Teaching

The first time I taught a class, I had just been posted to a secondary school in Nigeria, far from home, for a year of compulsory national service. Although my undergraduate degree was in chemical engineering, the message in my country could not have been clearer – it needed more teachers than engineers at the time. So, an engineering graduate without a single minute of teaching experience was flung in front of a classroom filled with knowledge-hungry students, handed a piece of chalk, a blank blackboard, and expected to teach Integrated Science. I won’t sugarcoat it. It was terrible. I could not hold my students’ interest. My mind kept racing, as I mentally awaited the one question a student would ask that would reveal me for the fraud that I was. But it never came. Not one troublesome question. As a matter of fact, no question was voiced throughout the class. And somehow, that felt wrong. “Being a good student clearly isn’t the same thing as being a good teacher”, I imagined as I droned on about plants and animals. “When I was on the other end of this chalk, I asked Teacher Agbeyi questions all the time”. And then it hit me. The students were not the problem. I was.

As my students survived the ordeal of the first day of class, I promised myself that the second would be different. I began to reflect on Teacher Agbeyi. How had he managed to pull me into the class discussions? Why had it left such a strong impression on me? Was there a secret to good teaching? My reflections that night and the experiences that I have garnered over the years have shaped my current teaching philosophy.

First, I believe the teacher should be the epitome of learning. If there is one thing that a teacher must model in the classroom, it is the beauty of learning. This notion is steeped in the theory of cognitive apprenticeship. Students are hardwired to emulate what they observe their teachers do in the classroom. Without invitation, a teacher leads by example. Forthwith, students will prioritize whatever teachers prioritize. So, I personally like to start my classes with the simple things that matter – like taking the pains to remember every student by name, making them feel welcome, safe, and secure, and showing that I value what they have to contribute. Over time, I have found that my students emulate these practices – they treat each other the same. But the benefits of cognitive apprenticeship surpass class interactions and relationships. I like to show students how I learn, how I make mistakes, and how I learn from my mistakes. In my experience, this openness often earns my students’ respect because they know I respect them and expect them to make mistakes too…and learn from them.

Secondly, I am always on the hunt for cognitive dissonance. Where does a theory fail? In what context does a concept work? In what context does it not? I believe good teaching is one that makes people think critically. I confess it does not always go according to plan. Sometimes there is an awkward silence that hits the room when a teacher asks a question that requires deep thinking. Sometimes that silence goes on longer than we would like.

But that is okay. Many teachers shy away from any appearance of cognitive conflicts in the classroom, and while I do agree that teachers need to stand as guides so discussions do not go off the rails, I maintain that this is a lost art of learning. What is the goal of education if not to create critical thinkers? I believe it is a disservice not to demand excellence from students.

Thirdly, I seek to always make lessons matter to my students. I would argue that this is the role that every teacher should always aspire to fulfill. Most times, students only need to know fundamentally “why this lesson matters” and how the lesson translates into their everyday life. When they see the connection, they are intrinsically motivated to learn. This is a philosophy shaped by my cultural upbringing where young learners are taught that they are copilots of their learning. When teachers suggest to students that educational contents matter only because they will contribute to their grades, they miss out on an opportunity to extend learning to the world that exists beyond the four walls of the classroom. This is why I like to begin and end my class lessons with the question – “why do we need to learn this?” It reinforces the learning objectives for students, taking away the need for them to memorize facts, figures, and names that they will never want to think about again.
What does my teaching philosophy look like in Practice?

Since 2012, I have taught six different subjects in three different contexts. In Nigeria, I taught high school math and science in Kwara State. In Kenya and Jordan, I taught undergraduate-level Introduction to Engineering Students in two refugee camps. In the US, I have taught graduate-level engineering courses for advanced graduate students called Mentored Teaching in Engineering and an Undergraduate level course called Engineering in Global Contexts. Each of these contexts and the subject matters differed in terms of the age group of the class I taught, the cognitive demands of each class, and the availability of resources to facilitate the teaching. However, my experience in all three was guided by this teaching philosophy.

