TEACHING ACTIVITIES

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Teaching stands as a cornerstone of Jaderick’s academic work. He teaches and designs courses that connect theory to practice and foster curiosity, collaboration, and critical thinking. He mentors students at different stages of their academic journey and develops teaching materials that enrich learning both inside and outside the classroom. This commitment to teaching grew out of a long career of service across the University of the Philippines, where steady growth in academic rank and responsibilities matched sustained contributions to student learning and mentorship.

Shaping Minds Today

Jaderick teaches a range of computer science and information technology courses that have been officially approved by the University of the Philippines Board of Regents (BOR), the institution’s highest governing body. These courses form the core of the undergraduate and graduate curriculum and are regularly offered to equip students with strong theoretical foundations and practical skills.

Beyond the standard curriculum, he also teaches Special Topics courses—faculty-designed courses that draw on academic freedom and respond to emerging trends, allowing students to explore cutting-edge areas without waiting for BOR approval. Some of these courses eventually evolve into Proposed Courses, which undergo the formal process of BOR approval after demonstrating sustained popularity and value to students.

He is currently teaching the following courses (First Semester, AY 2025-2026) :

CMSC 56: Discrete Mathematical Structures in Computer Science 1
CMSC 170: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
CMSC 180: Introduction to Parallel Computing

Read more: Courses Taught | Future Courses

Guiding the Next Generation

At UPLB, mentorship takes place at two levels. The first happens within the laboratory components of courses, where learning, software development, and research activities are closely tied to course objectives. The second goes beyond the classroom, supporting students in their independent pursuits in software development and computing research.

This subsection highlights that second level of mentorship. Here, Jaderick guides both undergraduate and graduate students as they pursue research that advances the discipline and develop software projects that deliver novel computational solutions to real-world problems. Most of these pursuits are student-centric—proposed and initiated solely by the students—yet they intersect with his own research activities. Over time, these student-led works have naturally clustered into the following themes:

Together, these themes highlight the diverse problems students have explored under his mentorship—from monitoring crops and modeling communities, to creating immersive educational tools, analyzing biological data, securing digital systems, and even pioneering new, unexpected directions in computing. If you have a computing idea that you are passionate about—even if it doesn’t neatly fit one of the themes—Jaderick invites you to "explore that idea together."

The following students are currently under his mentorship:

CORTEZ, Allann D. (MS Computer Science)
ROBLES, Erjoy Constantine L. (BS Computer Science)
REYES, Ludrich Elkan E. (BS Computer Science)

Innovations in Teaching

Innovation in teaching goes beyond course delivery and extends to the design of learning resources that enhance engagement, accessibility, and resilience. Jaderick has developed a wide range of materials, including lecture handouts and slide decks, as well as pre-recorded video lessons that ensure continuity of instruction during extreme weather events and other disruptions.

To connect more effectively with contemporary learners, he has revised instructional materials by applying sociolinguistic insights and embedding discourse patterns that resonate with students. Themes drawn from popular e-games provide cultural anchors that make computational concepts more relatable and meaningful.

He has also designed spreadsheet-based and NetLogo-driven computational models that serve as pedagogical visualization tools. These simulations enable students to interact with abstract ideas while observing the dynamics of computational processes, thereby bridging the gap between theory and practice. To further strengthen computational thinking, he supplements these resources with pseudocode and code snippets that help students initiate their own problem-solving and software development.

Below lists the weblinks to teaching resources he has developed for student learning and for broader academic use:

Pre-recorded videos (coming soon)
Handouts, Slide Decks and Code Snippets (coming soon)
Simulations (coming soon)

Authoring Knowledge

Textbooks represent a lasting form of teaching, extending the classroom into print and digital resources that can be used across institutions and generations of students. Under Authoring Knowledge, Jaderick highlights the textbooks he has authored and co-authored, some of which have been or continue to be used as standard references in computer science education. These works embody the dual role of textbooks as both instructional tools and scholarly contributions, bridging his teaching practice with a broader academic community.

Mathematics in Multimedia (2008)
J.P. Pabico, Publisher: University of the Philippines Open University
Client/Server Computing (2002)
J.P. Pabico, Publisher: University of the Philippines Open University
Database Systems (2000)
U.G. Alviar, E.V. Cadapan and J.P. Pabico, Publisher: University of the Philippines Open University

Advancing Learning Through Research

Alongside classroom innovations, Jaderick also pursues research that contributes to the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). His early studies on social loafing in student group work employed survey-based methods to quantify the effects of unequal participation in collaborative tasks. These findings established empirical benchmarks for understanding how group dynamics influence learning outcomes.

Building on this foundation, his more recent research explores how simulated interactions powered by large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, can inform the efficient grouping of students based on personality traits. This approach integrates insights from computational social science and educational psychology, with the goal of forming student teams that maximize collaboration and minimize participation gaps.

Through these efforts, Jaderick advances evidence-based strategies that inform both his own practice and broader pedagogical frameworks for improving student engagement and performance. Below are his works in SoTL:

Multi-agent simulation of team dynamics: Leveraging GPT-4 for behavioral insights in software engineering groups
This is a work in progress
Tackling social loafing: An academic framework using ChatGPT simulations for group performance optimization
This is a research presentation
Social loafing among members of undergraduate software engineering groups: Persistence of perception seven years after
This is a published research article
Perceptions of social loafing and its measurements in undergraduate computer programming groups
This is a published research article (resource not online)
Perceived social loafing in undergraduate software engineering teams
This is a published research article

Tracing an Academic Path

Jaderick’s contributions to teaching are grounded in a long academic journey within the University of the Philippines. Since joining the faculty of UPLB in 1996, he has advanced through the academic ranks, attaining the position of Professor 12 in 2021. Along the way, he also served as affiliate faculty at the UP Open University and UP Cebu. This record of teaching history and professional growth provides the foundation from which his current courses, mentorship, innovations, and educational research continue to evolve.

*Note: At the University of the Philippines, faculty members hold academic ranks that progress in a specific order. These ranks are Instructor 1 to 7, Assistant Professor 1 to 7, Associate Professor 1 to 7, Professor 1 to 12, and University Professor (a rare and prestigious title). The rank progression begins at Assistant Professor 1, which marks the start of the tenure track. The number that follows each rank (e.g., Assistant Professor 3) is called a "step." A higher step indicates more experience and seniority within that particular rank.

Together, these efforts reflect a teaching philosophy that balances classroom instruction, student mentorship, pedagogical innovation, authoring knowledge and educational research. Jaderick’s journey demonstrates a commitment not only to shaping the minds of today’s learners but also to advancing the practices that will guide future generations.