BY SALLY PARKER
When Dr. Ben Porter earned a PhD in cognition and neuroscience at The University of Texas at Dallas in 2011, he anticipated a long career in research after landing a postdoctoral fellowship in the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health. But right away, he knew he had made a mistake.
Dr. Ben Porter MS’08, PhD’11, assistant dean for effective teaching in the Jonsson School, leads a new program that guides graduate students in honing professional skills, including teaching excellence.
“When I got there, I realized I really didn’t like doing research,” recalled Porter, now the assistant dean for effective teaching for the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science and an associate professor of instruction in the Department of Bioengineering. “It was to the point where I was counting the hours in the day, which is never a good thing in a job.”
At the time, there weren’t many formal avenues for science and engineering PhDs to develop as educators. He set out to change that and now guides graduate students in the Jonsson School in honing teaching skills and investigating their career options in academia through his Learning to Teach Program.
One aspect of the program is the Teaching in Engineering and Computer Science course, an elective Porter recently designed and instructs that gives graduate students real-world experience in front of a classroom. Students who pass have the opportunity to lead a section of an introductory course that provides an overview of the engineering and computer science curricula and engineering design principles. Some 1,600 first-year students take the course every year where they begin to learn the problem-solving skills needed to succeed as majors in computer science and biomedical, computer, electrical, mechanical, software and systems engineering.
The course is one aspect of the Learning to Teach Program, which provides the faculty and peer support graduate teaching associates (GTACs) need as they master STEM pedagogy and learn to run a classroom, from creating a syllabus to identifying measurable learning outcomes in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It also addresses a demand for more engineering faculty who can teach the next generation of college students.
“The combination of teaching, research and service is a hallmark of academia, yet in our pursuit of producing new knowledge from our labs, we should not treat teaching as a lesser pillar,” said Dr. Stephanie G. Adams, Jonsson School dean and holder of the Lars Magnus Ericsson Chair at UT Dallas. “Effective teaching and learning is a crucial way for a faculty member — tenure-track or non-tenure-track — to leave a legacy. The sooner we can help future faculty members excel in teaching, the greater the impact in both research and classrooms.”
“Effective teaching and learning is a crucial way for a faculty member — tenure-track or non-tenure-track — to leave a legacy. The sooner we can help future faculty members excel in teaching, the greater the impact in both research and classrooms.”
— Dr. Stephanie G. Adams, Jonsson School Dean
A COMMUNITY OF TEACHERS
Porter enlisted a handful of GTACs to help develop the course during a beta run in spring 2024. They earned teaching certificates through online modules from the UT Dallas Center for Teaching and Learning and met with Porter for a book club and weekly discussions about creating great learning environments.
In fall 2024, the freshman course kicked off with seven graduate student instructors. Provided with a framework and course content, they held classes in Living Learning Communities for engineering and computer science students who live in designated residence halls and share academic interests. Instructors met as a group with Porter every week to go over challenges and exchange ideas, from the easiest way to set up a grade book to strategies for boosting student engagement. Porter jettisoned a planned fall book club when discussions took off.
“We just had so many conversations on these other topics that we didn’t get through it, which was kind of cool,” he said.
For Shanae Edwards, a mechanical engineering PhD student who taught a section of 36 students, the most pressing concern was classroom management.
“I’m a very nervous person, so in the beginning it was very nerve-wracking,” she said. “The class was directly relevant to what we were doing, and it was extremely helpful and supportive. We discussed what went well, and what we think could have been better.”
Mingling with faculty colleagues who also teach the class was baked into the curriculum to promote mentoring and collegiality.
Faculty joined the GTACs in a second weekly meeting, and the student instructors assisted faculty in their class sessions where they could observe different teaching styles.
“I felt I was part of a community and not thrown out there on my own,” said Hazem Younis, a computer engineering PhD student who participated in the inaugural cohort in spring 2024. “When you have a sense of belonging, it gives you that confidence, a sense that you can fall back on someone for support if something goes wrong.”
Student teachers quickly became a cohort of support for each other, Porter said.
“All those different challenges that would come up in the classes as they went through the semester, they were discussing those and how to work them out,” he said. “It wasn’t just me telling them how to do this. It was them offering advice to each other.”
Jonsson School Dean Stephanie G. Adams leads a session with a cohort of graduate students receiving formal education on teaching.
LEARNER-CENTERED TEACHING
At the heart of Learning to Teach — and by extension the required freshman course — is a single intention: reach the learner. Some of the student teachers recall early experiences with uninspiring teachers who gave one-way lectures as if they were addressing an empty room. When the GTACs taught, instructors found ways to deliver course content that invited their students to collaborate, speak up, ask questions and get out of their comfort zone.
“It was all about being intentional about your teaching and making sure you’re looking to improve,” said Jonathan Perry, a computer science PhD student who taught a section. He says pairing students to work on problems helped embolden the more reticent classmates to offer solutions.
“I did that a couple times but also forgot to do it a lot,” he admits. “But I’ll be improving on it, thanks to this. It helps.”
Edwards, who has experienced anxiety speaking in public, made sure each student had an opportunity to speak in class — not just the same six who always threw up a hand.
“The classroom is the place to get it wrong,” she said. “We don’t want to go into industry being afraid to ask questions.”
“The classroom is a place to get it wrong. We don’t want to go into industry being afraid to ask questions.”
