Teaching Narrative

TEACHING GOALS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The content part of the teaching goals and outcomes should be geared towards "What should students be able to do at the end of this course?" I try to focus my goals for student learning outcome in two directions. Firstly, towards the subject matter, secondly, towards lifelong skills, analytically thinking skills, problem solving skills and communication skills which are perhaps the more important aspects of these goals for students.

COURSE DESIGN

Rather than thinking about the content of a course, I believe that a better way to construct a course is to first understand what you want your students to be able to do at the end of the course. From there, you can design assessments based around those objectives, and then structure the content of the course to suit. Thus, when constructing this course syllabus, I started by thinking about what I wanted students to be able to do by the end of the course, and what they should have gained.

My sample syllabus (PHYS 4A_Syllabus_FL2015.pdf, Syllabus-PHYS 2B SP 2015.pdf, PHYS_150_Syllabus_SP2014), Lesson plan, and Sample Grading Rubric illustrate my thought on course design, implementation and assessment.

TEACHING APPROACH

My approach to teaching focuses on engaging students with the material at hand, and hopefully exciting them about the subject. My goal as a teacher is to foster critical thinking, facilitate the acquisition of life-long learning skills, and prepare students to be competitive in today’s fast-paced society so that they can apply their knowledge to solve the problems they face in life. I try to teach not only course material, but also to encourage students to develop thought patterns to think like physicists/scientists. Students are undertaking their own learning, while I am present to guide and facilitate their journey. I want to cultivate an interactive, collaborative, student-centered learning, reasoning and problem solving skill rather than simply lecturing to a class. So students can express themselves freely while learning to engage with physics in meaningful ways and can actively take part in intellectual conversation.

My personal approach to implement my philosophy into practice

Motivation: The starting point of learning is always motivation. The final grade has a top-priority for many students as well, but during the course I do my best to show that the material is interesting and motivating on its own. I utilize multiple approaches to motivate students by describing beauty of physics, brief history and importance, real life examples, images and graphs, demos, discussions, group work, written problem sets and hands-on activities.

Inclusive Classroom Environment: In my opinion, a critical ingredient for promoting learning is an open, inclusive and respectful classroom environment. My highest priority is to create a friendly classroom atmosphere, in which students will not be afraid to ask questions, make remarks, answer my questions and actively take part in discussions. In both my lab classes and my discussion sections, I regularly arrived early to class, stayed late after class, and held open labs and office hours, to give my students more opportunities to ask questions and share their opinions.

Engaging Students: Students must be actively participating in the learning process, rather than passive observers, particularly important for lecture courses. I always give them a scenario and ask them to seek answers, make them think, and ponder about the world. I also try to deliver my lessons with a positive energy and excitement that I hope my students will emulate

Applied and practical skills: Applied and practical skills can be brought into the classroom in a variety of ways. The use of demonstrations can enhance the material presented in the textbooks and lectures. As an instructor in advance physics course I like to introduce practical demos on a weekly basis, or more often if appropriate. Student-based research is another way to reinforce classroom material and provide practical skills to the students.

Everyday Experiences: I've found that providing real-world and hand-on examples can be very effective at solidifying a concept for students. Drawing these types of connections takes an abstract concept and makes it concrete. Furthermore it removes the incorrect stereotype that science only deals with theoretical concepts that have no relevancy to the real world, which can often dissuade students from pursuing careers in science.

Active Learning: Group work is a very effective at engaging students and promoting active learning. In my lab course, having students work in groups was natural, and students completed each lab in collaboration with others. In my discussion sections, which had a more traditional classroom set up, I also effectively engaged students in group work, for example, through “think-pair-share” activities. For instance in my lab classes, I often have each group report their results by writing them on the board. Then towards the end of the class we compare results, discuss their different methods, clear up lingering questions and draw connections with the overarching themes of the class.

Inquiry Learning: Though straightforward problems with well defined methods and solutions are important to reinforce a student’s understanding, it is equally important to provide students with opportunities to develop and test their own methods for problem solving. This inquiry-based learning gives the students a better sense of how science is really done, and that the scientific method is sometimes not straightforward, and is always iterative. It also awakens curiosity and makes the subject matter more interesting.

