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Teaching experience

One of my favorite things I've had the opportunity to do as a graduate student was teach laboratories in numerous courses within the Industrial & Systems Engineering department at The University of Oklahoma. Below are some ways I motivate and engage students in the classroom.

As a TA for Data-Driven Decision-Making II, a course teaching statistical analysis and experimental design, my laboratories focused on connecting the concepts students learned in the lecture (e.g. t-test, ANOVA) with the practical coding skills (using SAS) needed to apply them.

To help students make connections between theory and practice, I highlighted key ideas in every lab in slides aptly named a variation of things that helped the TA grasp the material (a catchy name that brings attention to the slides). For instance:

Highlighting to students how important it is to adjust alpha values when carrying out multiple comparisons using the code we learned that day.

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Describing step-by-step how SAS applies the non-parametric Wilcoxon test so that they can understand how it works.

As a TA for Ergonomics in System Design, an introductory course to Human Factors & Ergonomics, I modified laboratory assignments to reflect more realistic and applicable ergonomic problems student will encounter outside of the classroom.

Original laboratory assignment

This laboratory tasked students with conducting a task analysis of their morning routine.

In course evaluations, students described this assignment as "Almost too easy. Like I wasn't really sure what to write about" and "[the lab] wasn’t very applicable and we spent too much time on it".

Modified laboratory assignment:

In the modified laboratory, students were provided with two potential realistic and applicable assignments to choose from based on their interest.

The first option tasked students with conducting a task analysis of the iHealth COVID-19 take-home test to identify ways to improve its usability, highlighting challenges mentioned by real users on Amazon reviews for motivation. Note that Dodd Consulting Group is a fake company based on the professor's name.

The second option centers around conducting a task analysis to evaluate the usability of weather.gov. The laboratory highlights the website's low accessibility rank on a report by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation in contrast with its popularity as motivation for the laboratory.

As a TA for Ergonomics in System Design, an introductory course to Human Factors & Ergonomics, I transformed laboratory assignments into in-class competitions to motivate students to engage with the class material and their project teammates outside the classroom more.

The 2023 Ergonomic Design competition

In the original laboratory, students were tasked with designing ergonomic aircraft passenger seats while considering anthropometric measurements -- a topic covered in class.

As part of the competition, students now had to balance multiple conflicting objectives, as they often need to in real problems outside the classroom. Their design must: (1) maximize the amount of money generated per flight (each seat generated a fixed amount of profit); (2) create a design that is as ergonomic as possible (e.g. increase leg room, increase distance between seats, increase seat size).

The competition generated a very diverse set of designs, with some maximizing profit while others focused on balancing both objectives. You can observe the honorable mentions, as well as the top 3 designs below.

Honorable mention

Third place

Second place (was a tie between two groups)

First place