K. Beznosov
Teaching Dossier
03/09/16
1. INTRODUCTION
Having joined the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) in
September 2003, I have taught two elective 4th-level undergraduate courses (once each),
one-3rd level required course (twice sharing 50% with Dr. Ph. Kruchten each time), and
one graduate course in my research field, computer security. I have developed all these
courses from scratch, three of which were never taught at the department before and the
other one was completely redeveloped together with Kruchten. In the Fall term of 2004, I
am teaching two courses, required 3rd and elective 4th level. More on my teaching
contributions can be found in Section 3.
My pedagogical training at the UBC’s centre for Teaching and Academic Growth (TAG),
work experience in industry, and the international learning background shaped my view
on teaching in higher education and my style, discussed in Section 2. The key goals in my
teaching are to help students to master self-directed learning skills, knowledge of the
field’s fundamental principles, critical thinking, creativity, teamwork, and
communication skills.
Besides mandatory summative student evaluations at the end of the course (Section 7),
I’ve solicited formative anonymous feedback from the students via WebCT surveys as
often as three times a term in some courses. My peers in the TAG training workshops and
programs have also provided feedback on my teaching based on the observations of
training and real lessons, found in Section 6.
Out of the five courses I have taught so far, I received between 3.2 and 3.9 (out of 4) in
average evaluations of my teaching effectiveness by students in all but one (EECE 310)
courses. EECE 310 was in the Fall term of 2004, when I taught two new courses (with
one shared 50%), both designed from scratch. When I taught that same course in the
following term, my evaluation by students improved from 2.3 to 3.4.
Having graduated one M.A.Sc. student (co-supervised with Dr. V. Leung) in the Fall
2004, I am currently supervising two undergraduate, three part-time Master students who
work in industry or have disability status, one full time Master, and two full time Ph.D.
students, all in ECE department. Out of the two undergraduate students, one will start
M.A.Sc. program at ECE, and the other will start a Master program in Information
Security at Royal Holloway, University of London, both in the Fall of 2005. Two full
time Master students and one Ph.D. student are likely to join me during the 2005-2006
academic year.
The rest of the Teaching Dossier is organized as follows. Next section explains my
approach to teaching and learning in higher education. It discusses the teaching
philosophy as well as teaching goals and strategies. Section 3 lists major teaching
contributions. Evidence of student learning is provided in Section Error! Reference
source not found.. Critical reflections of my teaching and its assessment is discussed in
Section 4. Section 5 lists training I’ve undergone to maintain and improve skills and
expertise in teaching. Assessments of my teaching by UBC peers are provided in Section
6. Section 7 contains comments from formative evaluations of my courses by students.
Video records of my teaching are in Section 8. Selected course materials can be found in
Section 9.
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2. APPROACH TO TEACHING & LEARNING
The international learning background, pedagogical training at UBC TAG, and the
industrial experience shaped my philosophy of teaching in higher education.
My experience in learning spreads from Siberia to Florida, from Physics to Computer
Science. I received secondary and undergraduate schooling back in Siberia. My
undergraduate degree is in Physics from Novosibrisk State University, with total of some
4,000 student population; the Physics department in that Siberian university was one of
the top three in the Soviet Union at that time. The five years (interrupted by 2 years of
compulsory military service) exposed me to the Russian system of higher education,
which is quite similar to the European (particularly German) systems not only in its
organization but also in its high quality.
Afterwards, I went to a graduate program in Computer Science at Florida International
University in Miami. FIU gave me an opportunity to study in a student population that
was highly heterogynous ethnically. While working in industry after graduating from FIU
in 2000, I attended or audited several university courses taught by CMU and MIT
professors.
The diverse cultural, educational, and professional background enabled me to view the
educational process from a number of different cultural perspectives, and helps me to
contribute to the learning experience of my students in important ways.
Although lacking teaching experience before joining the UBC, I have undergone a
significant amount of training in teaching and learning through various programs and
workshops at the UBC TAG (see Section 3.3).
My experience of working in industry for over 5 years helps me to be more realistic about
learning outcomes of the courses I teach and the overall learning objectives of the
Software Engineering (SE) option at ECE.
2.1. Philosophy
The six pillars paramount for my students’ ability to become life-time learners and
successful software engineers are self-directed learning skills, knowledge of the field’s
fundamental principles, critical thinking, creativity, team work, and communication
skills. The diverse cultural background as well as educational and industrial experience I
bring to UBC determined my belief in the pillars and my vision of the ways to cultivate
them in students.
Today the educational system is hard-pressed to teach students functions, features, and
other specific “knobs” found in particular programming languages, technological
products, and computing systems, because such knowledge can be instantly applied to
