Teaching Philosophy

A successful engineer designs solutions to real world problems and I believe that the ultimate goal of an engineering teacher is to provide students with the guidance, resources, and opportunities to attain success. My belief is that this goal – the basis of my teaching philosophy – can be attained by providing an interactive classroom with resources for students to build a strong theoretical base and by offering opportunities to apply this knowledge through discussions, design and experimentation.

A building is only as strong as its foundation and the same applies to learning. It is imperative for teachers to identify hurdles faced by students and adopt teaching strategies to overcome those hurdles. From my interactions with students in electrical engineering, I have learned that some of the biggest barriers that prevent them from developing strong theoretical foundations include difficulty in applying advanced mathematics to describe and solve problems, and in visualizing physical phenomena (often invisible to the human eye). To help overcome these issues, I try to explain the usage and implications of various mathematical operations through animations. I develop these animations myself and incorporate them into classroom lectures and assignment problems. A list of common mistakes is also a regular feature in my lectures to help students avoid the same. My assignments are often structured in increasing order of difficulty - the first few questions cover theory, followed by simple analysis problems that rely on theory, and then some advanced problems.

At the same time, students should be encouraged to pursue excellence by developing skills to analyze and critique course material, and finally create and design solutions using their knowledge. I believe that these objectives can be fulfilled by providing a classroom environment where discussion is encouraged and opinions are challenged, and developing experiments where students are given opportunities to design an electrical circuit/component, measure the same, and compare their measurements with theory to validate their measurements. I followed this approach when I was tasked with developing laboratory experiments for a new course in the department – EEL3472C – EE Science II - Electromagnetics.

The efforts described above would be futile if students are not motivated to spend time on the material assigned to them. So far, I have observed two factors that contribute to sustained motivation throughout the semester – a fun classroom that students look forward to (achieved through laboratory experiments, in-class demonstrations, interactive problem solving sessions, etc.), and a support system that students can rely on for getting their questions answered. I try to provide flexibility in office hours and meet students whenever possible to discuss the issues they are facing in the subject as well as offer suggestions to help them with these issues. I am also a proponent of the role of graduate teaching assistants as mentors to undergraduate students and I try to assist them with any questions they have about their career.

To conclude, I believe my role as a teaching assistant is two-fold – support classroom environment conducive for learning, and serve as a motivator and mentor to help students reach their full potential.