Seamless Learning
UC Berkeley software projects for teaching large courses.
The Seamless Learning project proposes an open-source, light-weight, and sustainable suite of tools to integrate Research, Teaching & Learning (RTL) and custom course tool platforms. Today, there is a suite of custom course tools used primarily by EECS, Data Science, Statistics—the three undergraduate programs in the new College of Computing, Data, and Society (CDSS). Collectively, each year these dozens of tools are jointly developed by hundreds of Teaching Assistants (TAs) and reach thousands of students in a variety of courses. While custom course tools have proven their utility, we must support instructors and TAs across campus who are also managing high enrollments.
Overall project goals:
- Improve large classroom management,
- Enable equitable grading strategies, and
- Foster an educational technology community across campus. We’re all here to teach and learn!
Project Staff
Faculty
This project is faculty-run. We regularly connect with our Research, Teaching & Learning colleagues about best practices for maintenance, support, and long-term project vision.
Contact the PI team with any general questions:
- Co-PI: Lisa Yan (she/her), EECS Assistant Professor of Teaching. yanlisa at berkeley dot edu
- Co-PI: Michael Ball (he/him), EECS Lecturer. ball at berkeley dot edu
Students
- Yu Long (graduated May 2024)
- Jordan Schwartz
- Rebecca Dang
- Yuerou Tang (graduated May 2024) (graduated May 2024)
- Stephanie Xu
Announcements
- August 2024: We held our Accessibility Workshop. TAs, past and present, explored options for creating digital accessible content. This workshop was held in collaboration with CoE Accessibility and other course staff.
- Access the workshop page for more information and resources.
- Over 20 TAs across EECS and Data Science contributed to our a11y Course Resource Document! Check out this document to implement accessibility (a11y) on your own public course resources.
- June 2024: We held our inaugural Seamless Learning Student Assistant Workshop. Students had a week to create some pretty cool projects, and we hosted some awesome talks thanks to the Research, Teaching, and Learning Services staff team.
- May 2024: Yu Long and Jordan Schwartz got to present their awesome work at the 2024 Teaching and Learning Conference at UC Berkeley!
- Yu Long, “Exam Seating: A Scalable, Transparent, Personalized Tool for Inclusive and Efficient Planning.” [presentation link], [GitHub link].
- Jordan Schwartz and Yuerou Tang, “Automated Support for Flexible Extensions.” [presentation link], [GitHub link].
- Conference webpage: [link]
Projects and Activities
Berkeley Class Template
Student lead: Rebecca Dang
Improved Just the Class to include GitHub actions that utilize axe GitHub Actions to check for accessibility. Full project description coming soon!
Seating Tool
Student lead: Yu Long
Full project description coming soon!
Flextensions
Student lead: Jordan Schwartz
Full project description coming soon!
Seamless Learning Tools Lunches
We run a monthly lunch for EECS, Data Science, and Statistics TAs and instructors to share their cool classroom technologies. The inaugural set of these lunches in AY23-24 was awesome. We covered everything from Gradescope, EdStem, and DataHub to super-customized course tools for gradebooks, office hours queues…you name it!
- All Tools Lunches Slides (requires UC Berkeley log-in): [link]
- If you’re a faculty member or staff affiliated with RTL and CDSS and you’d like to join our invitation list, please contact the Seamless Learning co-PIs.
Seamless Learning Workshops
- June 2024: Custom Course Tools
- August 2024: Accessibility. Workshop page
- Check out our a11y Course Resource Document for implementing accessibility (a11y) on your public course resources.
Informational Spreadsheets
If you’d like access to any of the below spreadsheets, please contact the Seamless Learning Co-PIs:
- All known public domains and staff mailing lists (SPA accounts) for EECS/Data/Statistics courses
- Seating configurations of almost every single exam room on campus
Funding
- “Seamless Learning: Data-driven notification platform for navigating the student experience at scale.” Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education, UC Berkeley. 05/2023 - 06/2024. $48,745.
- “Seamless Learning: Sustainable course tools for at-scale undergraduate education.” Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education, UC Berkeley. 07/2024 - 06/2025. $50,000.