practical problems making graduates highly competitive in the short run. My industrial
experience clearly indicates the fallacy of such a direction.
I have seen software developers and designers unable to quickly gain the knowledge of a
new middleware technology or even a programming language necessary for reacting
swiftly to the client’s needs in custom development projects. Their learning curve was too
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steep due to the lack of understanding the fundamental principles common to all
middleware technologies and programming languages. Others would often be unable to
take advantages of the differences and similarities present in technologies alike. These
examples from my work in industry show the importance of developing two pillars of
life-long successful engineers: self-directed learning skills as well as knowledge of the
fundamental principles behind the technologies employed in specific fields of
engineering.
I want the students to come away from my classes with a deep understanding of the
principles and foundations of computing systems. In the technology-centred and fastpaced professions of computing and software, one can easily become overwhelmed with
numerous details of ever-changing solutions and turn blind to the underlying
commonalities or fail to differentiate their fundamentals. However, heavily equipped with
the knowledge of such principles, the students can individually learn on their own any
specific (future) technology or system with ease, while keeping a clear understanding of
it.
While striving to equip UBC students with the knowledge of fundamental principles, it is
easy to fall into the trap of ineffective “just-in-case”1 teaching style. To avoid it, I
introduce elements of the problem based learning (PBL) approach into my courses design
and tie new content into the projects that students have to complete. I believe that PBL
techniques will also help me with the gradual “liberation” of students into the world of
self-directed learners.
Two other pillars I want students to build in my courses are critical thinking and
creativity. To be successful, they need to develop a healthy skepticism towards
technological “silver bullets” and “panaceas” that too often betray young professionals.
Consequently, I value the importance of teaching to distinguish real facts from wishful
thinking or speculations. While designing my courses (see samples of the syllabus for my
courses in Section 9), I make an effort to employ the techniques shown to be effective for
developing critical thinking in students, e.g., independent research projects, discussions,
research paper critiques, and group projects.
At the same time, fostering creativity and imaginativeness, and keeping students’ minds
open to new inventions cannot be overemphasized. I want to encourage my students to be
iconoclasts and challenge conventional beliefs. Being fortunate to take a Ph.D. class in
Advanced Software Engineering with Michael Evangelist (currently, Director of
Research, CMU-West), I came to appreciate how in-class discussions and course
assignments could foster the development of both healthy skepticism and creativity in
students.
Although working with computer technologies usually means spending the lion's share of
one’s time in front of computer monitors, team work and communication skills will
always be key to the professional success of my students. It holds regardless if they go to
work in the industry or continue in academia. For this reason, I prize frequent group
“Just-in-case” teaching is a simplistic way of teaching the principles when the teacher fails to connect the
body of new knowledge with the learners’ experience. As a result learners find the new knowledge
irrelevant to their pre-existing knowledge and experience, which reduces student engagement and lowers
content retention.
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assignments and a mini-conference at the end of the course, with students presenting their
term projects in the class, as an important part of course work. After witnessing a
successful application of this technique in Ron Rivest’s course at MIT on “Network and
Computer Security,” I have started to apply it in my classroom to foster students’
interpersonal and communication skills.
Having lived in Pittsburgh, PA, for over a year, I had a chance to attend public seminars
held at the CMU School of Computer Science. This experience gave me an excellent
opportunity to appreciate the importance of maintaining a motivating research
atmosphere not only in class but also outside of the classroom. When students find
themselves positioned equally with their professors to present their work or talk to
visiting speakers, the students tend to develop strong interest in what they learn during
lectures and do for their assignments. After realizing that such seminars also were
instrumental for developing a unique school of thought, I organized, coordinated, and
frequently gave talks at weekly Security Readings Seminars at my company, where
participants presented and discussed seminal papers on computer security. I continued
this practice at the ECE and as of the Summer of 2005 I have weekly group meetings
with my students where we present and discuss recent research papers on computer
security.
To contribute my share to the nourishment of stimulating academic atmosphere and the
progressive school of thought at ECE, I co-founded (together with Jeffrey Joyce) in
September 2003 and have been coordinating a weekly Software Engineering Exploration
and Discussions Seminar (SEEDS). The seminar quickly became a venue for SE faculty
and graduate students (with attendance of 15-20 in average) to reflect on their work,
discuss it with peers, and disseminate it to the ECE (and eventually to the UBC)
community.
2.2. Teaching Goals and Strategies
To cultivate the six pillars of successful software engineers, I have established the
following goals and strategies for achieving them.

