Sohrob Aslamy

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Fall 2024, Maxwell 123, Critical Issues in the United States (in person, instructor of record)

This course was taught through a team of instructors. Each week this team would coordinate a plenary lecture, after which each instructor would meet with their respective section to discuss course content with students. 

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Select Qualitative Feedback: 

• Which parts of this course were most valuable to your overall learning experience?

  • "The discussion section was most valuable to my experience because Sohrob created an environment where all ideas and opinions were welcomed. It also allowed me to engage deeper with the readings especially if I had a difficult time reading it."​

  • "Sohrob Aslamy was by far the best TA, he really cared about his students and tried to make sure everyone was heard and had a change to speak. He spent time explaining and going over the material to make sure we all understood. He was the best TA for this class!"

• Which parts of this course would you suggest changing?

  • "I find the plenary to be confusing and there was no real explanation of the layout of the course in my opinion. But I believe the discussion sections are extremely important and the readings/topics were very relevant and intriguing to learn about."

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Summer 2024, Geography 171, Human Geography (in person, instructor of record)

This course was through the university InterLearn Program, which encourages non-native English speakers to take coursework over the summer before beginning their first year at SU. This was an intensive 6-week class.

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Select Qualitative Feedback:

• What aspects were this course were most successful? Why?

  • “I think that the type of slide shows that Professor Aslamy used were very informative and easy to understand. He was also always available for help and gave great advice and assistance. I think the timing of the class was also great, an hour and 45 minutes was just the right amount of time to be in class.” 

• What aspects of this course were least successful? Why

  • “The overall time arrangement is compact, which means students have a limited amount of time to prepare the content during the last week of class, one of the cases is the PowerPoint presentation of the article we chose, the schedule might not be considered the possibility of finding an article which unsuitable for presenting, this makes students have less time and chance when a part of the project has some mistakes.”

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Maymester 2024, Geography 105, World Urban Geography (online, instructor of record)

This course was an intensive two-week online asynchronous class.

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Select Qualitative Feedback:

• What aspects were this course were most successful? Why?

  • “The recorded lectures were helpful.”

• What aspects of this course were least successful? Why

  • “Time to complete both exams. Felt like an hour was not enough.”

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Spring 2024, Geography 103, Environment and Society (in-person, teaching assistant)

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Select Qualitative Feedback:

• Did the TA help you in any particular way during the semester?

  •  “My TA helped me with prompt questions on both exams and excellent feedback during recitation questions.”

  • “He was always willing to help whenever someone needed it. Encouraged everyone to participate and was fair on explaining ideas.”

• What were the TA’s strengths?

  • “Relating the content to the students in an engaging and memorable way.”

  • “Creating a good environment to induce conversation among students.”

  • “Probably one of the best TAs I had in my four years. He was always ready for class and explained everything clearly. Was ready to help for anything. His best strength was his knowledge and how he used it to connect with everyone in class.”

• What suggestions would you make to the TA for future teaching?

  • “Keep doing what youre doing.”

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Winterlude 2024, Geography 105, World Urban Geography (online, instructor of record)

Please note this course was an intensive two-week online asynchronous class. 

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Select Qualitative Feedback:

• What aspects were this course were most successful? Why?

  • “Instructor was very quick to email back and was very understanding and cared about questions and comments of students to provide proper feedback with clear instructions. Genuinely wants people to do good and understand, like, this topic as much as he does and I think he was successful. I would take a course from him again and would advise others to do so as well.”

  • “Weekly written reflections based on clear and educational lectures as the quizzes which were based on the lecture which allowed me to prepare and re-read material and truly understand the course materials.”

• What aspects of this course were least successful? Why?

  • “the connection between the essay and the course, the essay question seems a little out of left field and I would have liked to display my new knowledge from the course, in stead of putting together a paper from google sources, with the inability to use anything I learned fro the class. this essay could be done in any class because of how much I think it does not allow me to apply what I learned and is somthing im putting together from outsides sources not from course materials.”

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Fall 2023, Geography 103, Environment and Society (in-person, teaching assistant)

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Select Qualitative Feedback:

• Did the TA help you in any particular way during the semester?

  • “Sohrob was very open to discussions with the students. If anyone asked a question that seemed rather niche or unrelated, he would still answer it, and then get the conversation back on track. I found his way of teaching to be superior to other TAs I've had in the past, as I felt more involved in the discussion overall.”

  • “he explained to me why I couldn't get more points but it is okay because he was nice”

• What were the TA’s strengths?

  • “Sohrob's strengths were his knowledge of the course and his ability to create conversation. More often than not, our discussion section was very quiet and not talkative (except for the same 4 students in the back of the room). However, he was able to get everyone involved in the class discussion, even if they weren't participating very well in the conversation before.”

  • “He was clearly very interested in the subject, and made sure that people had the opportunity to speak, even if very few people did. He was also very understanding of problems out of our control, and made it very easy to communicate when conflicts, illnesses, or general problems occurred.”

• What suggestions would dyou make to the TA for future teaching?

  • “you should do Kahoot's instead of jeopardy so everyone participates”

  • “the grading felt a little unfair in comparison to the grading of other section. I was graded much more harsh tan those in other sections”

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Maymester 2023, Geography 105, World Urban Geography (in-person, instructor of record)

Please note this course was an intensive two-week online asynchronous class.

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Select Qualitative Feedback:

• What aspects were this course were most successful? Why?

  • No responses provided

• What aspects of this course were least successful? Why

  • “being online had some complications but everything else was fine”

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Summer 2023, Geography 103, Environment and Society (in-person, instructor of record)

This was an intensive two-week class for five high school students. No evaluations were submitted.

