Matthew Thomas Balhoff, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering and Anadarko Petroleum Corporation Centennial Fellowship #1 Petroleum Engineering
UT Austin
The essence of my teaching philosophy is to engage students through personal interaction, active learning and collaborative learning.
I believe students are most successful with instructors that interact with them inside and outside of class, have "active learning" exercises that encourage them to "learn by doing" and collaborate with peers both on short, in-class problems and in major, team-based projects. I believe that an imaginary barrier often exists between faculty and students that hinders learning during these interactions and my philosophy is that student engagement and learning can be enhanced by "breaking the barrier."