Self-directed learning. Develop courses so that the amount of instructions about
how to complete tasks throughout the course is decreased as the course proceeds.
For example, in EECE 512, “Topics in Computer Security,” I start with providing
students with electronic copies of the papers I want them to read, then I give them
just instructions for finding the papers in the repositories (i.e., online libraries),
and by the end of the course students are given only paper bibliographical records.
EECE 310, “Software Engineering,” and EECE 412, “Introduction to Computer
Security” students were required to self-study a short topic using the textbook and
recommended additional readings and were assessed on their progress.

Fundamental principles. Develop course contents to stress the fundamental body
of knowledge in the field. Use appropriate text books and other materials. Employ
PBL methods to make the content relevant to the students’ experience.
Examples: In EECE 310, the focus of the course is on the seven principles that
guide design and implementation of software systems, rather than techniques and
tools, which tend to change in the matter of few years. All programming
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assignments in EECE 440, Advanced Object Orientation, were tied into the
content of the upcoming lectures, motivating students to treat lectures as a means
of solving problems in the assignments.

Critical thinking. Structure the tasks (e.g., in-class and home assignments, term
projects and reports) to engage and develop students’ ability to question
assumptions, critically analyze and reflect on the material they study.
Examples: In all courses I taught so far, I designed most of my sessions to include
classroom discussions and group work with the goal of engaging students in
critical thinking about the subject of the sessions. Students’ anonymous comments
(Section 7) indicate that the students generally find in-class discussions and group
work very helpful to their learning.
Particularly in EECE 512, the students prepared a one-page critique of the paper
they read for the session, and then were engaged in very active discussion of the
work reported in the paper. Feedback through formative student evaluations
(Section 7) as well as through the conversations with students indicated that the
ability of students to critically analyze research in the filed in particular and R&D
in general has substantially improved.

Creativity. Challenge students to think out of the box, re-examine existing
solutions and develop non-conventional alternatives by providing examples and
giving non-conventional tasks.
Examples: In both EECE 412 and EECE 512, students chose specific problems in
the field of computer security and did term projects to solve them. The students
were not prescribed any recipes on how to do their projects. Some projects
demonstrated impressive creativity of the students in the way they have picked the
problems to address and the way they have applied the knowledge acquired in the
course to the problems.

Teamwork skills. Constantly cultivate team-work skills through group
assignments, projects, papers, and in-class engagements. Provide resources
helpful in learning about team playing.
Examples: In EECE 310 and EECE 440, students were engaged in group-work
during sessions, which they found very helpful to their learning (see students’
anonymous comments in Section 7). I’ve also included a number of group home
assignments and group term projects in the undergraduate courses.

