A new and exciting step of my professional career in academia started when I began teaching in the spring of 2011. My first experience was with Principles classes such as Principles of Micro and Principles of Macro (Spring/Summer 2011) these were a great stepping stone to proceed to the more complicated Intermediate level courses that I am currently teaching.
When teaching Principles all the lecture materials are provided and as new instructors we are advised to follow the PowerPoint presentations chosen by the department. However, as experience and student evaluations showed, students generally prefer me using the white board and writing up major concepts, definitions and examples on the board as opposed to showing them on the screen. First, this allows me to slow down and let the students absorb the new information better. Secondly, by writing on the board, I show my students a very effective and efficient ways to take notes and write formulas. This is a very important skill and is definitely transferable to other classes and beyond.
Also, I tried posting sample questions on the Blackboard before tests and received much positive feedback from my students on this. I did it for my both Principles classes and continue with Intermediate. An ability to practice the acquired skills with extra sample problems (that are not available in their textbooks) makes a world of difference for many students. With Economics, just like with Mathematics, practice makes perfect, therefore the more problems my students work on, the more comfortable they get with the material covered and this as a result spills over to other more complicated Economics classes they will be taking in future.
Now that I teach Intermediate courses I have a full control over the assigned homework. This responsibility and flexibility is an advantage as some students from the Principles courses complained about the mismatch of the material covered in class and the homework they had to do. Unfortunately, with the Principles there was nothing I could do about it.
I am ranked as an above average professor based on the statistical portion of student evaluations. Also, most of the students strongly agree that I encourage class participation, questions and discussion, and I encourage critical thinking and evaluation of ideas and evidence.
Every semester I continue to grow as a professor, refining my approach as well as learning new techniques on how to effectively teach the course and engage with my students. The Center for Teaching Excellence has accelerated that improvement by providing me with additional necessary skills and methods to make my class environment as enriching as possible.
Intermediate Microeconomics Evaluations_Spring 2012
Principles of Macroeconomics Evaluations_Summer 2011
Principles of Macroeconomics Statistics_Summer 2011
Principles of Microeconomics Evaluations_Spring 2011
Principles of Microeconomics Statistics_Spring 2011