Teaching Philosophy
As a teacher, my philosophy centers on student engagement, and instructor transparency. I have had opportunities to see the importance of these goals both as a student and as a teacher.
Through my time as a student and my experiences through the GAANN program, I have seen many examples of the importance of student engagement and interaction. While teaching, I have attempted to integrate as much in class work as possible, and stress activities over memorization. Whenever possible, I have students do their reading outside of the classroom and dedicate class time to more active work. Ideally, I like to set up my class with a task in small groups of about 3 students, and let them work together. Then I circulate the room, helping students as they need it. I believe that this is vital for understanding and for forming connections with individual students. Talking to the individual student groups and helping them with specific parts of the project is important to helping them gain a larger conceptual understanding. In many cases, helping them work through examples on their own is far better than only showing how to do the tasks. One other example of how I am attempting to put my philosophy into practice appears in my work as a teaching assistant. One course that I assisted with is structured around a central team project. One important part of my role as a TA was to provide students with help and advice on their designs. There are incorrect designs that do not fulfill the requirements set up in the prompt, but there is no single correct design. One of the most interesting challenges for me is learning how to critique a design without simply telling them what to do. When I have observed Master Teacher Lectures, such as Dr. Latulipe's flipped classroom, I have watched them discuss student work. They did point out problems, but it was easy to see that they were not just telling students the issues but trying to guide them into coming to the correct conclusions themselves. I believe that it critical that students take an active role and see for themselves what is correct rather than simply accepting instruction.
The second key idea in my teaching philosophy centers on helping students tie an individual lecture into a larger understanding of the subject as a whole. I believe that it is important to be transparent with the class and allow them to see why the course is being taught in a specific way and why certain content is being taught at all. Students are far more likely to remain interested in a subject if they can see why learning about the topic will aid them in some way. When possible, I try to integrate the abstract concepts into more practical applications. One of my best examples of how a student connected what he was learning in class to his real goals appeared in my teaching leadership service project. For this portion of the project, I was teaching the students the basics of how to use a vector illustration software. I had many reasons for including this element in my plan, because it is a good way to show how technology can be used creatively and can be used in many projects. One of my students later explained to me how learning to use this software now, would be extremely useful to him in the future. He was taking courses in an engineering discipline, and was using the software for his work. This experience helped lead me to my belief in the importance of helping students understand the relevance of what they are learning.
Teaching Responsibilities
As I grow in my education, I have continued to expand my teaching responsibilities. In spring of 2015, I worked as a teaching assistant for Database Systems 6160/8160. In fall 2015, I served as a teaching assistant for Knowledge Discovery in Databases 6162/8162. In 2016, I served as an instructor for Database Systems 3160. It carried significantly different responsibilities from serving as a teaching assistant. In 2017, I was an instructor for Logic and Algorithms 2175. At present, I am an instructor for Introduction to Computer Science. I have taught this class four times previously once with a co-instructor.
As the instructor, I create materials, grade work, lead lectures, conduct classroom activities, meet with students, manage classroom administration, and supervise my TAs in lab and lecture grading work. One of the most interesting challenges of serving as an instructor rather than as a TA is the amount of administrative and logistical work involved. For example, I believe in contacting students that miss multiple successive classes. This requires keeping careful track of attendance, and monitoring patterns of absences. These are tasks that are generally not performed by TAs.