Moody Chu's Teaching Philosophy:
My teaching philosophy is developed based on one fact --- I love to teach.
Thus my philosopy is quite simple --- Teach students in such a way
that they learn willingly what you really want
them to learn. (I regard this as an optimal control problem where the cost
function I want to maximize is the sum of the magnitudes of students'
willingness and my expectation of them.)
The goal of teaching in general is to
convey to students what the instructor has in mind. To
accomplish this goal the instructor has to take into account
each student's individuality. Taking my area of
mathematics as an example, most students would have a psychological barrier
of not being able (or willing, to be more correct) to understand a
new concept. It is a challenge and an ingenuity to convey an abstract
idea to a student in such a way that not only (s)he understands the subject but
also (s)he enjoys learning about it. Teaching is an art ---
It takes effort and skill to "touch" people. Only when people
are touched, do they have the motivation to learn willingly and effectively.
I recognize clearly the impact of a teacher on students. I would like
therefore to constantly share
many of my ideals and visions with students within or
without the classroom. I firmly believe in the influence of
a good teacher on his/her students, not only academically but also
characteristically. The relationship between a professor and a
student in the university usually is quite distant, most of the time
only limited to the curriculum. But I care about my
students so much that I prefer to be called their "preacher" than
their "professor." It would not take us too much effort to direct
a student into a positive thinking.
Seeing a student going in the positive way is rewarding itself.