Teaching Portfolio

In accordance with the principles of good practice in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) ([UiO-SoTL], [Principle-of-Good-Practice-in-SoTL]), I hereby present my teaching portfolio.

Statement on Teaching Philosophy

As a teacher, I seek to

  1. Meet students at their level — I begin by canvassing the room, and readily align my teaching to meet the backgrounds and expectations that I discover. The diversity of my own background and skills has thus far been a great asset to these ends.
  2. Promote digital literacy, transparency, and efficiency — Modern teaching, especially in Computer Science, is increasingly supported by digital tools. I laud, and engage in the creation of such tools myself. However, I firmly believe that these tools SHOULD NOT become indistinguishable from magic, or be considered universal or complete. Instead, these tools should be understandable, configurable, modifiable, and extensible.
  3. Constructively align teaching activities with intended learning outcomes (ILOs) — When designing an exercise set, assignment, lecture, or exam, I start at the overall course ILOs that I wish the activity to cover, and gradually expand and refine to arrive at a concrete activity. Furthermore, I seek to keep the students informed of how the activity and the marks they get for doing it, relate back to the ILOs.
  4. Exhibit theory through practice and encourage learning by doing — While theory informs practice, it is practice that illuminates the theory; practice shows why the theory is worthwhile. To this end, I readily program live in front of the students. This provides an exhibit of what it looks like when we apply the theory in practice. Together with the bugs, debugging, and bug-fixing that ensues. I hope to nudge students to be courageous and experiment.

Overall, I encourage students to be:

  1. Courageous — question the theory, experiment; practice.
  2. Strong — train hard, fight easy; build strength.
  3. Wise — sheer courage and strength will not move an immovable object; choose your battles, and stand on the shoulders of giants.
  4. Kind — don’t underestimate the troubles of others; do onto others as you would like done onto you, in your worst of times.

Past Teaching Activities

Introduction to Computer Science 2023

Software Development 2023

Advanced Programming 2021

Software Development 2016

Advanced Programming 2016

Computer Systems 2016

Advanced Programming 2015

Computer Architecture 2015

Princples-of-Good-Practice-in-SoTL

Felten, Peter. Principles of Good Practice in SoTL. Teaching & Learning Inquiry: The ISSOTL Journal, vol. 1, no. 1, 2013, pp. 121–25. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2979/teachlearninqu.1.1.121. Accessed 23 Nov. 2024.

UiO-SoTL

https://www.uio.no/english/services/it/education/pedagogical-advice/course-planning/community/index.html