Katherine Smock lectures in her seminar Researching Los Angeles’s Housing Crisis.
Provided with a list of zoning codes and a nearly blank map of the Los Angeles area, a small group of students begin redesigning the region with colored markers. Labelled “analog SimCity,” the activity echoed the city-building computer game while prompting students to consider the outcomes of residential, commercial, and industrial land use.
Though some in the class kept aspects of the region’s development intact, others completely changed its existing layout. This divide highlighted the role zoning plays in people’s collective experience of a city.
“It allowed us to discuss how the outcomes of zoning feel taken for granted and inevitable,” explained Katherine Smock, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology and instructor for the seminar Researching Los Angeles’s Housing Crisis. The course guides undergraduates in examining various aspects of local housing policy and provides an opportunity to connect social science scholarship with ongoing public policy debates.
The small seminar format allows students to thoughtfully discuss readings around proposed policy solutions to various housing-related topics. While this style departs from the more common lecture format, students have quickly learned how to engage in a dynamic class setting.
“We have our desks in the circle, and it really evens the playing field,” shared Smock, for whom the course was also her first time teaching a seminar. ”Their ideas and their thoughts are just as important as mine, if not more important. I think that is facilitated by this kind of way that we’re engaging with one another.”
For students, the smaller size also allows them to cultivate a more personal relationship with an instructor.
“With fewer students, Professor Smock knows everyone individually and the class can get familiar with one another, making a comfortable learning environment where everyone shares ideas openly with no hesitation,” shared Melody Dang, a fourth-year psychology major in the course.
Offered through the UCLA Teaching and Learning Center’s (TLC) Collegium of University Teaching Fellows (CUTF) program, Researching Los Angeles’s Housing Crisis also expands undergraduate access to innovative opportunities for course-based research. This allows students to explore how to conduct academic scholarship under the mentorship of an advanced doctoral student like Smock.
“You gain research skills in a really accessible way,” Smock said of the CUTF program. “That’s not always accessible on our campus, and students don’t know how to access research opportunities. This is a way for them to learn some elements of research.”
Smock has also created opportunities for students to explore more detailed aspects of research.
“Though I have had experience with prior classes in regards to research, Professor Smock dives deeper into the process,” shared Dang. “She also explained what goes on behind-the-scenes in academic research, specifically how a research study gets approved. It has interested me in conducting research as I have only been familiar with medical and game research, and it has broadened my horizons.”
CUTF courses like Smock’s provide a career development opportunity for graduate students teaching through the program. They each propose, design, and teach unique courses drawing on their own research, which offers valuable experience as they prepare for jobs as both educators and subject-matter experts.
Participants like Smock find it exciting to create a new class based on their research interests.
“As graduate students, you TA courses where you might not have a ton of agency over how the course works,” she said. “But this class was designed by me from the ground up, where I got to decide what is the material that I want to spend time chatting with students about.”
The program is unique in training graduate students on how to customize material for a seminar.
“CUTF offers one of very few opportunities at UCLA for graduate students to teach a course entirely of their own design,” shared Beth Goodhue, Director of Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Scholar Engagement at the TLC. “This experience helps prepare fellows to apply for and secure academic positions when they graduate, and helps students hone teaching skills that will help them thrive as future faculty.”
Beyond examining housing policy in detail, Smock ultimately hopes that the course positions her students to take advantage of future research opportunities on their own.
“I think a really awesome experience is getting to do research independently,” she shared. “I really wanted to give them training so at the end of my class they’re ready to plug into opportunities where they can do independent research.”