chair of the Kennedy School’s MPA programs (2008-2012), and Faculty Co-Chair of the HarvardX Research Committee (2014), a university-wide committee focused on promoting research about online learning. He currently serves as the Faculty Director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s initiative on online education.
Prof. Levy has given presentations and training sessions on effective teaching involving faculty from a wide range of institutions, including Harvard (Kennedy School, Graduate School of Education, Medical School, and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences), NYU, Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje (Colombia), Universidad Adolfo Ibañez (Chile), Universidad Diego Portales (Chile), Universidad de Los Andes (Chile) and Universidad Católica Boliviana (Bolivia). Listed below are some presentations and workshops that Prof. Levy has previously conducted for some of these institutions.
Dan Levy
Presentations and Workshops about Teaching and Learning
| Topic | Target Participants | Description | Format | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Making Learning Memorable - Master Class | Faculty members, students, and administrators interested in effective teaching and learning | During this session, Prof. Levy teaches a sample class and then debriefs with the participants. The teaching demo is interactive and involves the use of various teaching techniques including identifying misconceptions, small group work and polling. The reflective discussion is an opportunity to examine which components were useful, followed by a broader conversation about effective teaching. | Teaching Demo + Debrief | 90 minutes |
| Digital Learning as a Catalyst for Better Teaching | Faculty members, students, and administrators interested in digital learning | This presentation is aimed at informing universities about the use of digital learning and how it can improve teaching quality. Prof. Levy reflects on how digital learning is reshaping higher education, and identifies the opportunities and challenges facing university administrators, faculty members, and students. | Presentation + Q&A | 60 minutes |
| Assessing Your Teaching | Faculty members | This workshop is aimed at helping faculty members identify ways to assess their own teaching. In this interactive workshop, Prof. Levy introduces assessment techniques he has used in his own teaching, and leads a discussion in which participants reflect on their current assessment activities and how these could be improved. | Workshop [Interactive Presentation and Discussion] | 120 minutes |
| Blended Learning | Faculty members | The terms “flipped classroom” and “blended learning” have become very popular in recent years. Unfortunately, these terms are often misunderstood and lead instructors to try teaching approaches that seldom lead to learning. In this workshop, Prof. Levy shares some of his experiences with blended learning and helps guide faculty members through the process of using blended learning in their own classrooms. | Workshop [Interactive Presentation and Discussion] | 90 minutes |
| Innovations in Teaching and Learning | Faculty members | In this workshop, Prof. Levy shares some of the innovations he has tried in his own teaching and leads a discussion in which participants share their innovations. The goal is for every participant to leave the workshop with at least one innovation technique s/he can try the next time s/he teaches a course. | Workshop [Interactive Presentation and Discussion] | 90 minutes |