Higher education is very important for a student’s career as well as society. With increasing globalization of education and the educated workforce and increasing concerns for quality and cost of and access to higher education, I believe that concerns for quality and affordability has become more critical than ever while maintaining a globally competitive program. My education goal is to provide access to excellent education through effective use of latest computing technologies.

I have taught many graduate and undergraduate courses. My teaching emphasis is always on continuous improvements in teaching practices and pedagogies that improve students’ learning experience. In addition to having well-planned and succinct lectures, I like to emphasize engineering fundamentals (incorporating higher level skills from Bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive learning) through team work, project management, and hands-on activities. I engage students in real-world problems by incorporating up-to-date and emerging technologies so that students can make use of their learning after they graduate. I incorporate technologies to provide asynchronous learning materials and personalized interventions in order to minimize the learning barriers (such as linguistic and lack-of-engagement) and promote diversity through varying learning styles and practices.

In nutshell, my teaching philosophy can be summarized by DHARMA (Dedication, Honesty, Assistance, Research, Mediation, and Active) teaching philosophy. Dedication to teaching takes more than just hard work. To become an effective teacher, one requires constant improvements over the years. Depending on how an instructor provides instructions and conveys knowledge to students, the end results are often quite different. Rather than relying on the old materials once used, I update and refine lecture materials based on the in-depth understanding of the subjects that I teach. At the same time, I try to find out what the important points are and what students should know about since students need to develop good problem-solving techniques, instead of receiving just solutions and answers. This also helps students develop their intuition and sound judgment when they are dealing with complex engineering problems. Honesty, I believe, is the most fundamental requirement for teachers. I try to be trustworthy for students by treating them as fair as I can and by following the class policies as faithfully as I can. It also involves the openness to students, which means that how I administer the course and how I grade their work needs to be clearly known to students. I am more than willing to listen to students’ comments and remarks, knowing that it can help improve the course in the future. Assistance to students as and when needed can cultivates right environment by maintaining kind and impartial attitude so that students feel comfortable to come and ask for help. I help students as much as possible whenever they have questions and stay available during the office hours. A simple example may be a timely and well-thought response to students' e-mails. Depending on the level of understanding and the level of proficiency among students, I react differently so that students can get maximum benefits or understanding through their questions. Research brings innovation in teaching practices. To pursue this, I developed a Dynamic Learning Framework (DLF). Goals of the DLF goals are to use design, develop, and test a dynamic Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) contents which can be accessed from at a touch of a finger-tip. In DLF design, the course contents (engineering concepts e.g. free-body-diagram) along with assessments (e.g. quizzes/discussions) are presented in dynamic fashion. This allow a student to adapt to their learning ability depending on their previous exposures/training and opportunity to review materials beyond the scope of a class (from prerequisites classes for example). A DLF course will depend more on dynamically linked engineering materials from reliable sources (e.g. NASA, Army/Navy/Air Force, DOE, industries, etc.). The assessment use a dynamically implemented problem depending on individual students learning interests (e.g. a cooking example for thermodynamic concepts if cooking is my hobby or a concentrating solar power based thermal energy storage if I am concerned about the sustainability of our energy resources). Mediations (interventions) are good way to augment students' interest in the subject, hence make them more enthusiastic about learning. Sometimes, a simple encouraging remark or praise can motivate students a great deal. Other times, it may involve knowing the “usually hidden” learning barriers (such as exposure to career choices, showing relevance, pre-requisite knowledge) and incorporating appropriate interventions. Active learning has potential to make the engineering education very motivating. I bring activities that encourage students to participate during the lectures, hence frequently ask questions that not only require in-depth thinking, but also provide appropriate examples that help students understand key points. It is very important to create an interactive learning environment because it helps draw students’ attention and keep them involved. Experiential learning falls in the higher order of thinking skills of the Bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive learning. Higher orders of thinking skills are usually a missing component in the traditional instruction method of mathematically rich engineering courses. My goal is to bring virtual reality experiential learning in engineering classroom through use of the Touchpad and other easy-to-use computing technologies. I have incorporated some virtual reality experience in the dynamic learning framework (DLF) for the engineering analysis class and propose to strengthen and expand to other engineering classes. The DLF software is on the GIT repository with an active development and broader user base plans in mind.

I believe that a classroom provide an ideal setting to research and improve students’ learning. Learning occurs as a part of education, personal development, schooling, or training. All of us have different learning styles/preferences and hence faces different learning-challenges (barriers) and consequently have different learning-needs (interventions). Having come from an economically disadvantage family and being first-in-the-family to go college, I feel the pain of the learning barriers that many students from economically and socially disadvantaged communities have to overcome. My teaching goals are therefore inspired by my own personal convictions.

My objectives are: 1) Provide access to excellent education at an affordable cost, 2) Develop novel learning pedagogues aligned with learning needs of the 21^st century students and demography, 3)Enhance the learning experience with help of modern-day computing technologies. To achieve these objectives, I regularly interact with other faculty and educators to find solutions if it exists or write research proposals to federal and state agencies and foundations to find innovative solutions. I understand the modern-day educational challenges that our students faces, in particular with mathematically rich engineering courses. I believe that I can excel in my teaching through further use of latest technologies, better organization, better planning and targeted professional training. I design courses by keeping in mind the higher level cognitive skills (Bloom’s taxonomy) via flipped-classroom or problem-based learning activities. I believe that the lower level skills are equally important but they can be replaced by computerized framework enabling an instructor focus on the higher order skills, usually a missing component in the traditional instruction method. I incorporated dynamically integrated different teaching styles. This includes developing the dynamic learning pedagogies enabled by the latest advancement in computing technologies (such IPAD/touchpad). I developed web-based content development and assessment software with varying degree of complexity.