Teaching Philosophy

As an academician, my career goal is to integrate research with education to (1) help students conduct transformative research contributing to geography and Geographic Information Science (GIScience), and have broader societal impacts, and (2) build a workforce skilled in geospatial concepts, applications, and techniques. My teaching goals are to help students understand the concepts of geospatial theories and improve their analytical skills to solve complex geographic problems using geospatial techniques. Meanwhile, I want my students to develop an appreciation of the geography discipline because it supplies them not only a means of living but also a worldview built on the diversity of environments and cultures.

Being specialized in GIScience, I am passionate to teach my knowledge and share my research experience with my students. This subfield of geography requires a high level of technical proficiency that cannot be developed without substantial lab practices. Thus, I use a combination of well-designed lectures and labs to teach GIScience courses. Moreover, I would integrate my research into course teaching wherever possible and encourage students to participate in my research to expose them to more practices.

I will strive to prepare my teaching with an evolving curriculum, which will reflect the current development and trend of geography discipline. I will make my students aware of the abundant resources that are readily available for their learning, research, and career success.

Finally, I treat my students will utmost respect regardless of their learning styles, learning abilities, and special requirements. The response and appreciation I have received from students in each course class have motivated me to pursue a career in academia.

Teaching Formats

I will strive to create a vigorous and exciting classroom atmosphere, one that empowers students to participate in learning actively. The class format I like to create should include the following components or activities: (1) always give real-world cases related to the content being taught before each class to motivate proactive learning, (2) team discussion, (3) interact with the classroom, (4) role play in scenario analysis, (5) proposing solutions to current issues. This activities-centric teaching format outweighs pure knowledge teaching and could stimulate students’ interest, strengthen their subjective initiatives, and the teaching effects.

Increased use of technology (i.e., Edmodo, Google Docs, Blogs) will be adopted to bring positive teaching effects. For instance, blogging reading notes before the class could ensure students do their homework; recording classroom teaching and posting to YouTube allows students to review the lecture after class at their wish; SMART boards enable students to participate in group activities easier than ever before.

Courses I can teach:

Based on my education, research experience, and research interests, I propose four courses that I can offer to teach:

  1. Introduction to GIS
  2. Spatial Analysis and Modeling
  3. Spatial Data Science and Automation
  4. Health Geography
  5. Web Mapping
  6. Quantitative Methods

I have taught, co-taught, or TAed  for the following courses:

  1. Introduction to GIS 
  2. Cartography
  3. Vector analysis