Teaching Special Seminar - Konstantinos Ameranis, "Consistency, Empathy, Knowledge: Instructor Qualities, Why and How"

Abstract: 
What qualities are most important in an instructor? How do we ensure student success? How do we create the best possible learning environment? Consistency, Empathy, Knowledge. In this talk we will explore why these qualities, why in this order and how to achieve them in the classroom. Each one will be illustrated with examples of courses taught in the University of Chicago and how course size and level change our approach and the associated challenges.

Bio:
Konstantinos Ameranis received his MEng from the Electrical and Computer Engineering school of the National Technical University of Athens and is now a graduating PhD student in the Computer Science department of the University of Chicago. His research focuses on Convex Optimization and Spectral Graph Theory. He has worked extensively on teaching theory courses and co-instructed Spectral Methods for Machine Learning and Network Analysis with his advisor, Lorenzo Orecchia.