— Shanae Edwards
A second-generation engineer, Edwards took a practical approach to keep three dozen students engaged. She randomly assigned small groups and pairs for problem-solving activities with unfamiliar faces.
“I was a very spontaneous teacher, so I would decide to do an activity on the spot for just a couple minutes to keep them engaged,” Edwards said. “I noticed if I was just showing them a video or something, I would completely lose them. I wanted to keep it as interactive as possible but not predictable.”
Porter tells his students that one of the challenges of teaching STEM is to show how theoretical concepts look when applied. Eighty percent of the students in the section Vlad Birsan taught intended to study computer science, so they were less interested in engineering examples. Halfway into the semester, Birsan, a software engineering PhD student, mixed in more computer science and coding examples to illustrate design principles.
“So, instead of ‘Bob had a car and went on the road’ it was ‘Bob had a computer program that he wants to edit,’” Birsan said.
BUILDING CONNECTION
For Younis, who also tutors and enjoys meeting one-on-one, the experience validated his instinct to follow in his mother’s and uncle’s footsteps. Both are teachers.
“It’s in my DNA,” he said. “I get a satisfactory feeling when I see that someone understands clearly what I’ve said. I’ve always been the person to help others when it comes to learning.”
Younis made a point of asking students about their interests and backgrounds.
“I would ask them, ‘What made you want to go to college in the first place?’” he said. “I always made sure I was approachable, even when it came to discussion time or teaching. I tried my best not to make it a one-way conversation.”
Even there he discovered room for growth, sometimes catching himself talking too fast. He learned to pause to let the words sink in and to give students a chance to respond or reflect.
Still, in every class is an individual who isn’t paying attention. Student teachers agree this can be rattling at first.
“It’s a little intimidating when you’re in front of a big class, and you see that some students don’t pay attention to you,” Birsan said. “But you have to remember you’re there to teach for everybody, not the two students who are on their laptops.”
Edwards had a couple of conversations outside of class with a resistant student to try to understand why he refused to participate in activities.
She said: “I was trying to depersonalize it, so instead of saying ‘You’re doing this,’ I said, ‘I noticed this happened during the class. Is there something you want to talk about?’ I don’t want to make a habit of singling anybody out in class because that’s not a good feeling among your peers.”
“I always made sure I was approachable, even when it came to discussion time or teaching. I tried my best not to make it a one-way conversation.”
— Hazem Younis
Regular meetings of the Learning to Teach Program include faculty speakers from various Jonsson School departments as well as practical details about running their classroom.
THE POWER OF COLLABORATING
Faculty observed the student teachers in the classroom at the start and end of the semester, offering feedback not only on opportunities to improve but appreciation for fresh ideas they brought.
“It was a heartwarming experience to see faculty learning tips from you,” Birsan said. “This experience helped us also be calmer when talking with faculty we regard as higher rank. We need to be able to communicate with them to learn from them.”
Porter said communicating with colleagues who share your students is a lesson he wanted the students to grasp. When faculty share what they’re teaching with each other, course content can support learning as students progress.
The same holds true for industry. Edwards had this in mind when she put students into small groups to practice solving design problems together.
“As they were freshmen, I wanted them to be in a habit of collaborating because that’s going to determine your success in the future,” she said. “And it’s important to gather other perspectives as well. Group work is going to get you very far.”
Birsan, who worked for nearly four years as a software engineer at home in Romania before coming to Dallas to earn his PhD, originally planned to wait to teach after he retires. Now, he’s eager to start sooner. His experience as a computer programmer showed him how much the industry can learn about collaboration.
“The best chance we have to improve communication in the industry is doing what we are currently doing: go into the classroom and teach and create a different environment for everybody to be more relaxed and more prone to ask questions and speak their minds,” he said.
“This experience helped us also be calmer when talking with faculty we regard as higher rank. We need to be able to communicate with them to learn from them.”
— Vlad Birsan
NEVER STOP LEARNING
Teaching is a career goal for most who join the program. Younis said that’s why he jumped at the chance to take it. He plans to work in industry first so he can bring practical knowledge into the classroom.
Edwards, who has not yet decided if teaching is for her, said, “I’m still not sure what path I want to take in my career, so I did it with an exploratory mindset.”
The class gave her a new appreciation for the hard work professors do. And as the only woman in the class, she said she hopes “there are more women who take on the challenge in the future.”
Some students used Learning to Teach as a launch pad to teach again right away. This time they planned the course content themselves. In the spring semester, Perry taught Operating System Concepts, a three-credit course, to 68 seniors. He soon realized the work that goes into creating interactive experiences and aims to build in more time for planning it.
Birsan taught CS 4365 Artificial Intelligence, mostly to seniors, and will teach Introduction to Computer Science in the fall. In the AI class, he adapted his teaching to include more programming examples to illustrate the theories he had to cover in the course.
“It was all about being intentional about your teaching and making sure you’re looking to improve.”
— Jonathan Perry
Meeting students where they are is a big part of the job, Porter said. That might mean helping to break down barriers to learning that some students face outside of class.
“We really want the only barrier for the undergraduate students to be their understanding of the material,” Porter said. “There are a lot of really smart people out there who may not have the opportunities or the background knowledge to learn your material.”
For the student instructors in Learning to Teach, the class itself served as a model for effective teaching, Younis said.
“Dr. Ben Porter was extremely helpful and supportive. I just want to point that out — having the community to fall back on and having his support. He puts our success first.”
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