Teaching Flashcards
What courses can you teach?
what courses would you like to teach?
I can teach engineering maths, structural analysis soil mechanics Geotechnical Engineering
but to be honest, I’m very flexible and would be very happy too teach any module in the civil engineering curriculum
What is your teaching philosophy? (Use concrete examples)
How do you define good teaching?
teaching philo is nurturing
Good teacher = good gardener
Set clear achievable targets and provide frequent feedback
Have you had experience providing pastoral care?
College advisor to 3 PhD students - provide guidance on academic and personal issues
Welcome new international postgraduate students to Oxford during orientation
How would you deal with a problem student?
Familiarise myself with the various support systems available
Talk to the student to find out the source of his problems
Strongly recommend him to seek help from the relevant avenue
How would you increase women enrolment in engineering?
Organise talks by female role models at different stages
what strategies would you use to support increasingly diverse student cohorts?
Describe how you would contribute to a climate that attracts and supports students of all
races, nationalities and genders.
Do not assume every student has the same educational background - provide review materials for self-study
Differentiated teaching - to accommodate both weak and strong learners. Teaching should accommodate various learning styles. e.g. lessons may have many animations for the visual learner, I get the students to read notes for those who learn best by reading, pair discussion for those who learn best through peer learning
Differentiated assessments - problem sheets of varying complexity for different learners (e.g. optional challenging questions for the most able students)
What teaching innovations have you tried?
How would you teach XYZ ?
How would you Motivating Reluctant Learners?
Build an active learning experience to impart deep understanding of concepts
videos and animations
Draw Connections to Real Life
“When will I ever need this?”
Short quiz every 20 mins, testing concepts covered in past 20 mins
Blended learning where classroom instruction is enhanced with online learning materials (such as online lectures).
Student attendance drop in Week 6. How would you increase attendance then?
Large numbers of first year students are dropping out of courses in the Department. What would you do about it?
Email students
lecture notes with partially filled contents.
full contents are made available only during lectures.
Mini quizzes during lectures for bonus marks for the course
How would you go about interviewing a prospective postgraduate researcher?
Have a chat Find underlying motivation Seek true passion for subject self confidence as a learner willingness to keep learning
How would you induce a new doctoral candidate into their research project?
“How would you mentor graduate students?
what style of advising/mentoring will you use?
Provide a starting reading list with all the necessary background information of the research area that the student would be working on
Then I would give the student some time to go through the materials, and to think critically and identify research gaps.
Then I will assign them a easy mini project to let the student gain confidence and thereafter, slowly guide them to achieve the research targets while allowing the student to take up more ownership of their project as they become more independent
My mentoring style is a mix between the teacher style and the supporter style. Initially, I’m like a teacher who help them learn new skills and knowledge
Once they are more independent, I’m like a supporter, where I help them explore their ideas and find their own solutions.
How would you go about motivating a researcher who is going through a low point?
How would you deal with a weak researcher?
find out why the student is under-performing.
Seek councilling help if mental health issue
provide training or self-study materials if lack of background knowledge is the problem
if Allocated topic is not a good match with their skill, I may change the topic or start with a simplified version of the research topic so that the student can build confidence
Thereafter, I will agree with the student on a plan to rectify the performance issue, with clear measurable performance metrics, a timeline for improvement, and an explicit statement about what will happen if the performance metrics are not met.
increase the frequency of student-advisor meetings during this time.
how you would
propose increasing the undergraduate enrollment
in their department
I would create entertaining displays of civil engineering designs during open days
I would also go and give more outreach talks on civil engineering at high schools.
One particular favourite activity is getting the students to build a support struture for a marshmallow tower using sphaghetti sticks, which is both fun and imparts civil engineering concepts
Tell us three topics for PhD projects that you could supervise.
Automated ground modelling using Bayesian machine learning
Development of smart monopile foundations
Development of cyclic design methods for suction caissons
How would you teach this (introductory level, intermediate, advanced level) course? What
primary and secondary texts would you choose?
Geotechnical Engineering syllabus:
- 0 Soil description and classification
- 0 Pore pressure and effective stress
- 0 Seepage through soils
- 0 One-dimensional consolidation
- 0 Strength of soils
- 0 foundation design
Textbooks:
Atkinson, J. (2007). The mechanics of soils and foundations
Powrie, W. (2014). Soil mechanics: concepts and applications
teaching
What you’ve done right; what you’ve learned from mistakes
Right: asking each student to introduce him or her self to the whole class at the start of the course. Change the dynamics More engaged students
Mistakes: skip over steps of a problem that is obvious to me but I realise that this may be very confusing to students who struggle to connect the dots
How would you include undergraduates in your
research and how does it inform your teaching?
summer research on projects
For these summer research, I may have to prepare some introductory materials for the undergrads. This may form the basis of my teaching materials in the future.
Main challenges in teaching
Balancing the different learning needs of a diverse body of students of different learning abilities, background etc.
Assume you are told to create a new class for MSC level. What does it look like?
For Msc Level courses, the focus is on getting the students to be Workforce ready
Since most real world assignments are projects based, I will give the students project-based assignments so as to replicate the workforce environment.
