Courses
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COMP 590/790: Visual Recognition with Transformers (Spring 2024)
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COMP 590/790: Video Recognition (Fall 2023)
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COMP 590/790: Self-Supervised Visual Representation Learning (Fall 2022)
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COMP 790: Visual Recognition with Transformers (Spring 2022)
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COMP 790: Advanced Topics in Video Understanding (Fall 2021)
Teaching Style
Instead of the traditional "teaching by telling" approach, I have been developing an interactive format that uses active learning techniques to increase student engagement and improve their communication skills. The proposed format encourages active student discussions via specialized lecture styles. All of my courses, typically consisting of 20-40 students, follow such an interactive format. In May 2022, I received a UNC CS Department award for my teaching.
Paper Battles
The paper battle is an exercise I developed in which two small teams are tasked to present a paper and convince the rest of the class that their presented paper is better. Each team has 20 minutes to present their arguments. Afterward, all students in the audience are divided into small groups to discuss and vote on which paper had better arguments. The winning team receives small prizes. Such an interactive exercise is meant to encourage students to think critically about their assigned paper, anticipate what arguments the opposing team will present, and also consider what arguments might be the most convincing for the audience. The exercise improves students' critical thinking, communication, and presentation skills while also creating a fun environment in the classroom.
Paper Quiz Bowls
Paper quiz bowl is another interactive exercise that I developed to encourage active participation from students. Each paper quiz bowl game involves teams of students competing to answer questions about papers covered in class that day. First, all students in the class will be split into teams of 3-4. Afterward, paper quiz bowls will be played with a buzzer system between all the teams. A moderator (i.e., an instructor) will read questions to the players, who will try to score points for their team by buzzing first and responding with the correct answer. The top winning teams will receive prizes.
Paper Discussions
To encourage everyone's involvement and make the class more interactive, for a selected number of classes, I moderate a detailed 50-minute paper discussion covering a broad set of questions related to the paper. Before the class, I ask each student to read the paper, complete a paper critique that requires reading the assigned material or watching a prerecorded lecture, and then come up with a thought-provoking question for a paper discussion, which is submitted online several hours before the class. I then review all the submitted questions and select 7-10 questions for a detailed class discussion. During the paper discussion, I divide all students into small groups and assign each group a question to discuss. Afterward, each group shares their thoughts with the entire class, which leads to a broader discussion led by me.