Teaching
Three principles guide my teaching: (1) make it structured (i.e., everyone involved knows what will happen for why), (2) make it interesting (i.e., present both intuitive & counter-intuitive findings together and explain the boundary conditions), and (3) make it reinforced (i.e., using multiple methods of teaching together).
I taught an Organization Behavior course (Managing People and Organizations) as the sole instructor for two semesters, earning high ratings and getting positive comments (Instructor ratings: Fall 2022: 3.92/4, Spring 2023: 3.72/4, 60 students each, fully in-person). I use various techniques, such as individual presentations, lectures with a Q&A style, in-class discussions, weekly reflection posts, quizzes, and group projects. Additionally, I try to make the class content as relevant as possible using different methods: personal stories, guest lecturers with interesting stories (e.g., for example, I had two active duty Air Force personnel as guest lecturers), movie clips, etc. Please take a look at some of the student comments I received below.
Additionally, I have served as a teaching assistant for several MBA classes, such as Teamwork, Leadership, and Ethics. Also, for a newly launched program, I designed an 100% online Ethical Leadership course, and I will serve as the instructor for its first offering.
I love teaching and see it as an integral part of my job as an academic. I am excited to teach any topics and more (e.g., decision-making, HRM, etc.) at all levels.
Some comments I received from my students from my Course Evaluations:
Oguz is one of the best teachers I have had at UMD. He had a consistent and engaging course structure and truly cared about his students.
I found the class format engaging. For long lectures, I usually feel mentally strained about 1 hour in. I feel the variation in the lecture with the presentations at the beginning, lectures with Q&A style, and group discussions at the end kept me engaged with the class. I found I remembered concepts better for exams because of the different methods used to learn the content.
I enjoyed the lectures the most. I thought Oguz did a great job engaging everyone every single class. The structure of the course was very helpful. I liked the lectures and group discussions (applied the material and got to connect with fellow classmates).
His humor and attitude made me look forward to each tuesday and Thurday. Truly the best professor I have had at UMD so far.
The professor, Oguz is great and planned class perfectly. Made lessons super interactive making information easy to learn and absorb.
Oguz is very personable, which made it enjoyable to learn from and listen to! He cared about what he was teaching and wanted us all to engage with the material every class!
The structure of Oguz's course was helpful for me to learn. The environment was very engaging with regular discussion. I like how the learning was split between the textbook and lectures.
I think the way the instructor approached the method of delivery and content was essential. By making the course more casual and related to real life, it allowed me to learn more comfortably and see how the course content was directly related to my future professional experiences
He related a lot of the topics to everyday life and made the concepts clear and understandable.
All assignments were on a weekly basis, so we always knew what to expect each week. There was a lot of structure which I loved.
I liked the way the course was set up and the way that he taught. It was effective and I liked that it followed the same outline every week. He made lectures fun and entertaining.
I think the environment created in the class room was one where everyone was there to learn and the class content was broken up occasionally with stories and relatable real life examples.
I really liked doing the group presentation actually. It was super easy, but at the same time made you think critically about what we'd been learning. It was a great way to combine everything together.