Hasan D.

Passionate About Tutoring Biology, Chemistry and Life Sciences

Passionate About Tutoring Biology, Chemistry and Life Sciences

If my passion in life was not to be a teacher, I would have been a chef like my father, a retired Chef de cuisine. I believe that in many ways teaching is analogous to cooking. As a teacher, I strive to offer a rich à la carte menu in my classes by combining different teaching techniques so that I will be able to give the best learning experience to my students. Students come from different backgrounds, abilities, interests, and career goals, and I will eagerly cater to this diversity. Through many lectures at Brown University and Stanford University, I have been exposed to a diverse student body with different learning styles. I have discovered the importance of being a patient, creative, and motivated instructor who is able to respond to each student’s unique learning style and personal goals.

I am a broadly trained scientist and teacher with expertise in biology, chemistry, physics and math. In my teaching, I will strive to bring concepts alive by incorporating the most recent scientific findings from the literature, encouraging debate, and promoting active engagement from my students. Biology and chemistry help us understand the vast structural diversity and complexity of life on earth at the molecular level. For these reasons, I am particularly excited to teach biology, chemistry, physics and math, where I can fully utilize my multi-disciplinary educational background.

I have benefited from a multi-disciplinary science education at Brown University. As a first year graduate student, I had the opportunity to take a cell biology class taught by Dr. Kenneth Miller. He is one of the most popular and effective teachers of undergraduate and graduate students at Brown and the author of popular biology texts. The following year, I worked with Dr. Miller as a teaching assistant in his class, Cell Biology, which was a required course for all first year graduate students in Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry as well as for senior undergraduate biology majors. Working with Dr. Miller helped me develop useful teaching strategies that have formed an important part of my teaching style.

I have learned four important elements of teaching from Dr. Miller. First, it is vital to inspire students and encourage them to become independent thinkers to solve problems. It is also important to give students group projects which will give them a chance to interact with one another and to engage in teamwork. Dr. Miller, furthermore, taught me to guide my students in the right direction without directly providing them with the answers. Finally, he advised me to give students challenging projects and questions, not only to test what they have learned from the course materials and discussion sessions, but to nurture their ability to work with and apply their knowledge to solve new and more challenging problems. Through my interaction with students at different levels of their education and from diverse backgrounds, moreover, I have come to realize the importance of knowing the profile of the audience, selecting the appropriate material from a vast pool of data, focusing on relevant information, and then delivering it to that specific audience, depending on their needs, expectations and level of knowledge.

Many courses, especially introductory ones, require considerable memorization and can intimidate students who are less invested in the field or who have difficulty with memorization. To help my students remember some of the key vocabulary, for example, I explain the roots from which the words originated. For instance, when I talk about “in vitro” experiments in biochemistry, I explain that “in vitro” means “in glass” in Latin and that we use the term “in vitro” for experiments that are conducted in test tubes. In addition, I often incorporate personal anecdotes and real examples from my own research into my lectures to make the subject more memorable and personal. Furthermore, I encourage them to construct a framework of key vocabulary and concepts, which they can then use in related courses as well as in their future professions or daily lives.

I believe that teaching can be an enjoyable and rewarding experience for both the student and the instructor. Having been a critical student myself, I take the role of teaching very seriously, and I am committed to making my classes interactive, inspiring and a real learning experience. Brown University provided me with many opportunities to develop as an effective teacher. In 2012, through the Sheridan Center Teaching certificate program, I received training on how to reflect on my teaching in order to improve the learning of my students. In my future classes, I will introduce frequent quizzes, which give students quick feedback on whether or not they are successfully integrating the material that I present while allowing me to identify the common misconceptions.

I view the teacher’s role outside the classroom to be just as important as his or her role in class. I plan to hold office hours to both answer my students’ questions on the course material and to allow them to discuss challenging problems. Furthermore, having students come to my office hours will give me the opportunity to discuss their future plans and how I can help them to reach their goals. I hope to continue inspiring my students with the curiosity and excitement I feel for science. I look forward to serving not only as a teacher, but also as a mentor and eventually a colleague as they develop into independent thinkers, skilled researchers or teachers.

My teaching experiences in the classroom and in the laboratory have been diverse. I am constantly striving to become a more effective teacher, and I am testing diverse approaches in order to become more adept at serving my students. Teaching will be an important part of my life, and I am fully prepared to devote myself to becoming an inspirational and effective teacher in biology, chemistry, physics and math.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have further questions.