The first and perhaps most fun experience for me was learning my students’ names after the first week of classes and challenging myself to call each by name from the second week. This is a task easier said than done when teaching a large class but I have found that identifying one unique thing about each student can ease the process even for a class larger than 100 students. In each of these three classes, I learned that knowing about my students is priceless when incidents of cognitive conflict surface. It is common in my classes to have multiple groups that do not subscribe to the same views. My learning outcomes are usually located on the higher cognitive domains of Bloom’s taxonomy. Understandably, disagreements are bound to happen and are welcome. Recognizing where my students are coming from has always helped me to navigate cognitive dissonance in my classes. I recall an experience with my students in Kenya and Jordan when I facilitated cross-context discussions between them about the engineering needs each group considered to be the most important in their contexts. My Kenyan students prioritized electricity generation and were bent on harnessing wind energy in their arid context. My Jordanian students did not have that problem but were interested in building security stations. The cross-context conversations between the students helped them realize the multiplicity of meaning in a more meaningful way than any of my lectures ever did.

I have also experienced some unintended consequences of waiting too late before intervening in student-student interactions. While they are valuable ways of fostering learning, I remember an instance when two undergraduate students in my ‘engineering in global contexts’ class had an argument about the political ramifications of engineering in the world. Each had felt so strongly about their views concerning gender representation in engineering in the US. I suggested we put a pin in it and requested that both students wait for a few minutes after class. In the meeting, they expressed that they had both felt targeted by the other and were not sure what to do with the other’s views. I recognize that these are some of the paradoxical spaces that educators navigate every day in the classroom. There are no simple ways to resolve them. On one hand, we want our students to raise their thinking level and not their voices. On the other hand, we would rather have them safe and protected.

Thankfully, my students rewarded my faith in their maturity with a higher level of understanding. I had asked each student – “how do you feel about the issue now?” and each had told me, “Well I know there are people that strongly see things from the other side of the room now. It doesn’t mean I’m wrong. It just makes me realize they might not be wrong too, I guess.” Personally, I found myself learning more from my students than they were learning from me. I felt proud but I also took their feedback seriously. While my goal had been to ensure that the students truly understood the fundamental philosophies underpinning their different views, I decided that if such a thing happened in the future, I would be more proactive to recognize it and intervene before things got out of control. I also decided from that time to periodically invite my students to share their concerns with me anytime they felt they were being attacked especially whether I was not conscious of it or not.

Prior to starting my doctoral program in engineering education, my social enterprise startup in Nigeria engaged in teacher development. My teaching experience has also towed that line, mentoring engineering teaching assistants and realigning their course contents, assessments, and pedagogies, hosting professional development workshops for engineering faculty members in diverse contexts, and approaching applied engineering in global contexts. This is why introductory engineering courses, service learning engineering courses, and mentored teaching courses are my top choices of courses to teach. I love to teach curriculum design and I think teachers have a privilege to model multiplicity of meaning through interdisciplinary engineering.

I would say that things have gone full circle for my teaching. The last time I taught a class, I was in a university, far from home, having undergone 5 years of engineering education training. I had been ushered in front of a classroom filled with knowledge-hungry students, handed a microphone, and an empty board. Everyone expected me to teach…again. Only this time, I smiled.

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Instructional Experiences

• 3- Month Faculty Development Workshop on Active, Blended, Collaborative Learning & Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. Faculty Development Workshop hosted online with University of Anbar College of Engineering Faculty Members, Iraq. February 2022 – September 2022. 25 lecturers.
• Mentored Teaching in Engineering. Graduate-level course hosted at Purdue University. January 2022 – May 2022. 10 students.
• Mentored Teaching in Engineering. Graduate-level course hosted at Purdue University. July 2021 – December 2021. 6 students.
• Engineering in Global Contexts. Senior Undergraduate-level course. Purdue University. July 2020 – December 2020. 27 students
• Introduction to Engineering. Undergraduate-level course hosted in Kakuma refugee camp, Kenya through InZone Learning Hub. January 2018 – July 2019, approx. 20 students per class.
• Introduction to Engineering. Undergraduate-level course hosted in Azraq refugee camp, Jordan through InZone Learning Hub. January 2018 – July 2019, approx. 20 students per class.
• Instructions and Classroom Practices Chair for the American Society for Engineering Education Purdue Student Chapter (June 2019 – May 2020)

