As a graduate student at the Department of Electrical Engineering, I have worked as a teaching assistant for multiple courses at University of South Florida.

Fall 2018, 2019,2020,2021 and Spring 2019,2020,2021: Electrical Systems I (EGN 3373).

Spring 2018: Power Quality (EEL 4295).

The apparent objective of teaching is to educate someone about a specific task, lesson, or activity. However, the goal of teaching is to enable their thought process towards achieving the target. In this regard, teaching requires utmost adaptability to learn the student even before teaching starts. Luckily, I have guided people to achieve their objectives, most notably teaching my Mom riding a bicycle in her forties. It is a pleasure to see somebody achieve their goals, additionally providing them the push to achieve it that ignites the dream of teaching as a profession in me.

A teacher needs to be methodical, whether in a classroom or teaching someone how to swim. The teacher should clearly state the motivation, contents, timeline, and expectations in the form of a well-organized syllabus. It is essential to make the students realize their progress throughout the course. For that, I prefer evaluations at regular intervals, not only as quiz/assignment grades; but their knowledge about the topic. The best way to complete even the most challenging task is to break it down into simple problems. So, designing the lectures, quizzes, assignments, and exams should be sequential and well organized in achieving small targets to see the bigger picture. The teacher must learn his students' thinking even before he delivers a lecture. So, being a teacher requires the utmost adaptability to run the learning show. Often separate groups of students show a different level of understanding of a topic; the teacher needs to involve everyone and make sure all are achieving the psychological pleasure of learning.

Teaching college students (under/graduate) requires some additional tools other than the mainstream ones. Furthermore, Electrical engineering ideas are a blend of practical applications and abstract knowledge. For example, the subatomic particles (e.g., electron, proton, and neutron) are invisible; however, lighting a bulb by electron flow from a battery is noticeable. Things get more complex, from the classical ideas of quantum mechanics, the dual nature of energy, etc., to the latest machine learning techniques. These high-level concepts have their roots in the core mathematical theories. The concept and understanding of these theories are fundamental in visualizing the dynamics of those complex ideas. There are simulation tools that can provide a visual representation of them. So, versatile knowledge of the coding schemes and simulators are another skills a teacher of Electrical Engineering should possess. Above all, conveying these ideas to the students is necessary, which requires presentation skills. In my quest to be a teacher, I am nurturing these skills to be prepared for my students. In this regard, I remember Dr. Chris Ferekides' saying, " You set the bar high, the students will reach high," under whom I have worked as Teaching Assistant for three years now.

The exchange of knowledge enhances in a proper environment that the teacher has to set up. I would make lesson plans for every class to ensure time management and reaching the learning objectives efficiently. Apart from providing helpful lectures and content, the teacher should also accommodate interactive sessions. Often students learn better from their peers, so providing opportunities for discussion in and out of the class can benefit the students. Throwing some topics for discussion during class time may encourage the students to express them, providing an opportunity for insight from a different perspective. Group projects can promote out-of-the class discussion, knowledge transfer, and teamwork. Often industry visits and excursions deliver knowledge wrapped in a leisure package.

The teacher receives his evaluation continually by the interactions with his students. In my Electrical Systems-I course, where I run recitation sessions, I love to see the eager eyes of my students, not the ones scrolling their cell phones. So, I try to be understandable and engaging; take intermittent breaks by asking questions. And, I take their feedbacks as my own assessment. Sometimes, I deliberately make mistakes during solving a question or writing on the board. Fortunately, they always correct me. At the end of the semester, I carefully go through the formal evaluations of the students. As I heartfully believe,

"In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn"- Phil Collins

If I am given a chance to select a topic, I will pick Reinforcement Learning (RL). RL is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) technique that is inspired by human brain functioning. For example, a human child puts edible and nonedible things in its mouth and eventually learns what to eat, a blend of exploration and exploitation of its knowledge which is the very basic of Reinforcement Learning. This propagates to a data-centric approach rather than the rule-based optimization methods, with the challenge of collecting data from an unknown environment. So, it is evident that Reinforcement Learning is the closest to true AI. Numerous and ever-increasing research in RL is providing amazing solutions to real-life problems, making RL a popular technique for control tasks. I am fortunate to complete outstanding courses from Dr. Ismail Uysal, Dr. Mahshid R Naeini, Dr. Ankit Shah, and Dr. Yasin Yilmaz about RL and other optimization techniques. So, I claim to announce myself having the necessary background in RL. In the process, I have a solid understanding of other popular techniques like Genetic Algorithm, Particle Swarm Optimization, and deep learning. So, with my undergrad background and work experience in power engineering, I can provide courses that fall in this domain.

Some of the online videos I made for Electrical Systems (EGN 3373) course.

1. Norton part 1

2. Norton part 2

3. KVL and KCL examples

4. Source Transformation

5. Source Transformation part 2

6. Zener Diode

7. Sum of Products (SOP)

8. Decimal, Binary and Hexa decimal conversion

9. Binary