Teaching Philosophy
Dominik Herrmann (V2 / 20191010)
I am enthusiastic about information security and privacy and I love teaching. I want to inspire you and appeal to your curiosity. I have written this document to help you understand the reasons behind the design of my courses.
I make serious efforts to ensure that you actually learn something – and not only for the exam. I honestly care about you and I make an effort to accommodate everyone to the best of my abilities, for instance by recording all of my lectures. As I really take an interest in your success, on occassion, I will have to make unpopular decisions to make you (more) successful. Like some of my colleagues, I accept that it is “more important to be a good professor than your favorite professor”
Most of the time, learning is fun and inspiring. Learning complex concepts, however, is often quite challenging. It requires dedication and perseverance. I see my role as someone who supports and guides you in this endeavor.
I do have high expectations and I demand from you that you make a significant effort. As a consequence, I will challenge you. I may even have to make you feel uncomfortable, e.g., when you are overwhelmed by a task at first. In hindsight, you will hopefully recognize that these have been the moments when you grew the most.
Circumstances demand that I am not merely a mentor for you; I also have to assess your success. When it comes to grading, I am committed to the principle of fairness. This means, among other things, that I cannot tolerate cheating. When designing exams, I aim for equal levels of difficulty by finetuning the weights of easy and challenging tasks. As a side-effect, every exam looks quite different. Exams must be unpredictable to ensure that everybody has the same chances and there are no shortcuts such as concentrating one’s studying solely on exams from the past.
Grades are only meaningful if they are a genuine and truthful measure of your knowledge and skills. As we all know, written exams are not the best assessment technique. Written exams, however, do have the desirable property of pairing fairness with efficiency. We have to live with this compromise for now.
1. Why are we here?
You are here because you want to improve your skills and extend your knowledge. You are probably also here because a bachelor’s or master’s degree benefits your chances on the job market.
Studying at a university, however, is not so much about preparing you for concrete jobs on the market. It is about shaping your personality. It is about teaching you to think thoroughly. It is about perseverance and building up the ability to teach yourself. This is why we spend time with foundations that may not be immediately relevant in your future job. It is not so much about the content but about the thought processes and the general understanding how everything fits together.
Consider this English proverb: “Give someone a fish and you feed them for a day; teach them to fish and you feed them for a lifetime.”
In other words, I am not here to teach you facts. You can read up on them on your own. I am here to teach you how to think. This, however, requires work on your part.
2. Expectations
Take interest
First and foremost, I expect that you take an interest in the subject matter, that you are willing to learn, and that you are willing to work on your own to improve your knowledge and abilities. Most of you will have to leave their comfort zone to succeed in my courses.
If you notice a knowledge deficit, it is your responsibility to read up on the respective fundamentals. Most of the time, I can point you towards material with which you can get up to speed quickly. Feel free to ask me for that.
Make an Effort
Learn continuously throughout the semester. Merely attending the lecture and the tutorials is not sufficient. Lectures are fast-paced and mean to draw your attention to particular issues which are interesting and relevant. It is your responsibility to take it up from there. Do not let yourself be fooled in believing that you understood everything while listening to it. You have not internalized the material until you have worked with it on your own.
My modules demand a significant amount of self-studying work. Read the workload breakdown in the module handbook to get a feeling for the expected workload.
Self-studying is an essential aspect of studying at a university (cf. the Mission Statement of University of Bamberg which states “students […] are encouraged to work as independently as possible”). This makes a lot of sense. After all, most insights (a-ha moments) and discoveries happen during sessions of self-studying and not during a lecture or a tutorial.
Make sure to allocate a sufficient amount of time to your studies. If you are enrolled as a full-time student, you should devote more than 40 hours per week to studying (according to the Bologna regime, where a module with 6 ECTS is equivalent to a total workload of 180 hours; on average you are expected to complete 30 ECTS credits per semester). If you have to work in industry on two days per week to make a living, University of Bamberg offers you the possibility of enroll as a part-time student (cf. the mission statement referenced above: “Comprehensive education, as we understand it, takes time. Our flexible course offering allows for individual freedom and is our answer to changing living conditions and increasingly flexible life and career paths. Nearly every degree offered in Bamberg can be pursued part-time.”).
Be Prepared
Invest sufficient time for the tutorials and assignments and do not give up too early. There is a high correlation between time spent on problem solving and the final grade.
Be prepared when you come to the tutorials. We expect that you have made a considerable attempt at homework tasks or readings in advance.