Communication skills. Motivate students to practice their writing, presentation,
and other communication skills by organizing mini-conferences at the end of my
courses, assigning peer reviews, written and oral analysis of the original works in
the field, engaging students in pair and group discussion activities.
Examples: In EECE 412 and EECE 440, I worked with the staff from the
Technical Communication Centre in the Faculty of Applied Science to offer
additional tutorial on delivering effective presentations. It was used as a
springboard for student groups to prepare for end-of-term mini-conference where
each group presented their project. Students in EECE 512 have written some 20
pages of paper critiques, which were evaluated not only on the content but also on
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the proper grammar, spelling, and clarity of the language. In frequent group work
in-class assignments, I ask each group to present their results briefly to the rest of
the class and encourage other students to ask questions. In most my undergraduate
courses, I allocate part of the final grade to the in-class and out-class (through
WebCT forums) participation encouraging students to practice their skills of
asking good questions, formulate answers, and maintain focused and productive
discussions. Students’ anonymous comments during and at the end of the term
indicate that these techniques do help them to learn better and enjoy the sessions.
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3. MAJOR TEACHING CONTRIBUTIONS
3.1. Teaching Responsibilities
My teaching responsibilities are three courses per year. I have started teaching in January
2004. My first course was EECE 440 with 22 students. I taught EECE 412 (38 students)
and EECE 310 (50% of load with 28 students) in the fall of 2004. In the following spring,
I taught EECE 512 (13 students) and EECE 310 (50% of load with 29 students). More
information about the courses could be found in 8.b of my curriculum vitae.
3.2. Supervising and Advising Students
I am currently supervising two undergraduate, three part-time Master students who work
in industry or have disability status, one full time Master, and two full-time Ph.D.
students, all in ECE department. Out of the two undergraduate students, one will start
M.A.Sc. program at ECE, and the other will start a Master program in Information
Security at Royal Holloway, University of London, both in September 2005. Two full
time Master students and one Ph.D. student are likely to join me during the 2005-2006
academic year.
My intention is to foster the development of same six pillars in the supervised students. I
encourage students to develop their individual development plans and reflect on their
achievement every term. Students are also encouraged to use various tools for doing
research, such as online databases of scientific and engineering publications (e.g., Web of
Science, and digital libraries of professional societies such as IEEE and ACM). We have
a weekly group meeting, weekly reading seminar, and I also meet individually on regular
basis with active students. Each student presents his/her work to the group on regular
basis. All students contribute to the group portal (lersse.ece.ubc.ca) presents the research
projects.
One M.A.Sc. student co-supervised with Victor Leung has graduated in the Fall of 2004.
An exchange Master student from the University of Applied Sciences in Offenburg,
Germany, has completed his 6-month thesis work with me in August 2005 and will be
defending his thesis in October. I expect at least two of my Master students to graduate in
2006.
3.3. Improving Teaching and Learning Skills
I have taken the following workshops and seminars to improve my teaching and
presentation skills:
1. I successfully completed the UBC Faculty Certificate Program on Teaching and
Learning in Higher Education. It consisted of 24 half-day weekly sessions spread
from September 12, 2003, to April 2, 2004.
2. I successfully completed a three day long “Instructional Skills Workshop,” (ISW)
organized by UBC TAG on October 8, 15, and 27, 2003, for UBC Faculty.
3. I attended a one-hour seminar about “Tips for Effective Teaching and Learning in
Large Classes,” organized by the UBC TAG on October 1st, 2003.
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4. I took a one-hour seminar on “Research in the Sciences,” organized by the UBC
Library on September 23, 2003.
5. In 1999 and 2000, I’ve actively participated in Toastmasters International and
completed 7 speeches toward the level of Competent Toastmaster.
Certificates of completion for the Faculty Certificate Program and ISW can be found in
Section 5.
3.4. Committee Service (Teaching and Learning issues)
As part of the Software Engineering (SE) group at the department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering (ECE), I contribute to the development of the curriculum for the
SE option, which is intended to grow into a separate program. My contributions include,
but are not limited to:

Providing feedback to other SE faculty on the design of their SE-related courses,

