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\section*{Statement of Teaching Philosophy}
Tahira Naseem
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Computer science is a unique discipline in that it has a strong connection
with mathematics and logic but also has enormous potential for application in
all areas of life. For this reason, computer science can appeal to a variety
of minds with different interests, ranging from linguistics and biology to
logical reasoning and machine learning. My goal as an educator is to help
students identify and pursue their interests in the area of computer science.
Through my experience as a lecturer and a team lead, I gained valuable
insights that will enable me to accomplish this goal.

As a lecturer in the computer science department of National University at
Lahore, I taught introductory programming courses to undergraduate students.
From day one, it was clear that some students were very receptive to the
programming concepts while others had trouble grasping even the basic ideas. I
found it difficult to maintain a pace of teaching that would suit the needs of
all students. To resolve this issue, I taught extra sessions for the students
who were struggling with the basic concepts. I believe that this extra effort
not only helped those students complete the course successfully but also
instilled in them a greater appreciation for the subject.

As a teaching assistant at MIT, I worked with graduate students in the
advanced course on Natural Language Processing. In addition to designing and
grading problem sets, I helped students decide on a topic for their course
projects and gave them technical feedback as the projects progressed. Students
showed interest in a variety of NLP applications ranging from automatic code
analysis to identification of cyber bullying. I helped them scope their
projects in a realistic manner such that the projects not only had enough
technical content to fulfil the educational goals of the class but were also
doable within the specified time period.

Outside the realm of classroom teaching, I have also guided students in a
research environment. During my work as a research officer at the Center for
Research in Urdu Language Processing, I led the team working on development of
English to Urdu machine translation system. In many ways, my relationship with
the team members was quite similar to that of an advisor with his/her graduate
students. I worked to assign the right tasks to each member on the team
according to their expertise and interests. Over the course of this
experience, I learned that everyone can deliver if appropriately challenged.
It was rewarding and fulfilling to see those students learn and grow to meet
the challenges of the project.

If given the opportunity to teach a course related to my research interests, I
would focus on probabilistic methods for natural language processing, with an
emphasis on linguistically motivated model design. My goal would be to enable
the students to understand state-of-the-art techniques in NLP and implement
some of those techniques for their class projects. At the undergraduate level,
I would be able to teach core introductory classes. I will also be interested
in designing joint courses with other desciplines such as linguistics,
biology, and cognitive sciences.

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