Teaching

Individualized Teaching and Learning

Each student has different education and cultural backgrounds, strengths, weaknesses and learning habits. Why should we treat all students the same way then? By recognizing that most students would fall into one of the several archetypes which have similar learning patterns, a coarse customization can be achieved. By exposing students to different avenues to the concept, they can choose one or more ways to learn. Then when they ask questions by following one of the ways, I can probe and follow their trains of thought and lead them to where I want them to be. 

Mathematics, Physics, and Personification

Thanks to my various background, I have seen different student behaviours. Some students would prefer concrete mathematics to explain measured results; some would try to understand the phenomena physically and realistically, while others who have weaker mathematics and physics backgrounds may struggle to understand the concept at all. To tackle this, usually I would present the material in a way that most students would accept first. Then I would quickly augment it with physical description of what actually happens, supported by the mathematical arguments. Finally, I would try to personify the components and try to tell "their stories" from "their perspectives". Personification is a wonderful tool in conveying new concepts, which would give the students an intuitive understanding. I also have many different tools in my teaching arsenal—equations and formulas in lecture notes, animation and hand-drawn representation during presentation, and videos and cartoons as micro-module supplement. All of these enable me to support the students’ unique learning needs instead of forcing them to learn in the conventional way.

Constructive Alignment of Activities and Outcomes

Usually, a teacher would have a proven way of teaching and would be inclined to use the same method to teach different courses. However, to provoke deep learning in students and learning activities should align to the learning objectives. Different courses with different learning outcomes demand different cognitive activations. I have consistently redesigned and implemented various activities in multiple courses to achieve this constructive alignment. Through the formal evaluation and informal student feedbacks, all of the redesigned activities are proven to be effective in achieving their respective learning outcomes. The results would certainly be different if the activities are replaced by bland unidirectional lecture-type instructions.

Complete List of Taught Courses

British Columbia Institute of Technology (2023–2024)

The Chinese University of Hong Kong (2013–2022)

The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (2017–2019)