My vision of teaching

Teaching

Teaching, just as learning, is an exciting and integral part of an academic journey. It is my belief that there are three essential aspects that will help students find the same passion and dedication I see in my collaborators and myself in academia.

The first necessary element to achieve this goal is simply to have fun at what you do. Knowledge will stick with a student easier, if it is not forced onto them in a tedious way, which can be achieved by a mixture of lecture, variation in presentation style, as well as open exchange of experiences of success and failure related to the topics.

The second essential part of learning, which will further enhance the first, is by considering that most of what we learn has been proven useful in some area of life and across disciplines. There are applications to real world challenges in most cases which should be highlighted in any classroom. While it is essential to build a good theoretical foundation, many students are interested in how their newly gained knowledge can be applied.

The third aspect combines and reinforces the first two. Instead of 'dry' education, the application of the learned elements to controlled environments through 'experimentation' not only reinforces the material, but also allows the learners to dive into issues that will inevitably occur while creating their own projects. Practical and 'real world' advice and interpretations build a cornerstone of what I consider key elements of academic guidance.

Looking back over my teaching experience, I found that these three elements are highly encouraging and enhance the learners curiosity for the subject matter. I have used these principles in all of my teaching settings. This included teaching theoretical physics, informatics, statistics, and machine learning to undergraduate and graduate students throughout the years. Teaching and learning is a journey, which I am excited to take together with my students every year.