Viktoria R.T. Hsu
teaching statement
Throughout my scholastic and academic experience I have developed a high regard for excellent teaching. I have always had a strong desire to teach well, thoroughly enjoy a well taught lesson from the
teacher’s or the student’s perspective, and am committed to continuously improving my teaching skill.
I believe that all teaching starts with a commitment to learning, as the true skill in teaching lies in
learning how understanding is achieved. In other words, by dedicating myself to understanding my
students, I can learn to efficiently produce understanding in every class I instruct.
I am convinced that, besides research and collegiality, teaching is among the most important services
that I will provide for an academic department or institution. In addition to my natural interest in
teaching, it is therefore particularly important to me to teach well. To me, teaching well means that
when preparing to teach, I look back onto my personal experiences with learning a topic and choose the
most straightforward approach to present it. This strategy includes planning to use correct and concise
language that is appropriate for my audience and the material I am teaching. In addition, I care about
creating a positive learning environment by showing students that I genuinely enjoy mathematics, by
showing that I am excited about teaching mathematics, and by acknowledging the work they put forth
to understand mathematics.
At the University of Washington, and with the exception of summer quarters, I have been continuously
employed as a teaching assistant or fellow since the fall of 1998. My teaching experience here began
with a two week training session which is provided by the Mathematics Department to their teaching
assistants. In addition to training before entering the classroom, I later received several classroom visits
from mentors and peers to assess my teaching. Since then I have built a broad basis for furthering
my teaching skills by working in a variety of settings. My experiences range from one-on-one tutoring
to designing and teaching a course as an instructor, as well as observing and reflecting on teaching
as a consultant. I have also had the opportunity to work with students at many different levels of
development, as I have worked at the college and graduate school levels as well as elementary, middle,
and high school levels. In the following, I will highlight a few special assignments, and then state my
goals in future teaching.
In the summer of 2000 I was an instructor for the Applied Mathematics Department, and taught
Introduction to Numerical Methods, using matlab. My challenge in teaching this class is in helping
students transition from deriving exact solutions to computing approximate solutions. This change
requires one to acknowledge that computers commit errors and to analyse the size of those errors. I
particularly value this teaching experience for the availability of advice by peers and faculty, and for
the freedom I was given to outline, design, and run the course.
In the summer of 1999 I was student lecturer and mentor at Mathcamp, an intensive, 5-week, summer
camp in which gifted and highly motivated high school students are exposed to higher level mathematics. During this assignment, I particularly enjoyed the challenge of communicating complex material
to students with talent and enthusiasm but mostly basic skills.
In the 1999/2000 academic year I volunteered to be an elementary school teacher consultant in a joint
5th and 6th grade classroom. Since the 2002/2003 academic year I have returned to 5th, 6th, and 7th
grade classrooms as a teacher consultant and NSF teaching fellow in the GK-12 program of the Applied
Mathematics Department. My challenge in this project remains finding satisfying answers to very basic,
but hard, questions like: “Why can’t I divide by zero?” Through this work far below university level
I gained a new perspective on teaching and the potential role of university level educators beyond an
academic or industrial setting.
In the future, and in drawing from my experience in Germany, I would especially like to give students
more of a voice in their education. I see the possibility for this even in individual classes by, for
example, giving students a choice between two advanced, course-related, topics to be taught during
a block worth 10%-15% of the course time. For a quarter-long course meeting three times weekly,
this would mean three to five lectures on the topic of choice. I believe that, where applicable, such
flexibility serves students’ needs better than the more rigid, traditional approaches to course design.
Due to my background in applied mathematics, especially mathematical biology, I am particularly
qualified to teach classes on continuous mathematical modeling, differential equations, and scientific
computing. I hope to have the opportunity to teach one or more of such classes soon, and am genuinely
looking forward to all future teaching opportunities.
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