My Teaching Philosophy
As a mathematics educator, I always emphasize to my students that concept of mathematics or theorems is everything that they need to know in order for them to solve the problem independently, followed by exploration-based learning. I will provide notes and tutorials for each of the courses that I teach, and I update my notes regularly with the latest information or an improved method. A useful note is important for students to start their journey in learning a new knowledge. I am actively involved in producing original slides namely Open Course Ware (OCW) and in developing two-way interaction teaching and learning courses, called Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) for mathematics subjects. I always believe that with the proper basic knowledge as the foundation, students’ knowledge can be built stack by stack up to the sky without limit.
All students have an urge to learn new things. They will always have the interest to know where to apply with what they are going to learn, and if this curiosity can be satisfied before they are learning something new, this tends to lead to a successful kick off session for the lesson.
To me, the ideal classroom environment to learn is, students are free to raise up any issues or questions at any time during the learning process without hesitation or being shy to the instructors or their peers to clear their doubt on time. In the class, I always welcome any sort of questions from my students. This is not one-way direction of learning. Instead, I may also get to learn something new either a better way to explain a concept or even new knowledge from it.
During the class, students must have access to hands-on activities because it helps to engage students in active learning. Through hands-on learning, students able retain the information better compared to lesson-based learning. They can put their knowledge into a test and learn from mistakes as well. I always tell my students “Don’t read math. You need to practice to learn”.
Students from new generation, who grew up with internet and gadgets, are more likely to engage in online games. They can adapt and learn new things from a new environment easily without even need a guide. Hence, gamification in education is a new learning style that I am adapting into teaching and learning to engage students to improve their learning performance. For example, Quizizz, Quizlet, Kahoot, and Padlet, these are very useful and interesting apps to engage the students to learn in a fun way.
All students are different in terms of background and character. Outgoing personality students have no issue in expressing their problems. However, there are some students who are just being too shy to express their comments. To me, no students deserve to be stuck in any kind of failure due to their introverted personality. An outstanding educator is not only excellent in delivering the knowledge, but to able to diagnose the problem faced by students that stop them from moving forward, followed by clearing the roadblock. My practice is simple, I would personally contact these students to identify their problems and guide them individually and remotely. This step manages to build the confidence within the student as well as his/her confidence towards the course. Slowly, he/she will start to pose their questions to me or their peers whenever they need help.
In summary, I love teaching. I am continuously learning and upgrade myself in terms of knowledge and teaching skills. I do hope my students are happy to have me in their class.
My Teaching Goals
My teaching goals are as follows:
I aim to improve student’s academic performance with more interactive lessons. By making learning fun, students can engage and have a better understanding on the lesson.
I aim to instil students with intrinsic motivation so that they are in fully automatic mode.
I aim to improve students’ behaviour for not giving up easily when they are facing a problem.
I aim to develop students’ character with the tendency to regulate learning and to play a proactive role in the learning process.
I aim to develop students’ higher thinking skills in helping them face the challenges in real life problem solving.
I aim to develop well-rounded students where they are good in terms of intellectual, social, mentally, and physically.
I aim to integrate more technology tools to the class to keep up with the times.
I aim to create an online presence with a website of my own to interact with my students and other teachers to improve my skills in terms of teaching and learning.
I aim to develop more Open Courseware and Massive Open Online Courses as aiding tools to my students for their learning process.
I aim to assist my faculty and university to reach their benchmarks and goals.
I aim to reflect after every lesson by collecting feedbacks from students to improve my teaching skills.