Tyler N. Tallman

College of Engineering

Tyler N. Tallman, assistant professor in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, is well-known among AAE students for his high-impact strategies on their academic success.  
 
As one student wrote of the College of Engineering Exceptional Early Career nominee, “From the first day of class, I could tell that the instructor really cared about whether or not his students learned the material.” 
 
This concern for student comprehension led Tallman to revamp some AAE courses to better focus on essential content and to provide a mix of key theoretical concepts and in-class experiments to demonstrate those concepts. Inspired by research on STEM teaching and learning, Tallman uses an inductive lecture style and distributes extensive notes after class.  
 
He is also involved in significant educational outreach efforts with the Society of Women Engineers and Women in Engineering Program, and conducts informal and formal mentoring of  undergraduates, including co-authoring an American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) conference paper with one of his students. 

Tallman previously earned both the School of Aeronautics Elmer F. Bruhn and the W. A. Gustafson teaching awards. 

How has your teaching evolved over the last five years? 

Over the last five years, I think my teaching has become much more flexible. To clarify, when I started teaching, I saw each lecture more like a script – these are the concepts we need to cover in the next 50 minutes and here are the words to convey those concepts. Now, I try to instead view lectures as a discussion. Granted, I do most of the talking in this discussion with the class, but I also try to engage them in such a way that lectures become more active.  

What changes to your teaching during the pandemic did you take with you going forward?

In this time, I’ve learned how to much more effectively utilize digital and online resources for teaching. And students have been receptive to this added flexibility (e.g. remote office hours for students who have schedule conflicts with in-person meeting times, recorded lectures, electronic homework). Going forward, I’ll try to combine the best aspects of e-learning with the best aspects of in-person instruction. 

What suggestions do you have to Purdue instructors who want to improve their teaching and/or their students’ learning?

I think some of the most useful advice I ever got was to be receptive to your students. That is, you need to have some understanding of the knowledge base of your class, their goals for a particular subject, and what will set them up for success in the future.  
For example, I frequently teach a 200-level course on elementary strength of materials. This class is the first exposure, for the vast majority of students, to concepts of solid mechanics in engineering. Therefore, I need to tailor lectures and my delivery of the material to be at a level that’s appropriate to first-time learners.  

A common mistake I see among new teaching assistants when they lecture is trying to “impress” the undergraduates by explaining basic concepts in terms of much more advanced theories. It’s certainly cool to see the connection between the advanced and elementary, but that strategy just frustrates the undergraduates because they have not yet developed the base for advanced theories. Developing the base knowledge is the point of these more elementary classes. Know your audience. Understand that it’s about them learning and not about the instructor flexing. 

What motivates you to do your best work in a student-centered learning environment?

Ultimately, I think seeing students succeed is the most rewarding part of teaching and therefore motivates me to do my best.  

“Success,” of course, means different things to different people – some students only feel successful when they ace an exam whereas others feel successful just by developing an understanding of the subject. No matter how each particular student defines their success, I find it incredibly satisfying to see them put in the time, effort, and work to finally achieve their goals.  

The Exceptional Early Career Teaching Award recognizes undergraduate faculty members with the rank of assistant professor/assistant clinical professor. It is among several PWL-wide teaching honors awarded annually in the spring semester. Each college/school selects and advances its own nominee the previous fall as a model in exceptional undergraduate education and includes input from its students. For other nominee interviews, see the Insights webpage. Further details on the award and selection procedure and university awardees are available on the Office of the Provost website.