junior faculty teaching fellow spotlight: haoxiang luo
each month, the cft blog highlights the work of our junior faculty teaching fellows. this month, haoxiang luo, assistant professor of mechanical engineering talks about his teaching philosophy and interests.
“i believe that theoretical concepts and applications should go hand in hand, particularly for engineering students.”
having taught for three years about fluid mechanics at various levels, i still find it very challenging to teach students some of the core concepts. for example, students are accustomed to fixing upon a moving object while studying its dynamics (e.g., force and acceleration), but in fluid mechanics they have to adapt themselves to thinking that everything is formulated in terms of a fixed coordinate system regardless the fluid motion (i.e., the eulerian view). i believe that theoretical concepts and applications should go hand in hand, particularly for engineering students. however, i strive to find a balance in practice and to engage the students in conceptual thinking. to stimulate students’ interest in the subject, i show numerous vivid and sometimes entertaining fluid mechanics videos in the classroom. in addition, i introduce computational modeling into an intermediate level course to help students appreciate the concepts through the visual aids and also to train them in utilization of simulation tools for engineering analysis.
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