Machine Learning (either Spring or Fall; taught occasionally)
Natural Language Processing (Spring)
Information Retrieval and Web Search (Fall)
Artificial Intelligence (Fall; taught occasionally)
My overall teaching philosophy is to teach students how to learn and become active learners and critical thinkers besides teaching them the target subject matter. What makes humans special is their extraordinary ability to learn. I view teaching as the art and science of inducing a state of learning. Learning to learn enables students to self-improve, in and outside the classroom, on the particular topic I teach or on any other subject matter they may pursue.
Teaching involves interacting with people. Because every person is different the whole process is challenging and rewarding at the same time. For instance, students have different backgrounds and different personalities. I strongly believe that a teacher must develop skills and strategies to enable the most effective and efficient learning process in each and every student. A good teacher should make the class accessible and engaging to all students. Accessibility offers students comfort while engagement through challenges assures they make progress, pushes their limits and enables them to become active and independent learners. I am the happiest person in the world when a student with low prior knowledge enrolls in one of my classes and at the end of the semester s/he masters the material covered in the course.
I always admired my professors. I regarded my professors as highly knowledgeable, highly skilled individuals. I considered them extremely generous, always willing to share their knowledge and guiding students through learning, discovering, and becoming better and stronger persons. My professors were also visionaries, capable of shaping the future by proposing and exploring daring ideas and then diligently pursuing them. For me, they were dream makers, role models worth following. This is one of the reasons I decided to become a professor myself. Becoming a well-respected professor and a role model for younger generation is not an easy task. A respected professor should be knowledgeable of the subject-matter, well prepared for the class, and available outside the classroom.
Teaching Approach
In my general approach of teaching, I start by catching students’ attention using an example of a real world fact or application in which the topic to be covered is important. I also relate the target topic to students’ interests to increase their motivation (I get to know them through a short interview at the beginning of the semester; if the course is large a survey can be sent out to students to ask about their backgrounds and interests). Being able to capture students’ attention and boost their interest and motivation is a key element of good instruction because a motivated student will think and explore the topic by herself beyond classroom.
After I capture and hold students’ attention, I present the topic considering students’ backgrounds. Where appropriate, the presentation takes advantage of multimedia technologies including images, colors, animation, and live demos. I start by defining and exemplifying core concepts and the principles that govern the subject-matter. Then, I present techniques to manipulate the core concepts based on the defined principles. In addition, I illustrate each topic with exciting problems (and corresponding solutions) and unsolved problems that stimulate creative thinking. During lecturing, I continuously check students’ attention by asking questions and engaging them in interactive discussions through dialogue. When needed, I back off and reinforce the major concepts of the topic being presented. I involved students in Socratic dialogues once in a while to make them think about the target concept, to elicit answers that may reveal some major misconceptions, and to give them a sense of being involved in a discovery-based learning process in which they are active participants. Like in my intelligent tutoring systems, I apply scaffolding strategies in the form of hints to help students think through while working on a problem to solve. I help students find the solution by themselves (guided discovery) as opposed to just hand them the solution.
Assignments are a valuable tool to make students learn outside the classroom and a good method to provide feedback on an individual basis. For each assignment I take notes and communicate them to each student individually. The notes identify where the student should pay more attention or revisit the material. Also, notes in the form of positive feedback are rewarding and I include them for those aspects of the material for which the student shows mastery. The assignments should be frequent enough to give the teacher the chance to monitor accurately students’ progress.
Another useful tool for quality teaching is a semester-long project. I value long-term projects because it makes students think broadly about the subject matter. It makes students glue together different topics in a whole. Projects offer even greater rewards since projects expose students to management and project planning issues. Team projects in particular expose students to team management issues.
Modern technologies offer additional tools that could help with improving communication between teacher and students and among students. I usually set up an electronic discussion list in my courses in which students are able to pose questions and exchange ideas. I also develop and maintain a homepage for each course where syllabus, assignments, and other up-to-date information are periodically posted. The course homepage is very helpful, especially for commute students.
Teaching is no one-way street. While teaching, I also learn. In particular, I learn how to become a better teacher. I regard teaching as a personal enriching activity that helps my professional career. I continuously ask for feedback from students and colleagues on my teaching style. I regard student evaluations as an excellent tool that enables better teaching and always do my best to respond to students’ comments. My teaching effectiveness scores are very good. I typically get above average teaching effectiveness scores and sometimes perfect scores (5.0 on a scale from 1 to 5 where 5 is most effective). I pasted below two comments which were made by two students in their evaluation of my teaching of the Natural Language Processing course. The comments were pasted as typed by students.
“very very nice teacher. very helpful to students in understanding subject. one of the best
teacher I ever saw”
“Dr. Rus is an amazing teacher. I would without a doubt give him an 11 out 10 for
excellence. Great mind. Trully professional. I enjoyed this class more than any other I’ve
taken at U of M. Also, he was able to stimulate our interests through very interesting
homeworks.”