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Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s Graduate School is proud to announce recipients of the Outstanding Teaching Assistant (TA) Award at both the master’s and doctoral levels. The Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award is designed to recognize and reward graduate students for outstanding performance in teaching and instruction. Recipients were recognized at the Graduate School Awards Reception in October and received a $500 cash prize.

Rodaina Mousa earned Outstanding TA at the master’s level. Goksu Avdan received the top TA honor at the doctoral level.

Mousa is pursuing a master’s in English literature and has served as a TA for several sections of English 101. Her dedication to providing quality education has received the highest of praise from faculty.

“Rodaina’s teaching is nothing less than inspiring,” said Matthew Johnson, PhD, director of first-year writing. “At a time when English 101 was being taught in an online synchronous environment, Rodaina’s students were truly present, attentive, and engaged in learning.”

“Through her contagious intellectual curiosity and creative pedagogical approaches, she consistently helped her students to reach conclusions about course material for themselves, rather than simply telling them what they needed to know,” Johnson continued. “Rodaina demonstrates true investment in her students, has great confidence in each of them, and is a highly reflective teacher and scholar. She is one of the finest students and TAs to ever come through the program.”

Rodaina’s teaching philosophy is that she must meet her students where they are, and that student success is defined by growing comfortable engaging with complex ideas. The evaluations completed by her students are filled with comments that she genuinely cares for her students and ensures her students reach their fullest learning potential.

Aydan is pursuing a doctorate in engineering sciences. He served as a TA for several industrial engineering courses during the last academic year.

“Goksu is one of the best teaching assistants I have had since joining SIUE almost 15 years ago,” said Sohyung Cho, PhD, professor of industrial engineering. “He goes above and beyond to prepare for class sessions and utilizes innovative pedagogical approaches to enhance student learning.”

“Those creative approaches include strategies such as creating recordings of lab instructions to aid in student understanding prior to the execution of labs and other flipped classroom tactics,” Cho added. “He has demonstrated initiative by suggesting creative solutions to software challenges and creating optional lab exercises for students who had the desire to learn beyond the curriculum.”

Aydan designed a project-based learning approach in which he partnered with local manufacturing companies to allow students to address real world problems and use their theoretical knowledge to develop practical solutions. He is a valued teacher-scholar who has made many contributions to student learning as well as the Department of Industrial Engineering and the School of Engineering.

Photos: (L-R) Jerry Weinberg, PhD, professor and associate provost, Rodaina Mousa, and Denise Cobb, PhD, provost.

(L-R) Jerry Weinberg, PhD, professor and associate provost, Goksu Avdan, and Denise Cobb, PhD, provost.