Presidential Teaching Professor Seminar

Learning the Right Way to Ride the Wrong Bicycle: Some Reflections on Teaching at NIU

Brianno Coller, Ph.D.
Distinguished Teaching Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering

I wanted to become an engineer the moment I first saw the immense size and scale of the bridges of San Francisco with my own eyes. I imagined the audacity of the humans who said “Yep, we can do that…” and did. As an undergrad, I wanted to study advanced mathematics because it scared the bejesus out of me, but I was in awe of the insights it could reveal. I got to teach for the first time as a graduate student, and realized the process of learning is every bit as complex and chaotic as the turbulent boundary layers I was studying for my dissertation. And witnessing students have those “A-ha” moments… it still sends a jolt of endorphins through my veins.

I’ve been at NIU for 20+ years now. Teaching Engineering Dynamics and Computational Methods for the 200th time is still a joy because I make it different almost every semester. Selfishly, I try to infuse whatever happens to be my fascination du jour into the classroom experience. It often works out well. Sometimes not so well. In this seminar, I share one of those (good) experiences. The talk will have an engineering bent. But, at its core, it is about engaging students while exploring interesting problems, something we educators can all strive to do.