The initial teaching philosophy:
Engineering fields’ classes are generally divided into separate lecture, tutorial, and lab sessions. There are usually multiple lab and tutorial sessions repeated throughout a week but single sessions are held for lectures. Therefore lectures are often crowded, for which I usually apply the teacher-centred based learning theory (i.e. Behaviourism). The main reasons for this selection is the nature of the topics involved, filled with high loads of technical details which students often face difficulties learning based on other learning methods. Delivery of high loads of topics within a strict time is important. To still make the lectures interactive spending as little time as possible, after every introduced topic, a quick question (often MCQ) is given to the students which could be answered in less than a minute. This assures that the students’ understanding of each part of the lesson is tested within a short period. Other than these questions, I try to teach the lessons interactively and make sure the students catch up with me on the newly introduced topics. To engage the students, I often use real-world examples to introduce the ideas and every topic is immediately exercised in one or more examples and explained thoroughly. One main challenge is that there are always some uninterested students who fall behind. I still need to find better engaging methods for these students.
Contrary to the lecture sessions, the tutorial sessions are more Constructivism-based where I provide the students with a list of problems which they are required to solve one by one. For every question, the students are given a reasonable amount of time to respond, and I observe them and provide hints as they respond. The fewer number of students in these sessions and more timing makes this method possible.
Regarding lab sessions, I often go through a practical method (e.g. introducing a new software program) step by step asking the students to follow me. Once they learn the basics, multiple exercises are provided which they should solve either alone or in small groups.