Teaching

The primary objective I set for my students is the discovery of knowledge by exposing their minds to new concepts and ideas so they can experience the gratifying feeling of successful learning. I strive to create an enthusiastic learning environment that fosters critical thinking, creativity, and intellectual curiosity. I facilitate my students' learning by eliciting their informed interest and developing a profound understanding of the material. Thorough knowledge of the material and enthusiasm for the content form the foundation of good teaching. 

I am convinced intellectual challenge promotes deep learning. I provide ample learning opportunities in and outside the classroom through frequent "retrieval practice," including in-class exercises, practice problems, experiential learning modules, and traditional quizzes and tests. By allowing my students to make mistakes, attempting different solutions, and trying again, I foster their long-term comprehension. I enhance this method by providing constructive and frequent feedback by asking guiding questions rather than providing immediate solutions. Further, I emphasize intuition and logic behind concepts rather than memorization. I engage my students in an active dialogue where they learn via identifying, analyzing, and solving problems. Rather than merely presenting material to the students, I direct my teaching efforts to guide and assist their exploration and comprehension of knowledge. Specifically, I employ a scaffolding technique. First, I introduce a new concept and work out an applied example. Second, under my guidance, students work through an applied problem: I check their work, give hints, and provide additional examples. Finally, I assign problems that my students complete without my direct assistance. Upon completion, I give feedback and assess their understanding. 

To be impactful, student learning experiences must reach outside the classroom. Therefore, I create opportunities for students to relate the course material to their daily lives. For example, I engage them in interactive group exercises where they apply new concepts to recent events. By the end of a course, I want students to have developed a profound curiosity about the world that surrounds them, and I want them to be ready to take the next step toward achieving their career goals. 

I challenge myself to become a better instructor. This starts with identifying my audience and does not end with me critically analyzing my delivery by contrasting the objectives I set for a class to the actual outcomes. Current college students (Generation Z) are technology-savvy and used to instant feedback from apps and other technologies. Therefore, I incorporate technology into my course curriculum as a pedagogical component. I use an online response system to elicit my students' comprehension in real-time, show short video clips to reinforce concepts, and extensively use the Learning Management System (LMS). I integrate everything from homework assignments to web links into the LMS, making it a one-stop learning portal. On my LMS course pages, students find lecture notes, review worked problems, complete problem sets, and access multimedia sources (podcasts, videos, online data sources, web links)  to complement the classes. 

I enjoy seeing my students transition from discovering keen interests to developing a thorough understanding of the topics I teach. The humbling experience of observing them overcome struggles and succeed adds to my commitment to improve and creatively challenge my teaching methods. I regularly attend teaching workshops. Further, I explore the potential and the validity of innovative pedagogy methods in my research on education. Teaching large-enrollment sections puts me in a unique position where I can combine my teaching passion with my research curiosity.