Career Portfolio-Accomplishments in Academia

Some years ago when ABET started to put more emphasis on design content in engineering curriculum, the near-term response was to teach courses in the usual manner with "design project" added. The result was a rough integration of "book" content and "design" content in a given course. The disconnectedness of the two parts of the courses sometimes frustrated the students who were forced to apply book knowledge without seeing a clear pathway to do so.

Instead of integrating design into textbook learning, I approached the integration problem from a design standpoint. Courses were structured as design classes where textbook learning was added as a means to accomplished the design objective.

The concept was carried over to my teaching at Sirindhorn Int. Institute of Technology as well. In one attempt at this concept, a project was assigned with exact schedule of deliverables even before instructions started. Lectures were paced to provide students with necessary information to meet the project schedule accumulating in a finish project that represented the entire course content at the end of the course.

The "objective oriented teaching" attempts produced the following benefits.

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Resume Research Interests Teachng Plan Acc. in Industry Acc. in Academia Research Services	Objective Oriented Teaching University of Utah & Sirindhorn Int. Institute of Technology Some years ago when ABET started to put more emphasis on design content in engineering curriculum, the near-term response was to teach courses in the usual manner with "design project" added. The result was a rough integration of "book" content and "design" content in a given course. The disconnectedness of the two parts of the courses sometimes frustrated the students who were forced to apply book knowledge without seeing a clear pathway to do so. Instead of integrating design into textbook learning, I approached the integration problem from a design standpoint. Courses were structured as design classes where textbook learning was added as a means to accomplished the design objective. The concept was carried over to my teaching at Sirindhorn Int. Institute of Technology as well. In one attempt at this concept, a project was assigned with exact schedule of deliverables even before instructions started. Lectures were paced to provide students with necessary information to meet the project schedule accumulating in a finish project that represented the entire course content at the end of the course. The "objective oriented teaching" attempts produced the following benefits. Students learned to handle what was a seemingly insurmountable engineering problem via systematic engineering approach. With definite goal, students knew what they would accomplish by the end of the course. Course objectives were relatable to real world situation instead of being a collection of engineering topics. Textbook knowledge was immediately applied in a real-world design context. Utilities of engineering concepts learned during the lecture were immediately evident. Students became more focused and retained more since they had opportunities to apply what they had learned immediately. Students voluntarily devoted more time to learning especially when the project involved hands on work. Instructor was forced to be more content conscious. Topics cover had to serve their purpose in the course.
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