Teaching Assistant, Computer Science Department

Gregory Nilsen

Teaching Assistant, Computer Science Department

January 21, 2004

Unfortunately, it is a rare sight to see a student get very excited about a course in Computer Science. This is a troubling fact to me, but it is difficult to see exactly what the cause is. I propose that stereotypes, lack of creativity, and lecture styles can often be the source of blame. In my teaching, I would like to address these problems that I’ve observed in order to create a more engaging learning atmosphere.

Computer Science often encounters the problem that its professors, and often students, are perceived as being uninteresting and not very personable. This can initially be the case for some, but many professors are willing to engage students for hours on end with discussions related to their field. However, this often does not come across in their teachings. I would like to portray to myself as an educator who is passionate about his field as well as someone they can relate to. Showing energy in the classroom is something that can be learned and improved upon, but being someone students can relate to can often be a difficult task. However, I often find that putting myself in the undergraduates shoes and relating stories of my own experiences can often help to break many of the student-professor walls that exist. Another way of doing this is going beyond the essentials of the position to assist them. An example of this in my experience is providing students with additional resources for an assignment (such as web sites relating to the ideas of the assignment), which shows the students that I am willing to help them as much as I can. This often lets the students know that they do have someplace they can turn when they do need help.

Creativity is also something that tends to be neglected in the Computer Science curriculum. While program code can be written many ways, most assignments are guided towards a specific goal or technique to practice. While this manner of teaching can often be useful for these goals and techniques, it does not encourage creative thinking to come up with various uses for the learned methods. For this reason, I would incorporate a student designed project into the curriculum. A series of structured projects could be used to emphasize the basic skills, but then they could be combined into individual student-proposed projects. Teaching in this manner would allow for the mastery of skills, as well as encourage creative thinking about the applications of the skills, which makes the subject “more real” to the students.

Lastly, lecture styles are often an important factor in how students react to a course. If a professor simply lectures at a class, then students can easily become bored and uninterested in the course. I use the distinction of lecturing to a class, which is one of the essential basic methods of conveying knowledge in an area of expertise, and lecturing at a class, where students could easily be replaced by rocks without drastically affecting the flow of the course. Instead, I feel that it is important to engage and interact with the class during a class or recitation session. Discussions need to be encouraged, questions welcomed, and thought provoked. I try to accomplish this by asking students specific questions regularly throughout my recitations. I refuse to spoon-feed the information to them myself, but I don’t have a problem if they want to ask questions for more information or if they want to spoon-feed each other through class discussions.

While currently I do not see many Computer Science students very excited in their classes, I do not think that we are too far off course. The subject is one that can lead to many very interesting class discussions and lends itself well to the interactive classroom, but the steps need to be taken by professors to take it to the next level. Improving student-professor relations, inspiring creativity in the subject, and engaging lectures are very solid steps to take for the benefit of the subject, and are steps that I put forth my best effort to take for my current and future teachings.

Based on the rubric we were presented, I feel that this assignment is worthy of an A. I clearly address the issues of my teaching philosophies and combine many aspects from class discussions and readings.