Teaching

At the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, I am teaching some courses namely;

1. Undergraduate students

• Botany. Link

• Biochemistry. Link 

• Scientific Debate

• Genetics

• Molecular Genetics

• Animal Biotechnology

• Computer

• Dry Matter Accumulation

2. Postgraduate students

• Molecular Biology

• Seed Biology. Link  

• Computerized Data Analysis (SPSS, XLSTAT, JMP7). Link  

• Biostatistics, University of Sulaimani, College of Sciences, Biology Department

• Biostatistics, University of Sulaimani, College of Veterinary

My Philosophy in Teaching

        I am Dr. Nawroz Abdul-razzak Tahir, Assistant Professor at the Sulaimanyh University, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences. I have worked in the field of Agronomy, Plant Breeding, Biotechnology and Plant Molecular Biology since 1997 and at the present my research interests are experimental and theoretical research of Plant Molecular Biology and Cereal Chemistry. During my M.Sc., the researching work I have carried out in the laboratory in France regarding the mutant of sunflower allowed me to analyze some parameters of germination of mutant of sunflower using the molecular marker methods. During my PhD, I worked on the functional analysis of P450-CYP98 genes.

        A teacher is a person who creates an environment that is conducive to learning a place where students can immerse themselves in a subject or discipline as they assimilate a body of requisite information, concepts, and/or skills.  Learning is not a passive process; it requires motivation, effort, and persistence.  Good students enter the learning environment with a commitment to scholarship, a willingness to work, and a sense of personal responsibility toward achieving their educational goals.  Good teachers provide an environment that is challenging yet supportive. In my role as a teacher, I have three primary functions:  tour guide, facilitator, and gate keeper.  These are not mutually exclusive activities, although students often regard them as such.  Each lecture, laboratory, or homework assignment contains elements of all three functions.

       To develop a philosophy of teaching is to focus on my role as an educator and define what is important about it. I find that my role involves three principle activities:

1. To continually strive to develop a broad array of teaching skills and adjust them to meet the needs of my students.

2. To truly challenge my students and to evaluate them honestly and fairly.

3. To foster student mastery of course material while at the same time helping them to develop broader, more important skills such as communication and critical thinking.

I am mindful, however, that not all students learn the same way I do. Furthermore, not all students come to college with the same amount of preparation and level of skill. The face of the student body is continually changing, and I must adapt my teaching style to change with it in order to accommodate the ways in which my students learn.Assessment of student performance is a key aspect of teaching, and it is absolutely essential to employ methods of assessment that are honest and fair. I write exams with a variety of question formats, including essays, short answer, multiple choice, and the use of figures to give as many students as possible the chance to shine. However, consistently awarding artificially high grades throughout the semester "to make the students happy" leaves them believing that the level of mastery they have achieved is higher than it actually is. Truly meaningful self-esteem grows naturally from a sense of achievement; fostering students' self-esteem should complement pedagogy and assessment, not compete with them. Similarly, failing to penalize academic dishonesty only ensures that it will happen again, and this is clearly detrimental to the student in the long run, not to mention unfair to the honest students in the class. In the course of their education, I expect students to develop an ability to think critically and analytically, to know what questions to ask before making a decision, and to know where to look for answers to their questions.