Teaching/Course Links

LINKS TO COURSES I CURRENTLY TEACH

Fundamentals of Environmental Engineering -- CE 330

Design of Water and Wastewater Systems I -- CE 431

Design of Water and Wastewater Systems II -- CE 432

Engineering Law and Contracts -- CE 484

Teaching Vision

My teaching approach is derived principally from my experiences as a Professional Engineer and from the influential professors to whom I give credit for preparing me to work in this profession. I also want to note that my teaching approach continues to evolve as I test new approaches in class.

Civil engineers are responsible for designing and facilitating construction of much of the infrastructure that the public relies on and uses on a daily basis. I consider this a significant responsibility, and my teaching philosophy is fundamentally grounded on educating future civil engineers capable of meeting these challenges. To that end, my teaching vision is one in which I seek to challenge students with a rigorous curricula and high expectations, and then stimulate students to want to pursue and achieve these goals and objectives with relevant professional experiences; a professional-level yet student-minded rapport; accessibility; and positive, effective communication. Accomplishing the latter objective is critical in achieving the former.

Integration of professional experiences into the classroom generates an engaging learning atmosphere. When teaching, I appropriately relate brief relevant project experiences into my lectures, which creates a mental break to allow students to reflect on the material while also effectively connecting concepts to the “real world.” While these brief excursions generate specific topical interest, they also serve to establish professional-level respect and rapport. My experience is that students respond well to this approach that ultimately establishes a mutual respect while concurrently establishing a clear understanding of the professor-student relationship. I also believe that students are comfortable in this environment, which creates a positive learning experience. Within this same context is the act of engaging students on a personal and individual level. I make a point of learning my students’ names; while some initially may find this intimidating, as they are then called upon during class, ultimately most develop a comfort level with this approach and respond accordingly. I believe this task is critical, as it ultimately forces students to completely engage in the course.

Accessibility can be difficult to accomplish, considering the many time commitments associated with a full teaching and research agenda. However, my experience is that “office hours” are critical for students, particularly when they first enter the engineering curriculum. Timely interaction with the professor can address many of the challenges students face, keeping them on track toward success. I feel that one of my strengths is the desire to effectively interact with students and maximize my accessibility.

I view communication both in terms of the professor communicating clearly and the student developing effective communication skills. Communication is a critical element of engineering, as we are constantly required to communicate with clients, peers, and the general public. However, engineers are fundamentally interested in the technical elements, and often less with how well they communicate. Again, I rely on my professional experiences to address this element. Students need to realize that all aspects of their future job, from verbal and written communications to their engineering calculations, are forms of communication and thus reflect on them, their employer, and their profession. Hence I seek to emphasize and integrate formal and informal communication requirements into my class; in doing so, I continually provide students with personal situational experiences, thus reinforcing the importance of communication. I explain various professional situations, from interacting with attorneys who have reviewed my engineering calculations to presenting in front of City Councils. It is these real-life experiences that I believe students connect with the most, and thus better appreciate effective communication. Moreover, most students will ultimately engage more actively in the material and seek to achieve established course expectations.

Finally, I believe that the process of establishing challenging course goals and objectives and a rigorous curriculum begins by clearly articulating and establishing high, but also realistic, expectations, and is further accomplished by demonstrating material relevance. For example, when I have taught Statics, which is a difficult course for many students since it is often their first exposure to what I term the “engineering way of thinking,” I teach from a real life application approach that ultimately better connects and engages the students with the critical theoretical elements of the material. I believe that students respond well to this approach, and thus respond well to the challenge of the implicitly rigorous curriculum. I have embraced this approach in all my courses.