"You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him discover it within himself "(Galileo Galilei)
My experience as an instructor has helped me define my teaching philosophy. I strongly believe that teaching demands extreme patience, empathy, and dedication to nurturing young minds. I also believe that the hallmark of teaching excellence is the ability to bring out the best in each student, not seeking opportunities to show off one’s own expertise in a subject area.
I truly believe that every student possesses unique potential, talents, and experiences. To harness this diversity, I strive to create a learner-centered classroom that respects individual differences and promotes active participation. To encourage active learning, my courses incorporate group activities where small diverse groups of students work together to solve practice problems. I also believe that generating a sense of accomplishment is a good incentive for building self-confidence in students. Hence, I tend to task my students with challenging but doable problems. This approach not only benefits the students in learning actively but also helps in building the mindset of working in a collaborative environment.
For my lectures, rather than making it a knowledge dump and losing the interest of the students, at the beginning of my lecture, I focus on inspiring students to the topics by providing some context behind an idea or concept. I start each class by clearly stating the specific objective(s) for the day. After thoroughly explaining the motivating concepts, I follow up with examples, problem solving, and computer demonstrations. During my lecture, I prefer to take regular pauses to interact with students to obtain feedback on their understanding and if necessary, correct any misconceptions. This also helps the students to refocus as research shows that student attention span may be about 15 minutes or less.
The purpose of education is not to train students to become good test-takers. I believe that it is far more important to instill a life-long love for learning and self-discovery in students. Hence my evaluations of students emphasize performance on class projects and regular assignments that reinforce the concepts discussed in class and facilitate their exploration beyond what has been presented in the classroom. The rationale behind my approach to evaluation is to ensure that students can synthesize the techniques they have learned in class and simultaneously they are able to morph these concepts through creativity to solve future computational problems that are yet to be defined.
I strive to make my classroom environment welcoming, enjoyable, inclusive, and intellectually stimulating. I am very passionate about “leaving no man or women behind”. To achieve this, I always dedicate extra time and resources like student peer mentoring for the students who need extra support. I intend to make myself very approachable and encourage the students to ask questions during the class.
As an instructor, I am dedicated to improving my teaching capabilities so that I can provide the students with the best learning experience. To learn more about effective teaching, I have completed several training certifications at my current institute and applied the idea of gamification to my Algorithms course.
My experience as a faculty instructor had provided me opportunities to practice and evaluate my teaching style in state-of-the-art technology-rich classrooms and within online and/or hybrid teaching environments. I assume that most computer science departments have exceptional faculty members with demonstrated excellence in teaching. Since students have diverse learning styles, I plan to tap into this priceless resource at your institution by seeking out other experienced faculty instructors who use a variety of other effective and proven teaching methods.