A Statement of My Teaching Philosophy

My teaching philosophy is directed toward increasing comprehension of mathematical concepts taught to students. My strategies include collaborative learning exercises and lecture involving discovery concepts. I also use graphing calculator and computer software.

For the effective teaching of any mathematics course, it is important to motivate students to learn and be interested in the material. I feel that students should not only be motivated to excel in understanding the course, they should be made to enjoy the learning process. I try to involve my students when teaching, for example, by asking for their ideas during the solution process of a problem. To make students feel comfortable when asking me questions, I make sure that during the first few weeks I learn their names as much as possible. Sometimes, I ask students, to come to the board to solve problems during tutorials. In this way, students develop the ability to present and defend their ideas to large groups.

I think it is important to keep students active in their learning and for an instructor to regularly get feedback on what they learn. After each test, I usually ask students with low scores to meet me in order to identify the reasons for their poor performance. I find this a useful tool for motivating my students to work harder because they feel that I am interested in their learning. I use these meetings to discuss ways of improving their study habits and to learn about my teaching from them. Also, I find it beneficial to ask students to discuss/solve problems among themselves during lectures and tutorial sessions. This ``teamwork" approach is not only helpful to students to learn complex material faster, but it is also a confidence-building mechanism. The experiences of the students in these tutorial sessions extend over into study groups outside the class.

It is difficult for students to realize the full usefulness of topics such as Calculus and Linear Algebra when they are first exposed to these topics. Students should be made to see real-word applications of what they learn in class as soon as possible. To encourage future studies, I ask students in my senior level courses to write application-based projects. Also, I try in both in-class and out-of-class conversations to encourage students to take further mathematics courses to broaden their experiences in mathematics.

I use computer software such as mathematica, maple, matlab, and lindo, to make my teaching even more efficient. For example, I use mathematica to provide graphical illustrations of concepts such as that of limits and derivatives. However, I believe in strong fundamentals and require my calculus students to develop their skills without the use of calculators or computer software. To foster communication with my students, I maintain a web page and have e-mail lists for my courses. I use this web page for posting homework problems and other course information.

I believe in an open door policy and have daily office hours. Finally, I think for effective learning instructors should be approachable and students should be made to always feel comfortable to ask both in-class and out-of-class questions. I found out that because I am approachable to my students, they are comfortable asking me questions. I believe I have created an environment that fosters effective learning.