Teaching Statement

Teaching transcends the classroom—it is a skill set that involves an ability to communicate, present, mentor, and manage.  The purpose of teaching is to create self-aware, active, and critical thinkers.  This involves probing the depths of the limits of one’s knowledge.  And it is at the limits of knowledge where new learning begins. 

In the electrical engineering laboratory courses that I have instructed and developed, my emphasis has been on learning through hands-on, application-driven design and circuit implementation.  Students are required to think, argue, and realize their own conclusions through trial and error.

How I teach Engineering

At the introductory level, the tools, or principles of circuits, systems, and devices is taught.  Here, students are given the fundamental tools of the discipline with which to work.  These tools include Arduino microcontrollers and an array of sensors ranging from piezoelectric to photovoltaic devices (Fundamentals); NPN diodes, MOSFETs, and Op-Amps (Microelectronics); flip-flops, gate arrays, and PICS (Digital Systems); Matlab/SIMULINK, speech processing algorithms, and telephony (Signals & Systems); transmission lines, printed circuit boards, and antennas (Electromagnetics); and differential amplifiers, current mirrors, and emitter-followers (Integrated Circuits).  With these fundamental tools at their disposal, students are able to command a level of comfort and mastery of ECE that allows them to consider designs of their own.  In culmination design courses where I play an instructional role, students must not only learn to apply the tools of the discipline, the must also be able to speak to it using a first-hand knowledge of the language of engineering.  This language includes programming languages such as C++, LaTeX, and Matlab; but it also includes device-specific terms learned through the design process involving new components and sub-disciplines.  While there is room at this stage for technology, the most basic purpose is to teach students how to converse and be conversant in the field.  Ultimately, in the field of Electrical and Computer Engineering, it is difficult to argue with success.  In upper-level project courses (ECE Senior Design course labs:  Sensors & Sensor Design, Embedded Systems, VLSI design, Advanced Digital Design), evidence of achievement through a fully functional project is a powerful indication of accomplishment.  In these courses, students must not only demonstrate a working prototype, they also need to be able to discuss why it works, how it does what it does, and whether it does so in the most efficient and practical way possible, given resource constraints are important additional layers.

Technology in the classroom

Technology provides a means to an end in the courses I teach.  I use course management software such as Blackboard and Sakai to make course documents accessible to students, to provide for course-communication, and to allow students up-to-date grade information. In the classroom or laboratory, the use of hardware (laptops, projectors, speakers) and software (Matlab, web URLS, videos) allows a spring board for in-class discussion and activities.

Assessment

Application of knowledge in Electrical and Computer Engineering is where real, lasting learning takes place.  The courses I teach begin with clear goals and objectives and they end with evidence-based examples of these as implemented designs.  Ironically, it is more often the mistakes made along the way in these designs that are remembered much more vividly than even the biggest successes.  It is for this reason that hands-on learning, or learning by doing is so effective.  In a laboratory-based curriculum, motivation to make something work is an excellent way for students to see, first-hand what goes into engineering.  From device selection to design and integration, it is hard for students not to learn along the way.

Continuous learning

As a teacher, learning how to learn and improving with each course offering is critical.  One tangible evidence of my own desire to continuous improve has been the Certificatein College Teaching at Duke University.  In addition, I regularly seek anonymous feedback at intervals in the semester as a method to get a pulse on a laboratory or classroom.  End-of-semester survey results in the courses I have taught is yet another way I am able to see where students have engaged and where I can improve.  I also seek out peer feedback both within the University and outside of it through corporate connections.  I, personally, find reward in regularly attending and publishing in peer-reviewed educational journals (papers) and conferences (presentations) such as the American Society of Engineering Educators (ASEE), Sigma Xi the Scientific Research Society (Sigma Xi), and the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Engineering Educators division.  In this way, I am able to say current in the discipline and invariably find additional opportunities for collaboration and continuous learning.