Since I was a junior in high school, I was fascinated with math and science classes more than any other class. To me, science is the essence of what defines us as humans. From that young age, I found myself have a huge interest in explaining theories and concepts to my colleagues because I found this playing a role on giving me solid understanding of the concepts. I have a firm belief that teaching or conveying science to other people is one of the noblest jobs in the world. Teaching is my favorite job as it expands my horizon and gives me the opportunity to convey the message of science and knowledge to someone else that may grow in his knowledge and career and one day give back to the community a great invention that may lead the world to prosperity, peace, and tranquility.

A good teacher is one who will engage all the students in an exciting learning environment, motivate them to learn on their own, and encourage them to ask questions.  Adding to this, a great teacher is the one who masters his subject, promotes critical thinking, links the gap between theory and practice, and cares about the students. An effective teacher is a one who enables the students to talk about they learn, relate it to real life problems, apply it into their daily lives, and connect what they learn to advanced research topics.

I have more than five years teaching experience in various mechanical engineering classes as a Teaching Assistant and Lab instructor. At Michigan State University, I was a TA for the Control systems Lab for two semesters, then I got promoted to fully run the lab and lead seven TAs as a Lab instructor for another two semesters. Throughout this period, I designed two new robotic experiments, developed their Lab manuals, and expanded their Labview codes. At Ain Shams University, I was responsible for teaching recitation for controls, vibrations, instrumentation, and measurement systems classes. In addition, I was the instructor for weekly-based training sessions on MATLAB and LabVIEW software programs, plus having supervised students in their senior year projects. I also recognized how it is important for the students to have hand on experience on what they learn on the classes. I also dealt with students from different and various backgrounds which makes me eager to teach in diverse teaching university.

My teaching methodologies in the class has been always varied and diverse. For concepts that involve mathematical formulations, I write my notes on a black/white board with the students to make sure that they are following in a good pace. For concepts that require visualization, I use animations, photos, and videos. My experience in the field of mechanical engineering gained in the last +10 years enables me to anchor the students’ knowledge by recalling a story that connects theory to practice, and boost their understanding by motivating them to make what they learn part of their lives.

I plan to use various active teaching methods in my classes. Think, pair, share is one approach to get the students engaged and actively involved in the class. For some lectures, students will be assigned reading material, and at the beginning of the lecture they will be given an entry ticket that will contain a related question that may require their reflection upon the class topic. I will lead discussions to let the students express their ideas and critically think about their peer views.  I will promote problem solving skills, collaboration and foster the communication skills between the students by giving timed challenging questions and tasks to groups of students. Group discussions will increase the teamwork, and let the students mimic working in industry related environments. Projects will be assigned to students that will assess their understanding of the subject, by picking up a real system and applying the class concepts to modeling, simulating, comparing the results, and concluding the findings. The students’ technical writing and public presentation skills will be practiced, assessed, and hence promoted while presenting their project findings. I will incorporate “First exposure” material where I assign a reading material or a video for the students to read. To assure that the students conduct this task, I plan to ask them to prepare 1-2 questions based on their “First Exposure” assignment. In addition, I will use common misconceptions (or wrong answers from other classes) as “distractions” when building questions. This will help the students realize the importance of the class when the class topics are anchored to their pre-knowledge. I will promote asking questions through clickers and smartphones as they proved to be effective ways for instant polling, which assesses students’ understanding and help to adjust the teacher pace accordingly.

Another interesting part of the class is to establish bonds with industrial firms and arrange students’ visits to these entities. This will broaden the students’ knowledge, boost their technical information, and most importantly, bridge the gap between what is taught in class and what is real life practical systems.  In addition to that, a voluntary group meeting will be held once every other week on campus, where each student interested in the class broad area will be given a recent publication, and he/she will have to present his understanding after two weeks to his colleagues. Doing so, will empower the students to touch the base of active research topics related to the class material and recognize the importance of understanding the basics of this class.

I am interested in teaching undergraduate classes such as “system dynamics and modeling”, “Control systems”, and “Mechanical Vibrations”. At a graduate level, I can also teach “Linear systems and control” and “Theory of Vibrations”. I am planning to design a new class named “Systems’ modeling and control”. In this class, I would like to combine how can we model different systems types and control these systems to accomplish a specific task. Several theories and physics laws come into play to model mechanical, electrical, or thermal systems. By analogies between these systems, the students will understand the system physics, and relate to real life world problems that they invoke in their daily lives. Once the students learn how to model a system, they will have a mathematical model that describe the system dynamics and behavior. To fully understand the system dynamics, the students will simulate these systems through MATLAB, by giving the system different input types and study the system outputs or behavior. Furthermore, the students will learn various control strategies that will enable them to have these systems behave as desired. A set of laboratory experiments will accompany these lectures so that the students can have hands on experience and connect theory with practice.  

After the students take my class, they will have a clear and solid understanding of the class material, they will be able to anchor their knowledge to their experience, think critically about a similar problem, express their ideas rationally and present a timed engineered solution.

In summary, I believe that professors have a critical role in raising a new generation of leading researchers and industry professionals that shall be well equipped to conquer our societal problems. An effective teaching approach that shed the light on both theory and practice will empower this generation to have a solid understanding of core courses material and make sure that they can face our current challenges and find solutions.