I have been lecturing in universities professionally since year 2000. I teach subjects I am passionate about - subjects related to Aerospace Engineering. Coming to 20 years into the profession, I am comfortable to say that teaching is an art, a skill that must be gained through experience, that needs to be sharpened and polished to master it. It is not always easy to make 'learners' understand a concept. It takes a great teacher to make a difficult concept look simple. It is about programming the students minds, hopefully empowering them and maybe allowing them to carry on the knowledge for themselves and those after them. For me teaching is more than just a job. It is a chance to improve the world; to change it, mold it and improve lives. My style of teaching is to let students experience the phenomena. Learning-by-experience has been my signature trade for the past 20 years. Students enjoy the process of learning by discovery. The knowledge stays with them due to the experience they had. Shown below are some examples of how I put in that extra mile to set up my courses to let students experience Aerospace Engineering.
It's always fun to teach Mechanics of Flight. The general discussions about flight brings refreshing excitement to students keen to learn about how flight works. Unlike the usual way of teaching this subject, I took the opportunity to turn the table around a little and ask the students to teach the class once awhile. The session gives students the...
Aerospace Integrated Design Project course.
This laboratory was designed for 3rd year aerospace engineering students. Essentially the lab is split into 3 sessions - Flight Mechanics, Control Systems and Propulsion. My role is to create a session for these students to experience Flight Mechanics. To do this, I use a flight simulator to demonstrate and create exercises involving the mechanics...
The study of aircraft flight dynamics is a pre-requisite to the study of automatic flight control systems. For these final year / final semester students, this class gives them the chance to study the behavior of aircraft in flight by mathematical modelling its dynamics. After automatic flight control systems, this subject is perhaps the most...
I have seen the value of having a flight simulator in universities since my time in Liverpool. I donated this flight simulator to Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) for all students and staff to use. It is basic, but nonetheless useful tool for students to use to experience the basics of flying a plane.
In 2016, I re-joined UPM in the same Department of Aerospace I helped to pioneer some 20 years ago. I was tasked to take up an impossible challenge to teach a course in Flight Testing ... without having a fully working plane. The official name for the course is 'EAS 3924 Aviation Laboratory for Agriculture Application'.
