Teaching Philosophy

My teaching philosophy is to allow make students learn by thinking not think that they learned, which means I want students to understand not to memorize, and I try to do this in several ways.

It is to structure the organization of the class to be flexible enough that the most able student can be challenged, but also that the struggling student may excel.  I attempt to accomplish this by evaluating the students in many ways: written exams, written assignments, reports and class participation.  I know from personal experience, for example, that exam scores do not necessarily reveal the amount of knowledge gained.  Students have many different strengths and weaknesses; by evaluating them on many dimensions I can reveal a more realistic appraisal of their performance.  This also gives students having difficulty many different ways to boost their performance in the class.

I set specific goals and requirements of the students, so that they know exactly what to do in order to succeed in my class.

My syllabi are extremely detailed, and I go over all the information repeatedly during the beginning of the semester.  I also, of course, make myself available (during posted office hours or scheduled appointments) to work with the students individually.

I believe that any student can succeed in one of my classes if they have the motivation to do so; there is no limit to my dedication to helping students who request assistance.

I try to make every student feel that he/she is visible in the classroom, and that he/she may express his/her honest emotions or share his/her unique experiences without fear of ridicule or negative feedback.  It is my intention that no one should feel invisible by the method or content of my teaching.

I use different assessment methods since I believe some students have problems in written examinations and they can be better in other type of assessment methods, so I try my best to vary in the method I use in assessment as follows:

• Written examinations: 1 Midterm and a final exam.
• Homework: Some homework to see the level of understanding in certain topics.
• Assignments: These assignments cover most of the material covered during the course.
• Technical Report: The students are asked to write a technical report about a selected topic.