Teaching

Physics education blog

Please take a look at my personal "Physics Education Blog", where I regularly publish posts on my teaching experience, philosophy, visions and especially the comparison between Germany and the United States. I think that the approach to teaching science and engineering in the two countries can sometimes be very different, and I believe that there is a lot that we can learn from each other in this context. 

My teaching philosophy

Establishing a stimulating and communicative classroom environment in which students of all backgrounds are able to achieve their full potential, become increasingly passionate about physics, and learn to think as scientists -- this is my primary objective as a teacher and educator. 

Some of my main guiding principles are: 

• Use teaching tools wisely (i.e., find a balance between blackboard, slides, experimental demonstrations, etc.)

• Encourage student participation

• Assign group work projects

• Teach computational thinking

• Mutual feedback between students and the teacher

• Hands-on experience for students

• Open-door policy

Teaching experience

I have been involved in teaching numerous undergraduate and graduate courses starting from 2009 up until today. In the following, a brief overview of my teaching activities will be provided. 

• Substitution of several lectures that were part of the following courses: Introduction to experimental physics 1: classical mechanics and thermodynamics (GU Frankfurt, 3x); Introduction to experimental physics 2: electrodynamics (GU Frankfurt, 1x); Solid-state physics 1 (GU Frankfurt, 3x); Solid-state physics 2 (GU Frankfurt, 1x), Magnetism and magnetic materials (GU Frankfurt, 1x); Magnetic materials and applications (University of Illinois, 3x); Electronic properties of materials (University of Illinois, 1x)

• Coordinator for the advanced laboratory course at the Institute of Physics (GU Frankfurt, 1 semester)

• Course coordinator for the following classes: Introduction to solid state physics (GU Frankfurt); Introduction to experimental physics 1: classical mechanics and thermodynamics (GU Frankfurt); Solid-state physics 1 (GU Frankfurt)

• Design, implementation and guidance of computational group projects for a course on magnetic materials and applications (University of Illinois, 2x); including an introductory tutorial lecture, meetings with students, assessment of lab reports and presentations

• Guiding students with their senior design project in materials science and engineering; topic: micromagnetic simulations of skyrmion dynamics (University of Illinois)

• Teaching assistant for all above-mentioned courses. Duties involved: leading discussion sessions, presenting and revisiting selected lecture contents, carrying out weekly quizzes, grading homework and exams, etc.

• Co-organizer of a seminar on magnetism for undergraduate and graduate students (GU Frankfurt, 1 semester)

• Teaching assistant for an experiment on electronic noise in the advanced lab course of GU Frankfurt (3 semesters)

• Teaching assistant for a course on introduction to programming at the computer science department in Frankfurt (mostly focused on Python; 2 semesters, GU Frankfurt)

• Teaching assistant for a course on introductory mathematics for physics majors (2 different tutorials over the course of one semester, GU Frankfurt) 

• Co-mentoring several B.Sc., M.Sc. and PhD students at GU Frankfurt and University of Illinois