Contributing to the design of the SE curriculum in the department through
participation in ad-hoc meetings.
3.5. Publications and professional contributions
Currently, I do not have any publications or professional contributions related to teaching
and learning.
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4. ASSESSMENT OF TEACHING: CRITICAL REFLECTIONS
Here’s is a summary of the solicited formative anonymous feedback I’ve received from
the students of first ever course (EECE 440 “Advanced Object Orientation”) I’ve taught
during the spring term of 2004. The actual responses are available upon request.
What was good
What can be improved
Group programming assignments
Hands-on experience
Giving more marks for first
assignments in the term
Project-based assignments
Making assignments and
class work more relevant to
each other.
Doing the assignments
Posting answers to the
questions in the
assignments
Providing more information
resources on the tools used
for assignments
Sessions
Session notes Comprehensive session
notes
Posting session notes before
sessions
Some examples could be
listed on the slides with
corresponding diagrams.
Content delivery Pace of lectures is slow,
good pace. Material is well
understood.
Slower pace
Shorter and condense
lecture contents
Group work and
interactions in the class
Providing more examples of
the introduced principles
and concepts.
Interesting material
Some more time could be
spent describing details of
CORBA technology, which
was used for the course
assignments.
Listening to student’s
questions in class and the
Finishing class on time
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What was good
response
What can be improved
Last session recaps
High-level concepts need to
be tied more closely with
the low-level details of the
discussed systems and
technologies
Discussions Discussions give
opportunities to think hard
about the concepts of the
subject area
Giving rewards for
answering questions so
students participate more
Good interesting
exercises/problems/tasks
Making student
‘presentations’ on certain
topics in class more useful
and informative
Encouraging discussions
among students
More content needs to be
introduced before opening
up discussions
Text book
The textbook is clear
Self study of the text book
WebCT
Messages on the WebCT
discussions
With the experience of teaching only for three terms so far, my goals in developing
myself as a teacher are as follows:

Short term
o Further improve the design of all three courses I anticipate to teach regularly,
EECE 310, EECE 412, and EECE 512 so that:


Students engage more in the classroom discussions,

Work-load on students, TAs, and the instructor is distributed more
evenly over the term,

Students keep up with self-studying the content outside of classroom,

Students learn better how to apply the concepts and principles learned
during the course to performing practical tasks they would likely be
asked to do in the real world.
Long term
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o Learn to deliver more effectively a course to a mid-to-large (between 50 and
100 students) classroom.
o Introduce more elements of problem-based learning techniques into the
courses.
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5. TRAINING IN TEACHING SKILLS
This section contains copies of the following documents, demonstrating that I have
undertaken teaching-related training.

Certificate of successfully completing The Certificate Program on Teaching
and Learning in Higher Education. It was a two-term program with 24 half-day
weekly sessions spread from September 12, 2003, to April 2, 2004. The program
is offered by the centre for Teaching and Academic Growth (TAG).

Certificate of completing Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW) for UBC faculty
in October 2004. It is a three day workshop offered by TAG and taught by
experienced UBC instructors.
I have also taken several short workshops organized by TAG. The complete list can be
found in Section 3.3.
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6. ASSESSMENT OF TEACHING BY PEERS
This section contains assessments of my teaching performed by my UBC colleagues.
6.1. Written feedback completed by participants of the UBC
TAG Certificate Program on Teaching and Learning in Higher
Education
The following pages contain feedback from my peers in the program based on their
observations of my teaching.
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6.2. Written feedback completed by my ECE colleagues
To be provided
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7. STUDENT EVALUATIONS OF MY COURSES
This section contains those student evaluations that have comments. Other evaluations
are available upon request.
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8. VIDEO RECORDS OF MY TEACHING
Selected video records of the following courses, workshops, and tutorials I taught after
joining UBC in 2003 are available upon request.
1. Video clips of my Peer-led workshop prepared and conducted as part of the Faculty
Certificate Program in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.
2. Vide records of the mini-classes I did for the Instructional Skills Workshop during
fall of 2004.
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9. SELECTED COURSE MATERIALS
This section contains selected materials of the courses I have taught at the ECE. To
preserve non-linear organization of the materials and to conserve paper and printer toner,
most of the materials are provided on CD-ROMs. Printed versions are available upon
request.
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