"A hundred years from now, it will not matter what kind of car I drove, what kind of house I lived in, how much money I had in the bank.....but the world may be a better place because I made a difference in the life of a child."

                                                                                                                                                                Forest Witcraft

 

Please enjoy my Teaching Philosophy below. 

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My teaching philosophy has nine components:

• Rapport

• Good organization of course material 

• Encouraging creative and critical thinking by Active Learning

• Opening channels of Communication 

• Using up-to-date technology 

• Motivating students 

• Students' Summative and Formative Assessment

• Review Sessions for Exams

• Mid-Semester Teaching Assessment

 

Rapport: Rapport is like an invisible tie between the instructor and her students, and the tighter the tie, the more will it enhance the teaching and benefit students. So, the first thing I always build up at the beginning of the semester, between my students and myself, is rapport. I believe that the students should not be intimidated to ask me questions in or outside the classroom. From my teaching experience, I can say that an amiable classroom environment is required for teaching and learning to happen simultaneously. This can be achieved by having a good rapport with your students.

 

Good Organization: I believe learning is a step by step process and it occurs if the learner has all the required information in a well-organized and clear layout from the teacher. I provide all the related text, lecture notes, homework, sample exams, keys and extra practice problems using various online platforms like MOODLE, CANVAS, BLACKBOARD, BRIGHTSPACE etc. These tools help me organize and display the course material in weekly modules. This way students know exactly what is expected from them for each week.

 

Encourage creative and critical thinking by Active Learning: To inspire students, I bring to the class examples from news and other media and encourage challenging the correctness of such examples. I encourage my students to think critically by posing intelligent questions in class. I also motivate them to present their work to the class by rewarding them extra points for participation. I also encourage creative thinking by using other active learning techniques like group work, debates and games like Jeopardy.

 

Open channels of communication: Theoretically, it is best to resolve students' questions and confusions as soon as possible. But due to time constraints, it is not always possible to address the questions of all the students during lecture, especially for large class sizes. Also, some students are shy to ask questions in class. This is why I always hold a lot of office hours so students can contact me in person. In our time, email has also become a major way of information exchange. I attempt my best to reply to students' emails as soon as possible so that they know I am reachable outside the classroom when they want to study statistics and encounter some difficulties. To make the email communications under control, I maintain, to my best, an informative website for my class where students have online class discussions. Most students can resolve their questions through a visit to the class website and discussing with their peers. This online discussion platform is a great tool to engage students in active participation especially, introverted students.

 

Technology: By integrating the advanced developed statistical software like R, SAS, MINITAB in my courses, I familiarize students with up-to-date technology and pragmatic applications of statistics, which makes them professionally strong to fly high in today's competitive world.

 

Motivating students: Statistics is considered one of the boring subjects by students. Most of the students have this preconceived notion that they are not good at math. But I believe that Statistics is much more than the mathematical formulas and numbers used in the calculation. The reasoning and logic are what make statistics unique. To begin each new subject, I use analogy and real-life examples to lead the students to the reasonability of the method. I always try to slow down and use diagrams or some humorous illustrations to explain the concepts again, something they can call back and smile at. Sometimes I also talk about my personal struggles and experiences in life. All these methods really motivate most of the students because some students say to me personally that my teaching style has changed their entire notion on Statistics from negative to positive.

 

Students' Summative and Formative Assessment: I utilize graded homework, weekly quizzes and monthly tests to track students' progress, locate areas of weakness and develop students for final exams. I use technology like clickers and www.pollseverywhere.com to make summative questions to check students' understanding of concepts.

 

Review Sessions for Exams: I hold review sessions a day or two days before each exam so that students can clear whatever doubts that they possess. These review sessions also serve as self-assessment tools for students. They get an idea of their standing with respect to their peers. 

 

Mid-Semester Teaching Assessment: I always conduct a mid-semester anonymous survey to discover how students feel close to the path, my teaching style, and their learning process. This survey also helps students express any other concerns that they might have. This survey helps me improve the shortcomings for the rest of the semester, which is clear from the end of the semester survey.