Mansoor Aminilari

TEACHING STATEMENT

Effective teaching is a culmination of hard work, perseverance, continual growth and learning on the part of teacher, and complete dedication to the intellectual development of the student.  My goal as a teacher is to inspire my students to learn. I continually expand my mind by reading articles and journals about business computing and innovative ways to teach it. I attend workshops relating to topics in my discipline and to effective teaching. My background as a programmer and systems analyst, as well as a Ph.D. in Management Information Science, gives a solid foundation for remaining current in my field.  I use my energy to reach the depths of a student’s mind with the hope of not only implanting knowledge but also developing the student’s desire to let learning be a life-long process. 

Teaching is my joy and passion. I truly enjoy teaching, helping, and interacting with students. I first experienced this incalculable joy when I would go out of my way to help less fortunate classmates struggling with difficult subjects in middle school, high school, and college. Even as I was studying college at home country, I volunteered my free times to drive 60 miles to teach high school students.

Four years later, when I migrated to the USA, I once again had an opportunity to teach as an instructor in Pikeville College, Pikeville, KY which is located in the east part of the state. Even though I struggled at the beginning with a new environment and culture, it was then that I realized my passion for teaching as well as my teaching capabilities. I will never forget the day I received my first student evaluation. It was quite a rewarding as well as a humbling experience!

This fondness for teaching throughout my life has inspired me to choose education as my career. It is true that you learn some of the most important lessons about teaching by personal experience. I have benefited from teaching different courses to different levels of students in a variety of environments. I believe that good teaching results in student learning. Learning to teach well requires commitment, patient and hard work. Moreover, I have been fortunate in having had a succession of brilliant teachers who have inspired me throughout my academic career. Consequently, these experiences have helped me shape my teaching philosophy.

Over the years, based on peer and student feedback, I have identified and practiced five components of effective instruction: interest, preparation, organization and knowledge about the subject matter, ability to simulate thought and interest, clarity, and finally knowledge gathering. Of course, being a good teacher entails more than a decision to be enthusiastic, organized, clear, stimulating, and knowledgeable. It involves translating those abstract ingredients into tangible behaviors, policies, and practices. This practice has allowed me to come up with some innovative teaching methods.

¡        Interest

Interest does not mean doing all sorts of things that feel artificial, inauthentic, and awkward. Interest cannot be faked for long - certainly not for the length of a course. Students will find out and think less of me for trying. I do not try to be enthusiastic. Rather, I focus on things I can do that will convey my interest to the class. I project interest by speaking in an expressive way, gesturing with hands or arms and using facial expressions. I try not to read from prepared notes or texts. I let students know that I am pleased to be teaching this course and point out things that intrigue me about the content. The following representative student evaluations demonstrate my interest.

“Prof. Aminilari makes the class enjoyable and is very enthusiastic. It is obvious that he enjoys teaching and cares about the students.” (Student)

Another method to motivate the students’ interest is asking them to read articles prior to come to class for lecture.

            “It was good that we had to have articles about subject.”(student)          

¡        Preparation, Organization and Complete Knowledge about the Subject Matter

A teacher not only should be prepared, and organized before the lecture, but also needs to be knowledgeable about the subject.  Evidence of preparation and organization is seen more tangibly in things like course materials. I prepare a syllabus that reveals tangible evidence of a carefully planned and clearly structured course. It has clearly identified objectives and course content, learning activities, and classroom policies and procedures. Even though I am usually given a broad latitude to design and implement brand new courses like Advance Topics in Information Systems and Introduction to Logic, to help make realistic content decisions, I undertake careful study of relevant syllabi form my professors at University of Kentucky, and conversations with experienced colleagues at various institutions, even sometimes from Web.

I published class notes, syllabus, grade, email comments on the web, specially useful when class size is over 100 students (ucr2002.tripod.com, and sdsu2002.tripod.com)

 What the syllabus sets in place needs to be supported by various presentation strategies that on a daily basis put course content and activities into a larger context. I provide students with outlines and handouts. This helps prevent information overload and makes it easier for students to focus on the content itself. However, as much as I can, I strongly encourage students to read outside journals and magazines and discuss them in the class prior to lecture.

