Teaching

I am very proud to be a part of the educational process and contribute to the development and growth of the next generation of engineers and scientists. Recently, I am teaching undergrad courses (Design of Steel Structures, Seismic Design of Steel Structures, Introduction to Earthquake Engineering etc.) at Tekirdag Namik Kemal University, Istanbul Kultur University and Istanbul Medipol University in Turkey. I also privileged to serve as an instructor (Associate-in) for Design of Steel Structures course (over 130 undergrad students) for fall and winter quarters at University of California, San Diego (UCSD) during my PhD studies. As an instructor, I want my students to be the future leaders and high-skilled professionals who can solve complex problems in their respective fields. To become professional engineers and scientists, students should not only acquire the problem- solving skills as a part of their learning but what is most important is to conceptually understand the problem. For instance, I feel strongly about breaking building code equations into tractable portions such that students fully understand the connection between these equations and the concepts they learn in their other classes. Using clear figures and well-planned examples to explain the parts of code equations creates a bond between the students theoretical and practical knowledge, promotes their technical growth and bolsters their ability to develop professional skills in the future. The way instructor teach classes should be to prioritize conceptual understanding, and not just focus on transferring information. In the environment of excessive streams of information, with social networks, Internet, etc. the role of the instructor is to help with the assimilation of the new information and with the creation of a logical framework for communication with existing knowledge and experience the students already have.

 

Before starting to prepare the course content, the first question an instructor should answer is: “What competency do I want my students to achieve?”. This is, of course, very specific to a subject of the course but the general goal is to train students to understand the concept, analyze the problem, evaluate the approach, and create solution strategy. Many courses in reality are constructed in a way to promote information retrieval or simply procedural problem solving, which is everything that computers can easily do nowadays. This should definitely be changed. The learning process occurs when students can transfer the knowledge they have acquired to a new concept.

 

I also strongly believe that as an instructor, we should understand the basics of pedagogy/andragogy. Since people learn in variety of ways and that learning is influenced by multiple factors (e.g. prior experience, study skills, learning skills), as an instructor we need to figure out how to approach to all students and attract their attention during the lecture. To the best of my abilities I am working and will continue to work with students to create an environment of experiential learning during my courses especially in graduate level. Finally, students can be assured that I will support them with all of my energy. I will be my students guide, coach, mentor and most importantly their supporter. All good teachers should do the same and I will humbly attempt to be a role model in that regard. So I hope my students can dig in, explore and enjoy the journey in learning!