A Student Centered plan for Teaching Improvement:

My teaching improvement plan is to provide a student centered learning approach. I believe that continuing education is critical, but also I feel one should be sure there is balance between one’s own learning and student learning.

Past Activities:

  • Commercial Organization Integration for access to student tools: Worked with the computer science department to integrate the Microsoft Developer Network Academic Alliance, which offered free Microsoft software for students in computer science and related fields.

Current Development Opportunities:

  • Community Outreach: via tutorial videos available online offers wider audience feedback on instructional style.

  • Enrollment in CIRLT: Attending lecturers and workshops is critical to assessing the latest improvements and concerns in education as it provides the opportunity for exchanging tried outcomes that other faculty may have tried, it also helps to ensure one is able to attain information from a broader audience aiding it better understanding of diversity.

  • Modular Content: I make smaller bits of information so if students are watching a lecture they can explore additional content and see how various topics relate. I can track the views of the separate sub topics and figure out what and how students are engaging with the content.

Future Development Opportunities:

  • Departmental Integration: I also believe ensuring the department has access to various honors socities such as Sigma Pi Sigma for Physics is also paramount to student success.

  • “Course AI”: I am developing and hoping to eventually implement a self guided “course AI” that would help students navigate various concepts for machine learning, nano photonics and physics. The goal would be to try and emulate an equivalence to in real time interaction with students checking if they are understanding the material, not for me but for them. This would offer vast amounts of insights to see how, when and why students are interacting with the course AI, giving illumination to where I should adjust my focus.

Guiding Philosophy: The Feedback Loop

The goals and aims of my self improvement are directly tied to my view and philosophy behind teaching. My teaching and learning model is based on feedback from students and professor.  This coupled system is the core of my strategy.  I believe that a professor should take the time to ensure they are participating in various organizations that would directly influence student learning and success. However, the most important, critical indicator for self improvement comes not from any course, or peer but from the student feedback, and success. One needs to ensure they are aligned with the students to provide a challenge, but also ensuring the students are not overwhelmed.

I cannot know every students background, I can not be sure my information will resonate with their ‘model’ this is provable science. Regardless of if the information is right or wrong, it needs to be processed, each processor will fundamentally have their own weights and bias.  In optical physics we know all too well a simply deviation from Brewsters angle is enough to destroy a perfectly coherent signal. The only way to be a teacher, is to actively engage with the students, and realize if the students are not getting a problem, it might be either your approach or the data itself.

*Gemini has been used to review this post for typos and alignment and formatting. Actual prompt discussion is available upon request.