Invited Talks, Presentations, and Workshops Given

• Olayemi, M. (2023). Telling Half a Story: A Mixed-methods Approach to Understanding Culturally Relevant Engineering Education in Nigeria and the United States. Presentation Given at the Latin American and Caribbean Consortium of Engineering Institutions (LACCEI) 2023 Conference. July 2023. Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• Van Den Bogaard, E. D. M., Simpson, Z., Strobel, J., Radloff, J. D., Yeter, I. H., and Olayemi, M. (2023). Transversal Skills Across the World: The Design and Implementation of Teaching Transversal Skills in Engineering Education. International Division Panel, ASEE 2023. July 2023. Baltimore, USA
• Olayemi, M. (2023). Making a Case for Culturally Relevant Engineering Capstone Projects as African International Students at a Predominantly White Institution. Professional Development Workshop, Nigerian Students Association at Purdue. March 2023. West Lafayette, Indiana, USA.  
• Olayemi, M. (2023). Demystifying the Craziness of Publication Citations Using Citation Managers. Professional Development Workshop, Nigerian Students Association at Purdue. March 2023. West Lafayette, Indiana, USA.  
• Olayemi, M. (2022). Underscoring the Need for the Africa Engineering Diaspora Group. UNESCO 8th Africa Engineering Week and 6th Africa Engineering Conference. November 2022. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  
• Olayemi, M. (2022). Telling Half a Story: A Mixed-methods Approach to Understanding Culturally Relevant Engineering Education in Nigeria and the United States. Graduate Seminar Exchange Presentation at the Engineering Education Research Symposium, University of Michigan, October 2022. Michigan, USA.  
• Olayemi, M. (2022). Training Engineering Teachers in Low-resource Settings and Measuring Well-being Outcomes in Post-Conflict Settings. Presentation at the Expotech 2022 Conference hosted by Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia, August 2022. Bacaramanga, Colombia.  
• Olayemi, M., & Ibrahim, S., Ahmed, Z., & DeBoer, J. (2022). Faculty Development & Collaborative Research at the University of Anbar, Iraq. Presentation at the 66th Annual Comparative and International Education Society Annual Conference, April 2022. Minneapolis, USA.  
• Olayemi, M. (2022). Creating a tool to measure Children’s Well-being: A PSS Intervention in South Sudan. Panelist at the Launch of JEiE Special Issue on PSS and SEL in Emergencies Webinar, January 2022. Indiana USA. Over 100 participants.  
• Benitez, A., Purekal, T., DeBoer, J., Olayemi, M., & Choul, M. (2022). Impact Evaluation of Psychosocial Support on Children’s Well-being, Literacy, and Math Outcomes in the Integrated Essential Emergency Education Services Activity in South Sudan. LASER South Sudan PSS Webinar, February 2022. Indiana USA. 60 participants.  
• Olayemi, M. and O’Rioirdan, A (2021). What factors predict self-efficacy among South African teachers: Constructing an Inferential Model using TALIS 2018 Data. Paper Virtual Presentation at Stellenbosch University, March 2021. Stellenbosch, South Africa. 25 Participants.  
• Olayemi, M., DeBoer, J., Yuehwern, Y., Tumuhamye, N., Mayega, R., Victor, G., Akwero, C, O., Chunyua, G., Batheng, B. R., Choul, M., Tucker, M., Purekal, T., and Benitez, A. (2019). Impact Evaluation of Psychosocial Support on Children’s Well-being, Literacy, and Math Outcomes in the Integrated Essential Emergency Education Services Activity in South Sudan. Poster presented at the Innovation for International Development Exposition, March 2019. Purdue University, USA.  
• Freitas, C., Olayemi, M., Dridi, A., Radhakrishnan D., Beyer, Z., and DeBoer, J. (2019). Introductory Engineering Course in Refugee Camps: A case study in a Jordanian and Kenyan refugee camp. Poster presented at the Innovation for International Development Exposition, March 2019. Purdue University, USA.  
• Olayemi, M., Dansu, V., and Oladipupo, P. (2016). STEM Educators Enrichment Project. Workshop offered at Microsoft Tower, November 11-12, 2016. Lagos, Nigeria. 15 participants. 
• Olayemi, M., Dansu, V., and Oladipupo, P. (2016). STEM Educators Enrichment Project. Workshop offered at Mind the Gap Innovation Hub, July 19-21, 2017. Lagos, Nigeria. 30 participants.