Awards and Recognition
Graduate Teaching Assistant Awards
2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003
2006-2007 GTA Winners
Teaching Philosphies
Dan Sindhikara
January 2007
My teaching philosophy is a mélange of styles and strategies collectively aimed at educating the students as best I can. Understanding the needs and concerns of my students is necessary to achieve this goal. Combining my understanding of the students along with my knowledge of the course material generates a highly-targeted discussion class.
To encourage communication with my students, I make myself as accessible as is possible. I encourage use of e-mail and discussions after class, during office hours, and even just in passing. My classroom image is a combination of seriousness, jocularity, and zeal; I portray myself as one who is quite able to discuss class-issues with any type of student. I actively seek communication by encouraging students to openly share concerns with the lecture, homework and the class in general.
I have found that when most students take my class, Physics 2053, they are at a critical point in their matriculation. This is usually their first class that focuses intensely on problem-solving. Though some are over-confident and some are dispassionate, many are quite intimidated by this class and the material. I try to alleviate these problems by showing how physics as quite manageable and interesting.
To make the problems more tractable I teach the students to dissect problems. When I go over problems in class, I train them to think sequentially by "thinking" on the board, using the Socratic Method to have them tell me what each step should be. This strategy addresses a common complaint of not knowing “where to start" by transforming a seemingly overwhelming problem into a set of small, easy ones.
I make the class interesting by elucidating the relevance of each topic. Such questions as, "Why are door-handles at the edge far from the door-hinges?" to bring out the physics intuition they already have. By relating everyday issues, they begin to see the relevance of what they are learning and being thinking of physics outside of class.
There are many ways to help a student learn. I find that the student-oriented approaches I have outlined are quite successful. In essence, it is the learning of the teacher that facilitates the learning of the student.
