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Since my childhood, I have believed in karma and teamwork to make human beings happier, in a collective effort. This idea has formed my lifestyle and inspired me to contribute my effort towards the prosperity of humanity regardless of people’s religion, race, or gender. I have felt that engineering is one of the most convenient professions to reach this goal. I desired to be an engineer who makes life more meaningful by developing technologies that make life easier for people. Consequently, I chose civil engineering as a major because of its diverse approach to building facilities for better life quality and its successful methodologies to make these facilities more functional. Now, as an engineer who has dedicated his life to science and engineering, I want to share and distribute my knowledge and love of engineering with students. For this purpose, being a teacher is a wonderful opportunity. Enlightening students when I explain something related to technology, science, or engineering or touching students' hearts those who really want to improve themselves in engineering makes me happy all the time.
As you can see in my sample lesson plan, I explain the main concepts of a related topic then I solve some examples about it and give some time (brain relaxation time) to my students to absorb what I taught so far. During this time, I also give some examples of real-world applications about the subject I taught. Often, that application could be a more recent development in the field. For example, data analysis in traffic engineering is a very sophisticated concept, especially for civil engineering students. However, explaining the analyzed data on a graphic would be easier. To make a subject easier, I show the plots to students first then explain everything using the reverse-engineering method. This makes the subject easy to understand since they already know what the result is going to be. This also a way to mix the technology and traditional teaching methods since I write software codes on the whiteboard by hand while writing those on the computer respectively. Below you can see an example of a traffic data plot. As I mentioned before, I use the reverse-engineering method to explain the concepts. First, I give a brief introduction to the colors associated with the corresponding freeway location. Then, turn back to the data set to show the critical data points on the data. Finally, I write codes in front of the students. I have gotten great feedback using this technique so far.
Here you can find my sample course syllabus. As you can see in the syllabus, there are many subjects that require high-level engineering concepts and calculations and I remember my undergraduate years in college these subjects were so complicated to absorb without making them interesting. So, I promised myself if I would be a lecturer I will make these concepts more enjoyable. During my teaching time in Turkey, almost every other week I prepared a lab time to engage students with the concepts. Moreover, I organized a field trip for my students. Below there are pictures that were taken during our lab time for engineering materials course and a field trip to an engineering expo. I also try to reach out to professional engineers for asking them if it is possible for them to be our guest lecturer for our class to share their engineering experiences with us.
Here is the sample in-class design problem (ICDP) questions. I assess my students’ understanding by conducting ICDP tests which are based on what has been taught in the class so far. It may also include using technological applications of the concepts that taught in the class where students can type software codes and learn from making mistakes. In tests, aside from the calculation part of the ICDP, I include true/false questions. The main idea of doing that is to increase students' decision criteria. The more they question the better they become at correct decision-making. I also give out homework assignments every other week during the semester. These take-home assignments give some time to the students to read, understand and apply the theories that were taught in the class. My course also has a final project. Students can choose to work in a group and record their project videos. The video project is also a good opportunity for my students since it allows them to talk to people who are not in the engineering field and get their feedback on transportation systems from their perspective. Below you can find some of the projects my students did in the Fall 2018 Transportation Engineering-1 class.
To sum up, my course plan and teaching methodology allows students to involve in the subject through classroom teaching, exams, homework, and a final project. By creating a continuous feedback loop throughout the semester, I expect to transfer as much knowledge as possible. An investment in knowledge pays the best interest said, Benjamin Franklin. I hope we all, as humanity, get the best interest.
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