Personal Description:

Hi, my name is Ali and I am quite passionate about teaching. I am a graduate engineering student at the University of Toronto and have been exposed various methods of teaching and learning throughout my education. My favourite subjects to teach are programming, mathematics, and physics.

I have a bachelor's degree in Engineering Science and work as a software engineer.

Tutoring Experience:

In Winter 2021, I worked as a Teaching Assistant for the first-year programming course, Computer algorithms & Data Structures (ESC190), in the Department of Engineering Science. I provided guidance to students on their course projects written in C and Python, evaluated their weekly lab works, and assisted the course instructor in marking examinations. During my office hours, I provided students with brief explanations for course material including best coding practices in an Object-Oriented Programming language and the logic behind algorithms in order to help them internalize course concepts.

In Fall of 2020, I managed two weekly tutorial sessions as a teaching assistant for the first-year Engineering Science course, ESC103. I guided students in solving linear algebraic questions within virtual breakout rooms in Quercus and Zoom. Topics included matrices and transformations, matrix inverses, eigenvalues and determinants, solving linear systems, curve fitting and least squares, and numerical solutions to differential equations. I also taught the fundamentals of programming using MATLAB and helped the students solve problems related to the topics previously covered, using vectorization approaches, numerical algorithms, and the Gaussian elimination algorithm.

I have also taught as a private tutor for family friends in grade 11 and 12 on the subjects of Calculus and Advanced Functions.

Tutoring Approach:

When I always try to learn a new difficult subject myself, the first thing I do is to write down questions on areas of the subject that I do not understand. This helps me learn with purpose and efficiently find the answers to those questions when absorbing new materials. I have taken this approach with my students in my one-on-one tutorials, and it has been proven to me that this method is much more effective than blatantly receiving new information and trying to remember them at a later time.

This, alongside with consistently practicing new skills, is the best way, in my opinion, to comprehend new subjects on a deeper level and overcome difficulties in understanding a subject.

In our tutorials, I will help you develop the approach for asking the right questions and finding the best way to answer those questions. I will basically help you learn how to learn. This is a powerful skill that will help you beyond our subject and in other areas of your education or work.