CHENGLU LI

    I believe that students learn more effectively when they have more autonomy and ownership over their learning. To that end, I often use flipped teaching and project-based learning approaches in my classroom. In addition to flipped teaching, I also adopt project-based learning frequently in my classroom (oftentimes in combination with flipped teaching).

    I support the idea that students’ perceived value of the knowledge and skills affects their engagement and learning outcomes. Based on this idea, I make sure students see the value and relevance in what they learn in the real world and in their own professional development. I often start teaching with an end goal in mind by asking these two questions: when students leave the classroom, what new knowledge and skills should they have acquired? How do these new knowledge or skills benefit them in their personal and professional development?

    Finally, I believe that teaching is a reciprocal activity. When teachers make efforts to learn about each individual student and are able to adjust the instruction based on that knowledge, students engage the most and strives to reach teachers’ expectation. To learn more about my students and establish a stronger teaching presence, I tried to interact with them as much as I could.