Teaching Philosophy, Goals and Experience
I consider teaching to be an essential and rewarding component of my career. I enjoy teaching because I like sharing my enthusiasm for learning and spreading that passion for learning to my students. I find it rewarding to guide students as they discover new material, and particularly the journey in helping them to reach that potential. I also learn a great deal from the students I am working with and am inspired by their curiosity and creativity in the questions they ask. I believe that working with new students encourages creativity in new ideas that translates to higher quality research. It is essential for students to develop problem-solving and critical thinking skills in addition to learning new techniques and methods. These skills will help to promote life-long learning. I have a history of mentoring undergraduate and high school students in the research lab and plan to continue and grow opportunities for mentorship.
Courses Qualified to Instruct & Previous Teaching Experiences
As my research focuses on drug and gene delivery, I am qualified to teach courses related to drug transport systems and modeling cellular and molecular systems. I am qualified to teach introductory courses in engineering, biology, physics, and mathematics as well as more focused courses in biomedical engineering that involve modeling cellular and molecular systems and drug transport analysis.
In Fall 2016, I served as a teaching assistant for Modeling Cellular and Molecular Systems, which is an undergraduate level course for upperclassmen (see syllabus). I guest lectured three class sessions including: (1) Statistics and the Thermodynamics of the Dissociation of Double-Stranded Polynucleotides (Lecture Slides), (2) Chemical Equilibria (Lecture Slides), (3) Modeling of Receptor-Mediated Endocytosis of EGF (Lecture Slides). This course is an introduction to mathematical modeling of thermodynamic and kinetic processes in cellular and molecular systems. Examples of lecture topics include: thermodynamics, chemical kinetics and equilibrium, regulation of enzymatic reactions, DNA association/denaturation, molecular binding, regulation of gene expression, signal transduction in cells, and receptor-mediated endocytosis. In addition to the lectures, the course contains laboratory experiments and computer simulations to help understanding key concepts in thermodynamics and kinetic analysis. I led all laboratory experiments for this section of the course.
In Spring 2015, I taught as a teaching assistant in a course entitled Drug Transport Analysis, which was a graduate level course (see syllabus). The course covered important issues in drug and gene delivery in tumor and normal tissues. It emphasized quantitative analysis of molecular and nanoparticle transport, which involves mathematical modeling and computer simulations with MATLAB. Various engineering-related topics on drug and gene delivery were discussed, which include physiologically-based pharmacokinetic analysis, transvascular transport, interstitial transport, transport across cell membrane, controlled release of drugs and gene, targeted delivery of drugs, delivery of effector cells and genes.
Within the research lab, I have helped to mentor five undergraduate students and four high school student interns in the lab. Projects that they have completed to receive a certificate in engineering have displayed the amount that they learned in a short period of time as well as their passion for learning (i.e., Mentoring High School Students in Lab). This is perhaps one of the most rewarding experiences, working with individual students and guiding them as they develop their independence and excitement for discovery and creativity in research.
Assessment of Student Growth
Students learn efficiently and comprehensively through lectures that are highly interactive, not only with the professor, but also amongst small teams working together during appropriate breaks within the class. I assess student learning by two methods. One method is by interacting directly with students which includes conversation and light questioning to achieve a sense of the student’s understanding. For more thorough assessment of students’ understanding of the material, I distribute practice questions at break points within the lecture and collect the work without any official grading. This allows students to more freely express the concepts they may be struggling with.
Continued Development as an Educator
Two things that I am successful at is relating to and understanding different personality types and different types of learning. I am patient with students who may require additional time to synthesize new topics or come from a background that is limited in the particular field of study. I have received feedback, particularly from students, that I am very patient. I have experience working with students that have a wide range of personality types. Many students have achieved success and learned a great deal in those courses despite some being of different learning styles.
My experiences in teaching have taught me that there are many soft skills that are critical to being able to effectively manage a classroom environment and engage students. It is essential to help students who originate from various backgrounds to all reach an understanding of the material and why the material is important to their academic growth. I have also learned that while it is important to be very prepared, it is helpful to allow and guide students to reach their own conclusions and answer their own questions. It is often tempting to give students answers to their questions, but they often learn and remember more when they are guided to the answer themselves. This creates independent thinkers and learners.
I completed a Certificate in College Teaching (CCT) to help me develop as an educator by learning current best practices for teaching and learning, appropriate use of instructional technology, and systematic assessment of student learning outcomes.