Profil de Mahboub BACCOUCHE (Promo 2001-2004), Graduate student at Virginia Tech.

As a graduate teaching assistant at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), my teaching experience has been developed both inside and outside the classroom. I was given a great opportunity to tutor in a way which I have never done before. I had the opportunity to work with many students of all levels and face the challenge of repeatedly explaining the same concept or solve the same problem over and over without losing interest myself. I have even had the chance to work closely with two students in the mathematics department: a wonderful experience indeed! Details! Teaching mathematics is not an easy task: it involves discipline and hard work and one of my ultimate goals in the classroom is to explain mathematics as a language. I like to explain concepts rather than merely solve classical problems. In elementary calculus all students can tell you how to derivate a simple function. Yet most of them will be unable to explain to you what the derivate actually is. This relationship bet ween concept and exercise has to be worked out over and over and one of my targets is to ensure that students do understand the theory as well the methodology for working on new problems. Since I had the same two students throughout the last semester, I was able to track their progress during all the course and made sure whether my help was making any difference in boosting their grads or not. When I first started, I was rather surprised with how little my students knew and since they lacked a sound background in algebra, the task of helping them pass math this semester seemed quite daunting. I was upset when they both came back with high C’s in their first test so I changed tactics and decided that for the next test, I would not only prepare them for the test material, but also enhance their basic algebra skills. Bearing this into mind, we all pushed very hard: a slight improvement in their test scores to low B’s didn’t take much time to take place. This was pretty exciting for me so I thought that maybe this method was the good one, the right concoction as they say! It was really rewarding and worth trying to keep on working with these students with the same high motivation and also pleasing to witness their slow but steady improvement. With each test, they brought back higher scores and most importantly gained more self-confidence and courage to tackle brand-new problems. On their last test, one of my students scored in the high 85’s and the other in the high 95’s! I do not believe in single approaches in teaching. Combining several teaching methods and tailor making them whenever possible is the best approach. These multiple approaches to the material proved to be very effective not only for my students’ understanding, but also for me as a teacher. Each student, as well as each student class is unique therefore the method of teaching will often change from student to student, or from class to class. As a general rule, I use traditional methods, but I also consistently employ technology to explain abstract con cepts. I think I’m a good teacher that cares about his students and who loves to learn with an from them. After all, they’re my raison d’être in class!