TEACHING STATEMENT
OMER KUCUKSAKALLI
One of my primary reasons for seeking an academic career is the opportunity to teach and work with students. As a teacher, I have the opportunity to learn a great deal from students who can think about problems in new ways. They are naturally curious and enjoy learning. It makes me happy to teach my students that Mathematics is interesting, elegant and fun. As part of my graduate program’s requirement, I have taken not only courses related to Algebra and Number Theory but also courses like Numerical Analysis and Statistics. I have a wide perspective of the concepts in mathematics and I am well-prepared to teach advanced courses as well as introductory calculus, algebra courses. Students have varying degrees of self-confidence and have different personal goals and expectations for success and failure. By creating a friendly environment both in classroom and in my office, I try to prevent personal insecurity and fear of failure get in the way. For example, I do not rely on the answers only from successful students and make special efforts to encourage silent students to participate in class as well. I do this by making an eye-contact as well as calling their names. It is crucial for teaching process to create an environment in which students are not afraid of making mistakes. If they are informed about usual mistakes made by other students, then they not only know where the potential sources of errors are but also feel more reasonable with their own mistakes. In my office hours, I always ask my students to do the writing in order to observe on which step they get stuck and make mistakes. I focus on such steps and construct similar but simpler examples. My experience showed me that students quickly improve their problem solving skills in this way. It is the teacher’s responsibility to present the subject in an interesting and engaging manner. This can be done in different ways depending on the performance of each class. Giving real life examples and explaining applications of the theory always develop the motivation of students in the learning process. I always prepare my notes just before the class time to have a fresh memory of the material that I will cover. These notes contain many natural checkpoints where I stop and ask basic questions to check for understanding of the whole class. For example, before explaining how to find the tangent line to a parametric curve, I make sure they know how to do this for the graph of a function. Such questions force students to relate the current topic to previous lecture material and help me remove misconceptions before they take root. I organize my use of the board so that it is easy for my students to take clear and useful notes. For example, when I do problems with surface of revolution involving more than one function, I use color chalks to indicate different curves. I place important definitions and results in boxes. Periodically, I give short in-class quizzes following the discussion of each major idea. These quizzes do not affect the grades of students and measure how well the
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main concepts are understood. It also helps hold the attention of the students because they know that I expect them to be able to answer the questions correctly. One of the best ways to keep track of each student’s progress is via regular homework. I try to make homeworks accessible since excessively difficult assignments are frustrating and intimidating. I select as few questions as possible for the homework so that it is not tedious for students. On the other hand I assign all necessary questions which make it possible for me to evaluate student’s work and correct their mistakes. I always give helpful feedback either by writing notes on their homeworks, or by discussing general mistakes after returning the homeworks. I grade homeworks in a timely fashion and always return them during the next class. I carefully listen to each student, and give clear responses to their questions and concerns. Grading is one of the topics which is discussed the most by the student. I always give clear explanations after quizes and exams why they have lost points and what they are expected to know. At the end of every semester, I always review the evaluations and try to incorporate comments and suggestions of students in my future teaching. I am happy to report that over the years I have been receiving many positive student evaluations; here is a sample of their comments: • Omer made a lot of comments on wrong homework problems and made sure we knew what we did wrong. (Spring 2008, Calculus II ) • The instructor showed a lot of excitement and interest in this course. Made it more interesting for me to learn. (Fall 2007, Calculus I ) • Omer spends class time well and is always giving notes and examples for every theory we learn. In class Omer is always on task. (Spring 2007, Calculus II ) • Omer always made himself available for office hours and extra help, he was very patient and always willing to spend extra time going over a problem when I needed it. (Fall 2006, Calculus I ) • He is the best math TA I’ve had... One of the best TA overall. He knows the material well enough to conjure multiple examples in answer to questions, and he is very patient. (Spring 2006, Calculus II ) • Omer honestly wanted to help us understand the material and although I could never attend the office hours because of a class conflict he always advertised that he would be around or you could email him to set up a time. (Fall 2005, Calculus I )
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