Philosophy

I believe that the knowledge, skills and attitudes we accumulate as professionals and researchers is only worth or precious if shared with others, especially with younger generation. I have gained experiences as an undergraduate, instructor, assistant lecturer, postgraduate student, postdoctoral fellow, and senior lecturer in the disciplines of electrical and electronic engineering, computer science, computational neuroscience, and bio-inspired robotics. Thus I had the liberty to contemplate on my vision towards learning and teaching. We need to excel in both research and teaching so that we have things that sound interesting and inspiring to share among the students. Keep in mind that we are given a wonderful opportunity to work with the younger crowd of our nation at their best time of life. Here, I share the philosophy behind my approach to teaching and learning in the modern day classroom.

In my point of view, any educational program either in school or in the university system should be designed such that its training or the curricula to match the demands of national and international working practices. Students should be given wide variety of opportunities in their learning experience using both holistic (top-down) and sequential (bottom-up) learning styles. Since a sample of students consists of different types of learners, i.e., visual, auditory and tactile (VAK) or combinations, any teaching/learning program should introduce several teaching methods in order to achieve higher order (effective) learning, not only in cognitive (knowledge) domain but also in psycho-motor (skills) and affective (attitudes, ethics) domains, in all types of learners. Thus act upon in the same line of thought, I focus on constructively aligning not only individual courses and teaching but also the assessment so that the student become well rounded individual in the society. I believe that some form of evaluation, especially a formative assessment should be included in the teaching/learning process so that the learners can identify their progress and the teacher, as a facilitator, can change or adapt the teaching style accordingly. Unlike in a traditional classroom, I would encourage my students to use deep learning approaches so that they have more independent, problem based, experiential learning.

I believe that it is important to create a learner-centered paradigm in the classroom environment so that the students can actively involve and construct knowledge through acquiring information, communicating, sharing and integrating it with general skills. For instance, in a project- or problem-based learning, students should work in groups and also sufficiently independent as well to identify what they need to learn in order to solve the problem. I help in the development of student learning groups not only in projects but also in subject-matters. The group should identify individuals’ capabilities and put together for achieving a common goal. As a result, students learn to work on their individual skills (both soft and hard) regarding critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, leadership, teamwork, communications, and report writing, etc. As the life of a student does not end within the university system, the development of above interpersonal competences is important for him/her when become a professional.

As a senior lecturer of the field of engineering and as a research scientist, it is fair to state that the engineering is a problem solving applied science that must be practiced in order to become effective at solving complex problems. Even though the engineering plays a commanding role in the economic structure of our nation, there is a necessity in integration of technologies from different disciplines and the increase in complexity and knowledge required by engineers. Thus the application of knowledge and production is no longer occurring strictly within the boundaries of a discipline. Therefore, multi- or inter-disciplinary thinking is changing the way engineering is being practiced. I work to create a multidisciplinary approach for the teaching/learning process by bringing theoretical and practical knowledge and skills that I have acquired in my long years of postgraduate and postdoctoral career into the classroom. I am interested in introducing new courses and research in hybrid fields and disciplines such as bio-inspired robotics, bio-medical engineering, machine learning and computational neuroscience.

I want to try new styles and methods of teaching in my classroom. Particularly, web-based resources (online) and technologies, which provide more interactive teaching/learning environment, will be used as teaching aids. One clear advantage of above method is that it removes spatial and temporal barriers. However, most of us would agree that there are theories that should be clearly explained, clarified, justified and discussed so that the learner has a clear understanding and get acquainted with the ability to apply in a practical situation. Even though the traditional lecturing method is not much effective according to the Edgar dale’s (1969) “cone of learning”, lecturing together with innovative modifications, for instance, having created a student-centered learning environment is widely used in engineering education. I believe that a lecture can be made more effective by combining online learning together with small group discussions as well. That is my approach is to use blended learning.

According to Theodore Von Karman, a mathematician, an aerospace engineer, “Scientists study the world as it is; engineers create the world that has never been”. To become a creator, innovator or designer needs more practical experience in addition to theoretical background and hence, Laboratory experiments are critical in the education for engineers. I always update the experiments/labs to match the advancement of science and technology so that the students become up to date. Additionally, it is my duty to design a set of experiments to induce higher order learning in the students.

I encourage my students to come to consult me in my office at any time. If possible, I will help them in their personal matters as well. I believe that as university academics, we should be able to give our students guidance in their career development and some form of counseling when they needed. In that way, teaching offers me the ability to produce a well rounded individual to the society.

In summary, my aim is to apply theory into practice by adopting a teaching philosophy, in which the students get the most priority, that combines theoretical knowledge in several disciplines with ample amount of hands on experience. I transfer the knowledge, skills and attitude acquired throughout my career to our students to shine and expand their capabilities. In the process, I want to improve myself as a facilitator and to constantly explore and execute inspiring new curriculum innovations.

My main research interests are developing biologically-inspired approaches to robotics or machine learning and in turn, to use these approaches to better understand neural control of movement generation, sensory-motor integration and learning in biological systems. My research has been motivated by the observation that animals move their appendages and body segments not only efficiently and adaptively but also quite accurately during locomotion in varying environmental conditions. The goal of my work is to create either simple or more sophisticated computational systems by understanding how animals can perform such tasks. Additionally, these models are used for further investigations in finding new robust, adaptive and efficient control or learning algorithms which can be used on a robotic agent.

Within my research, I have used both top-down and bottom-up approaches. Both are complementary and in the first approach, within the field of theoretical neuroscience, we hypothesize that the computations are being performed by particular neural systems, and then search for experimental evidence to support or refute our hypotheses. In addition, this type of modeling can serve as a platform to combine individual systems into a complete system and to study the interactions among different systems. This holistic approach is advantageous as we can identify emergent properties of the full system. In the bottom-up approach, we aim for understanding the biophysics of individual neurons, and how neurons interact within small assemblies. These elements can be linked together to form larger systems with the hope that the emergent properties or governing principles will reveal themselves.

I am always inclined to apply multi- and interdisciplinary approach in my research. By doing collaborative research, the efficiency and effectiveness can be improved significantly. Here, I should mention that I have been fortunate to obtain experience in working in interdisciplinary environment as I was involved in two European Union funded three-year collaborative projects; EMICAB (Embodied Motion Intelligence for Cognitive, Autonomous Robots) and LAMPETRA (Lifelike Artifacts for Motor Postural Experiments and development of new control Technologies inspired by Rapid Animal locomotion). Such projects demand proper management especially in submitting deliverables and completing millstones on time. One can gather such experiences and skills throughout the project and will get the opportunity to expand his/her national/international collaborative research network. On the other hand, he/she should also be able to perform independent research as well.

I envision my future research to span across some interrelated sub-areas of Computational neuroscience and Bio-robotics. The common theme of the research will be construction of efficient and robust computational models or algorithm for understanding sensory processing, learning, neural control, and sensory motor integration in animals including humans and to use those algorithms on artificial agents. In addition, I have a sound knowledge and firm understanding in diverse fields such as instrumentation and automation, signal processing, dynamic systems, basic control theory, machine learning and electronics. In the long term, I would like to become a Professor in the same areas and to lead a small group of researchers, which enables me to utilize my talents and work closely with my colleagues in solving important research problems. I am enthusiastic not only to conduct research but also to connect the results with the end users and in fact, I am flexible to shape the research directions on the basis of end user requirements. I believe that teaching is an integral part of any research program and of university life in general, and hope to convey not only knowledge but also the life experiences as a researcher and the excitement of scientific discovery.