Scientific Writing: Developing a student’s writing skills is also a vital part of teaching science (though this is sometimes not expected by students). The ability to describe results of any project in writing is essential for many disciplines. I teach my students how to write concise and accurate descriptions of their work. These are valuable skills for students when applying for jobs and graduate schools, and indeed throughout their careers. Lab write-ups are a traditional method for developing scientific writing abilities, which I used in my lab course.

TEACHING ASSESSMENT

The next stage of constructing the course is to decide how to assess those learning outcomes. The assessments of student learning should be directly related to the learning goals of the course, and should not be testing content alone (which would be straight memorization or basic understanding). Assessments should be geared towards the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, in order to encourage the higher level thinking skills in students. One should also refrain from creating assessments which are simply "jumping through hoops to get a grade". They should have practical application, or some aspect of reality to them. Rubrics are excellent ways of letting students know how they will be graded, particularly on written assessments and presentations. I think that students should know what they are being assessed on, and a Grading Rubric allows them to assess themselves and adjust their performance accordingly. It is important that grading policies be standard, fair, and relevant to the objectives of the course.

Grading should be flexible so that unconventional or original solutions are not penalized simply because they do not match the anticipated solution; few things are more discouraging to students than receiving a low grade for work that they believe is good. My personal ways of student's assessment: Informal Assessment: In order to further refine my teaching skills and methods, assessments are vital. Group activities provide real-time feedback, allowing for a dynamic and constantly improving classroom environment. While students work in groups, I walk around the room and check in with each student. These real-time assessments allow me to gauge the pace and efficacy of my lessons, helps specific individuals, and make adjustments to the lesson where needed, all of which improve my lessons and keeps students engaged. This constant informal assessment also reveals misconceptions that students may bring into a class, which, in turn, facilitates discussions and resolutions.

Formal Assessment: Of additional great importance are homework problems, quizzes and exams, which allow me to gauge both how well a student can independently investigate problems and how effective my lessons are at teaching the necessary methods and techniques. These formal assessments allow me to improve as a teacher from year to year.

INNOVATIONS

Technology is becoming ubiquitous in today's lifestyle, and it opens up new opportunities for enhancing learning with its use. As a Physics educator, mentor and researcher, I am always seeking to integrate technologies and innovations with proven teaching learning concepts focused on student success. I want to cultivate an interactive, collaborative, student-centered learning environment. I have been using as much as available technology so that students can learn, enjoy, express and engage with physics in meaningful ways and can actively take part in intellectual conversation. I want to investigate further effective innovative techniques in the future.

The existing technologies and innovations I am using include the following:

• • Blackboard, Canvas, iLearn course and learning management system for administration, documentation tracking, reporting, delivery of e-learning education,online or blended/hybrid and flipped-classes

  • Flipped Class

  • Interactive response mechanisms (for example, "clickers") for large classes

  • Discussion board for peer assessment and selection of topics for final papers

  • Online surveys for course evaluation and optional modules

  • Course website and email announcements

  • Use of multimedia, animations, demonstrations, mini movies

  • Laboratory computer data acquisition and analysis

OBJECTIVES OF INNOVATION:

• • To "institutionalize" meaningful course content and effective pedagogical methods, so that good teaching is not dependent on a single inspired instructor but is integral to all sections of all classes;

  • To incorporate new physics instructional techniques, based on physics education research, that emphasize conceptual understanding;

  • To utilize state-of-the-art instructional media, including multimedia lecture presentations, World Wide Web-based interactive course materials, and laboratory computer data acquisition and analysis;

  • To develop students' teamwork skills and to promote students' opportunities for collaborative learning;

  • To develop a model for basic science teaching that will be "portable" to other departments on our campus and to other physics departments at large research universities.

CONCLUSION

In my long Teaching Experience, I have learnt that there is always room for improvement, and as I discover new and engaging techniques, I hope to incorporate them into my teaching methods. Overall, I hope to provide interesting and motivating experiences for my students, and teach with the passion and excitement that filled me when I first learnt physics. The most rewarding part of teaching is that I am helping to create a more scientifically literate society. After each well-taught class I feel a great satisfaction, which increases in knowing that the vast majority of students evaluate my work positively. It is for these reasons that I am particularly interested in a faculty position at an institution that values teaching and promotes research, and gives ample opportunities for professional development and scholarly activities.