5. Teaching Experiences

I had started my teaching career in September 1992 just before the completion of my Ph.D. degree in  October 1992 at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. I have taught many service courses at  six universities in Canada, Bangladesh, Australia  and Saudi Arabia. I taught many core courses in statistics including  Survey Sampling,  Design of Experiments,  Statistical Inference, Estimation theory and Multivariate Analysis with levels ranging from the first year to PhD level. I had been the coordinator for STAT 319 for more than 10 semesters at KFUPM.

Areas of teaching excellence include elementary statistics, engineering statistics, mathematical statistics, multivariate statistical analysis, statistical inference, econometrics, regression analysis and survey sampling.

5.1 Teaching Dossier

 A summary of the recent evaluation by students and Teaching Dossier are presented below.

 5.2 Teaching Statement

 “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great inspires”  William Arthur Ward.

Statistics is the science of making decisions in the face of uncertainty. It is neither number crunching nor compilation of numerical information just for records as is believed by many, rather a methodology that help solve the problem of uncertainties of the real world life. It tries to understand the nature of the problem by collecting information through appropriate designs, organize, analyze and make decisions. Mathematical theory of probability provides a solid foundation to such decisions made.  

Statistics has been a demanding subject across disciplines. Numerous companies have always been searching for graduates in statistics, first to absorb and then to train them to suit their requirements. As a statistics instructor, one attempts to reinforce the analytical and problem-solving skills to a broad range of academic areas. In all subject contents and other educational endeavors, the applications of basic mathematical principles, deduction, and the scientific method militates the disciplined-reasoning abilities that one strives to develop.

Since I started my academic career as a university teacher, my goal has been to become an effective teacher with a positive attitude towards students and colleagues. My student evaluation reports indicate that I am on the right track, if it is considered as an indicator. Their evaluations are a continuous source of encouragement that keeps me moving forward on the road to be an efficient teacher. My interaction with my teachers during my student life, and now my interaction with students as an instructor have both helped me to rediscover the knowledge of the subject and enthusiasm for teaching.

Students need to be encouraged to ask questions. They need to receive genuine appreciation for their ideas, talents, and learning abilities. My experience has shown that prompt feedback, teacher participation during their individual and group projects, flexibility in setting individual and group requirements, fair evaluation and grading, all help to a large extent to motivate them to meet their individual and group objectives. These in turn help me to meet my objective of being an efficient and effective teacher.

On a continuous basis, my students contribute a lot to make me understand their needs and my own limitations as their facilitator in the learning process. Another reason for my dedication towards excellence in academia is my keen interest in research publications and books. I have enjoyed my teaching profession over the years by being able to teach and reside in Canada, Australia, Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia.  Hopefully, one day I will perfect my teaching techniques and will become an “ideal” teacher.

I usually present course materials by uploading these on WebCT.  I organize my lecture notes in three ways. For service courses in statistics, I avoid calculus and prefers to explain rationale behind statistical theories for wide spectrum of  students. Emphasis is given on the understanding of the nature of randomness of

real world phenomena, the formulation of statistical methods by using intuitive arguments and thereby making meaningful decisions.

Lectures are typed up from the book, projected on the screen and explained  during  every lecture. They are organized in a way that motivates students. In service courses, I start to motivate students with an easy problem and in so doing, underlying theory is discovered. Students actively take part in the process of formulation of the theory.

Some typical questions that may help students  understand the material are projected on the screen and explained with reference to the particular section of the lecture material or the particular formula being employed.

At the end of every chapter I encourage students to solve some typical questions prepared as Practice Problems, uploaded on WebCT, projected on the screen and explained  in the class.

In certain courses, I give instructions to the students in the use of Statistica, MINITAB etc. while teaching multiple regression and analysis of variance techniques. I believe it helps students to read outputs from statistical packages. 

I have always been attempting to improve my service to students I try to follow the schedule distributed on the first day of the course. I always offer a minimum of 5 office hours per week and encourage students to contact me at any time during working days, and also encourage them to ask questions by telephone or email.

 Pre- and post-tests also help me to determine if students have benefited during a semester or not. In my opinion, the decision to base grades on computerized marking of multiple-choice questions is very detrimental.  Thus, I like to do the marking of answer sheets myself so that I can know the level of my students after completion of the first mid-term exam.  I then try to reach their level. To be fair with the students, I always mark one question at a time for all the exam booklets which reduces some sort of bias in marking, let alone the managerial time per booklet.