Teaching Philosophy

Ivan Avramidi

I consider teaching to be a very important part of the academic career. It is important both for the students and for the lecturer. The students learn something new and the lecturer gets new view of the known material when trying to present it in a self-consistent and understandable form.

My teaching philosophy can be summarized by saying that the instructor should be flexible and avoid dogmatic rules. He should take into account the nature of the course, the level of preparation of the students, the amount of class time and other resources available. As a general rule, the instructor should teach students basic skills, theory and applications. The instructor must be friendly, suportive and helpful.

One of the most important points is that the instructor should teach students how to study. The students should spread their studies over time rather than to ignore the course for a while and then study for several hours at once. They are best advised not to spend too much time on any one problem. They should make a note, move on, and then come for help to the instructor.

Another basic thing is to make it clear to the students that the sciences like mathematics or physics are not about memorizing formulas, as they may probably think, but about the understanding them. If the material is well understood then, surprisingly, it is not difficult to remember it too. The students should be able not just to apply a given formula to a given problem but learn to think over the whole problem and to decide which formula is appropriate and why.

Communication with the students is also very important issue. Rather than just lecturing from the text, I use well chosen examples to motivate and illustrate the concepts. I am very interested in helping students learn the course material. If something is not understood well or was not covered by the previous lectures, then I usually elaborate this point in more detail and give a brief overview of that material. I always test the audience during the lecture by asking well posed (sometimes provocative) questions to make sure that the students finally got the abstract material and can apply it in practice.

The permanent contact with the students is of considerable importance. I am permanently available for students all day outside of regular office hours in the office as well as via e-mail. All the course materials, the syllabus, the homework assignments, the grades, some important announcements and reminders are posted on my Web homepage. I use the new technology available and encourage the students to do so.