‘Teaching is the highest form of understanding.’ –Aristotle
‘A teacher affects eternity: he can never tell where his influence stops.’ –Henry Adams
I utterly cherish the art of teaching others. My own knowledge seems to find a noble purpose when I can pass it on to my students. Teaching others helps me to learn a great deal myself. Often the questions arising from their inquisitive minds challenge me to think deeply about a topic and have a better understanding in the process. I enjoy working hard to find ways of explaining complicated concepts in simple words to my students. This not only enriches my subject knowledge but also my presentation and communication skills.
I was awarded the Dr. Walter L. Deemer Excellence in Teaching Award in December 2022 by the Department of Statistics & Operations Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in recognition of leadership in course development and outstanding classroom teaching.
See below to know more about my teaching experiences.
Course Instructor (sole) 12 times for different courses in the Department of Statistics & Operations Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (for more information, scroll below to "List of courses for which I was a Primary Instructor" and "My Contributions as a Primary Instructor").
Teaching Assistant/Lab Instructor for 20 sections of different courses in the Department of Statistics & Operations Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (for more information, scroll below to "List of courses for which I was a Teaching Assistant (TA)").
Graduate Student Mentor for the SURE program, organized as part of SRCOS 2022 Conference.
Instructor in Academic Support Program for Student Athletes (ASPSA) in Spring 2019.
Volunteered multiple times as an Instructor for UNC Splash.
Below is the list of courses for which I was a primary Instructor at UNC-CH STOR. Please go to the section "My Contributions as a solo Course Instructor" at the bottom of this page for more details on how I contributed to these courses.
I strongly believe that the duty of a TA is to establish an effective liaison between the primary Instructor of a course and its students so that the course can run smoothly. Below is the list of courses for which I was a Teaching Assistant (TA) at UNC-CH STOR. I have held Office Hours and problem-solving tutorial sessions, done grading, and assisted with setting up homework Q&A, exam question papers, etc. for these courses as applicable.
According to my teaching ideology, it is the responsibility of the primary Instructor of a course to make sure that the students have a smooth learning process and that the Teaching Assistants can work effectively under their instructions to provide the students with the best possible assistance. A good teacher must be able to make hard topics easy for a student and help them learn rather than merely giving them homework assignments and exams.
Below is a list of duties that I fulfilled as a primary Instructor of the courses that I taught:
Syllabus: Prepared the syllabus of the course.
Lecture slides: Prepared my own lecture slides before each class meeting. See at the end of this list for example slides made by me.
R notebooks and Excel sheets: Prepared R notebooks for the course STOR 455 to teach using statistical tools (such as correlation, simple and multiple linear regressions, logistic regression, polynomial regression, categorical regression, one-way and two-way ANOVAs, ANCOVA, confidence interval estimation, hypothesis testing, etc.). Made MS Excel example sheets for STOR 151 and STOR 155 to teach using statistical tools (such as basic Excel, statistical summaries like mean, median, mode, variance, etc., plots such as bar plots, histograms, scatterplots, regression plots, etc., Excel commands for common distributions like Binomial, Normal, t-distribution, etc.).
Office Hours: Held regular Office Hours. If a student could not attend my Office Hours, I tried to help them as much as possible over email or by meeting at other times by appointment. I also tried to give special attention to students associated with Accessibility Resources and Service (ARS) so that everyone can have a fair learning experience.
Assignments: Prepared homework, quiz, and exam questions. Graded the final exam and sometimes other assignments too if necessary.
Extra help: Provided the students with practice exams, study guides, and extra Office Hours before the exams. Also gave some extra credit homework to provide them with enough practice problems.
Grading: I also maintained regular records of the students' scores in the gradebooks. Was responsible for calculating the final scores and course grades at the end of the course and submitted them to the graduate school.
Others: I also took mid-semester feedback from my students where they were free to suggest any possible changes in my teaching methods as well as praise or criticize their experiences until then. This helped me to make the course better for the rest of the semester. I also maintained regular contact with the TAs to make sure they have no difficulty in doing their job. Finally, during the Fall and Spring semesters, we had course mentors (Mario Giacomazzo and Jeffrey A. McLean) who arranged pedagogy meetings for all student Instructors to attend where we could discuss together to make sure that we were offering the students the best possible learning experience. These mentors also held one teaching evaluation each semester where they visited one of my lectures and provided necessary feedback.