My teaching mission is to help improve my students’ problem solving and analytical thinking abilities so that they can apply these skills to any career that their passions lead them to. I believe that the most effective way to achieve this mission is to create an interactive and cooperative classroom environment by involving students in discussions, applying real life examples to theoretical problems, and encouraging student feedback to my teaching strategies.
Instructor
I was the course instructor for the Masters level International Economics course at California State University, Long Beach during Fall 2022 semester. This position gave me the opportunity to design my own course and teach a seminar-sized, diverse group of graduate students. Attached is the syllabus I created and followed throughout the course.
Teaching Assistant
I have served as a teaching assistant in the following courses UC Irvine:
Basic Economics I (Introduction to Microeconomics): Summer 2021
Basic Economics II (Introduction to Macroeconomics): Fall 2019, Winter 2021, Fall 2021, Winter 2022
Global Economy: Winter 2019, Spring 2019, Fall 2020
Introduction to Financial Investment: Summer 2020
Managerial Economics: Fall 2022
Economics of International Business: Spring 2021
Economic Development: Fall 2018, Winter 2020
Intermediate Economics III: Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Summer 2022
Intermediate Quantitative Economics II: Winter 2022
I was also a teaching assistant in the following courses at NYU:
Ethics and Economics
Policies in the History of Economic Thought
Testimonials
I have selected a small sample of student evaluations that I have received as a teaching assistant at UCI and as an instructor at CSULB and presented them below. For a complete collection of evaluations, please see the attached “Student Evaluation PDFs” at the end of this page.
“[Yanyan] is the best TA that I have ever had in UCI. When students ask her questions, she is very patient in teaching them, even though the materials are already covered in class several times. She gave us her notes for review sessions before tests, and the materials she provided was very helpful.”
- Economic Development Student
“Yanyan was very helpful and responsive to any questions that I had, and was very willing to meet outside of class to check over answers with me or explain certain concepts I didn't really understand. “
- Global Economy Student
“She catered to our needs and wanted us to succeed in the course. She understood that there were many different students who were difference paces so she would be detailed with her responses and helped as much as she could in such a short amount of time.”
- Global Economy Student
“She did a great job in a terrible situation (a pandemic) and I think she did everything needed to be a great TA and helped understand everything, so honestly I do not think that I have any recommendations other than continue what she was doing. “
- Intermediate Economics III Student
“She was really understanding and would break down a problem with you or bring it up during the next discussion section if it couldn't be covered during the last one. I was really really appreciative of how much effort she put into the discussion and how much she cared about the students. She's super underrated in terms of TAs and I hope more people pay attention to her. She also keeps her promises in terms of uploading notes and examples on time. If it hadn't been for her practice problems and the notes I don't know if I could survive this class.”
- Basic Economics II Student
“She broke down concepts that seemed so confusing in lecture, really easy in discussions. Though she takes her time going through each problem, the information she gives is very precise and so easy to follow along.”
Intermediate Economics III Student
“Her explanations on the subject matter was traditional which helped because it was completely new and her youth demeanor in other aspects contributed most to my learning.”
MA International Economics Student
“The instructor followed course agenda well, and if the class fell behind adjustments were made appropriately to assignments.”
MA Internatioanl Economics Student