Rajat believes that teaching, beyond delivering needed information, is also about motivating students to ask the “why” and “how” questions. Rajat’s teaching philosophy centers on providing a healthy learning environment, simplifying key concepts, demonstrating multiple ways of learning the material, stimulating interest in the subject matter, promoting critical thinking skills and providing a tangible assessment and feedback. Students in chemistry need to learn not only the facts but to learn how to apply those facts to hypothesize, test theories, interpret data and formulate conclusions. To achieve these goals inside classes, Rajat has so far relied on active, student-centered learning methods. To promote interaction, Rajat used anonymous clicker systems, think-pair-share activities, one-minute papers, and case studies. In future, Rajat will try to build on his past experience to become a better teacher. To better understand their need, Rajat use pre- and post-class anonymous surveys. Outside of formal class periods, Rajat will encourage student participation through informal question and answer sessions and team projects. Ultimately, Rajat’s overarching teaching goal will be to provide his students with the curiosity and skills, which will allow them to think and analyze more critically and guide them to a better pursuit of knowledge. Feedback from some of Rajat’s past student can be found below.