Equally significant in the design of learning activities are assignments. I plan and organize a series of systematic assignments. Finally, when it comes to communication structure, I follow a simple rule that applies to all public presentations. My lectures have three parts: an introduction to capture students’ interest and overview what is to come, a body, and a conclusion to summarize and distill what has proceeded. Relevant remarks attesting to my preparation and organization is presented below:

                        “…The syllabus was very complete and contained a great deal of relevant information…” (Dr. Albin, Chairperson at Morehead State University)

                                “Aminilari presented the classroom materials in a very organized manner….” (Dr. Iwu, Associate Professor at Morehead State University)

 I acquire my knowledge not only by attending workshops, reading articles…but also from students themselves.  I learn from students themselves what do they know and what

do they need to know by communicating with their minds individually, such that I get comments as

                                “The instructor made me feel like I was a person and not just a number.”(student)               

¡        Stimulating Student Thought

It is my sincere belief that when students are learning actively, they learn more, retain it longer, can apply it better, and continue learning. The ability to stimulate thought and interest depends on a wide-ranging collection of strategies and techniques that promote active learning. Questioning student is one such strategy I use. Questions can make students think and they can stimulate interest. But there are challenges such as not to intimidate students, to handle wrong answers constructively and so forth. I make it a point to know each of my students by name within a few weeks (not easy for a big class), and promote active question and answer sessions in class. A certain portion of the class period is set aside for this.

                  “The instructor made me feel like I was a person and not just a number.” (student)

                        “The instructor cared about the student and their understanding.”(student)

                        “He was open-minded and willing to listen to us.”(student)

As another instructional method, I encourage discussions among students, between students and instructor. Discussion stimulates student thought and interest by promoting individual discovery. Many a times, the process of having derived their own conclusions benefits the learners immensely.

Bringing reality in classroom is other such example.  Given live examples and asking students to do actual projects in smaller scale is a good strategy to use to stimulate student thought.  I strongly believe in application-driven learning. By application-driven, I mean that course material must be motivated by realistic applications so that students will be able to appreciate the significance of the material. This, in turn, stimulates student thought and interest. For example, in any of my computer language classes, I require students to apply the techniques learned in class by working in teams in the preliminary investigation, planning, organization, and development of real-world prototypical software projects. Projects are solicited from local business community, restaurants, organizations, university departments, or students’ employers. Some sample software development projects in the Advance Topics, using multimedia Tool Book class included:

o         “Pasquali Restaurant”: To recommend a system that will replace the current manual system of asking the customers to order food by using multimedia rather than a waitress.

o         “Morehead Record Shop”: To create a computerized database of all songs to allow the customers to listen to their desire songs prior to buy the CD.

o         “Toyota Dealers in Lexington”: To improve the current system which is hundred percent manual and lacks adequate query and reporting capabilities for buying a car by building a DSS to guide the customer to find number of cars that he/she may be interested to purchase.

In addition, students in the QBasic class have to write programs that handle a robot to water a plant inside a house.

 This innovative teaching methodology, enable students to learn a lot, and the organizations involved definitely receive benefits. This is evident in the following evaluation

                  “Made it better: Working on project.”(student)            

¡        Explaining Clearly

Clarity is the ability to take an idea apart, to separate it into component pieces, and then to show how these parts relate and add up to an integrated whole. It is also making the content relevant.

Part of making material clear and relevant derives from the ability to select or construct examples , case studies, metaphors and analogies that are meaningful to students, and which serve to connect students and content. This is evident in the following evaluation:

“…Class discussions were through and all topics related.” (student)

¡        knowledge gathering

I believe that a measure of a good course should not be exclusively a function of how much material it contains. Students need to be challenged and the intellectual rigor of course must be preserved. A balance between quality and quantity should be kept. My priority is the development of learning skills that provide students with the life long ability to seek and acquire knowledge and translate it into responsible action in a competitive global environment. Teaching ought to be student-centered.

By asking the students to read outside materials such as journals and magazines and discuss them prior to my lecture.

      “It was good that we had to have articles about subjects.”(student)

Additionally, students were asked to do individual class presentations in front of the class on topics of interest prior to the end of the semester. Strict guidelines were given with regard to presentation techniques and incorporation of multimedia. This not only increases their knowledge base (and mine too), but also improves their presentation and communication skills.

In conclusion, being an effective teacher is my career goal. The process of becoming an effective teacher is a journey without a finish line. In order to be a good teacher, I have to continually grow. This growth includes expanding my knowledge about my field, continually refining and enhancing my teaching methods and growth as a person so that I can be a good mentor and a role model such that get comments as:

            “He respected students and was patient.”(student)

                “The instructor was very helpful.”(student)

“Mr. Aminilari is very knowledgeable and also works hard to relate on a personal and professional level to students. Excellent teacher!”(student)