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Spring 2023, World Urban Geography (in-person, instructor of record)

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Select Qualitative Feedback:

• What aspects were this course were most successful? Why?

  • “The lectures allowed me to learn the most because they were very informational and provided me with different perspectives/understandings of the material.”

  • “I liked how the two lectures weren't about the same things, but they still tied into one another so that everything we learned in a class had to do with each other.”

• What aspects of this course were least successful? Why?

  • “As an intro level course, the instructor has a way too harsh of standard in terms grading and topic engagement. Based on the instructions the instructor gives, I do not quite believe that this course should be a 100-level course. If not, then I assume there must’ve been something that could’ve been fixed on the instructor’s end.”

  • “the structure of it, too much time went into it despite being a 105 course”

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Spring 2020, Geography 103, Environment and Society (in-person, teaching assistant)

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Select Qualitative Feedback:

• What aspects were this course were most successful? Why?

  • “Discussion sections were helpful in reinforcing material from lectures. TA posed good questions and guidance on assignments”

  • “Discussions were open and engaging.”

• What aspects of this course were least successful? Why?

  • “Essay – I felt it was harder than expected”

  • “The recitation should have had more preparation for the essays”

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Fall 2019, Geography 372, Political Geography (in-person, teaching assistant)

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Select Qualitative Feedback:

• What aspects were this course were most successful? Why?

  • “ Sohrob’s guidance in terms of writing was excellent and was more than willing to make himself available via email and discuss how to accomplish the difficult papers.”

  • “The feedback on each assignment helped me look for where I needed to improve.”

• What aspects of this course were least successful? Why?

  • “The readings that were incredibly long. They were often difficult to read and I only read the parts that helped me answer the homework.”

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Spring 2019, Geography 108, Mapping Today – Technological and Spatial thinking (in-person, teaching assistant)

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Select Qualitative Feedback:

• What aspects were this course were most successful? Why?

  • “How the majority of our grade is based on homework rather than exams. This made it easier for me to do well in this class because I am not a good test taker and I am also not a geography major so certain concepts are sometimes difficult for me to grasp.”

  • “The lab sections were engaging and showed some useful tools to use for the subject matter.”

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Fall 2018, Geography 171, Human Geography (in-person, teaching assistant)

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Select Qualitative Feedback:

• Did the TA help you in any particular way during the semester?

  • “He gave really good feed back on papers, which ultimately helped me bump up my grade on the second paper from a C to a B. Very informative and helped anchor the concepts for me during discussion.”

  • “He was a tremendous help with prep for the midterm and finals. He would always ask our opinion on how we would learn best and many times asked if there was anything from the lecture that we wanted to discuss.”

  • “He was able to break down some of the writing assignments into a more simple explanation, which helped me greatly in writing them.”

• What were the TA’s strengths?

  • “Encouraged us to think outside the box, he cared about what we were struggling with and wanted to help and made the class entertaining.”

  • “Great communicator, make it easier to understand the hard concepts.”

  • “He was very engaging. We had a pretty quiet discussion group, but he was able to get people’ talking. He was also very good at explaining concepts.”

  • “Openness to the students and the ability to be approached easily.”

• What suggestions would you make to the TA for future teaching?

  • “Describe grading more.”

  • “maybe have more group based activities.”

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Spring 2018, Geography 372, Political Geography (in-person, teaching assistant)

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Select Qualitative Feedback:

• Did the TA help you in any particular way during the semester?

  • “I personally never went to office hours, mainly due to the fact that I had class during the time slots, but whenever I would receive a grade via Blackboard for an assignment, Sohrob would list out ways in which I could improve my argument, my writing, and my presentation of the evidence. I would have loved to have attended office hours so I could just have more feedback regarding my work, but overall he was one of the best TAs I've had during my time on campus.”

  • “Feedback on the weekly assignments was useful and appreciated.”

• What were the TA’s strengths?

  • “When Sohrob conducted a guest lecture, he was extremely knowledgable regarding his presentation. He would constantly check in with the class to make sure everyone understood what he was talking about. In addition, he made the lecture very enjoyable because he would constantly ask us questions about what interpretation of the material.”

  • “Consistent and transparent grading”

• What suggestions would dyou make to the TA for future teaching?

  • “Teach your own class in the future. I would 100% sign up for it. But this has to happen next year, because I am a rising senior.”

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Fall 2017, Geography 105, World Urban Geography (in-person, teaching assistant)

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Select Qualitative Feedback:​

• Did the TA help you in any particular way during the semester?

  • “He would help us review the discussion before the exam using Jeopardy.”

  • “Exam prep was really helpful.”

  • “Sohrob was able to get us to participate even when the class seemed lethargic.”

• What were the TA’s strengths?

  • “clear, understanding, good at helping with course material, learning names;”

  • “Good communication, and cares that students understand materials.”

  • “Sohrob was the best TA I had this semester.”

  • “He was very good at explaining things we were confused with.”

• What suggestions would you make to the TA for future teaching?

  • “more activities than lecturing.”

  • “keep doing you.”

  • “Less group work.”

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Fall 2016, Geography 105, World Urban Geography (in-person, teaching assistant)

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Select Qualitative Feedback:

• Did the TA help you in any particular way during the semester?

  • “Answering question by a way of clearly explaining and showing more examples.”

  • “Gave me advice on writing a paper and helped me look at the topic from a different point of view.”

  • “He was very approachable with any question that we may have.”

• What were the TA’s strengths?

  • “Encouraged participation --> good”

  • “The TA’s strengths are his charisma and teaching ability”

  • “his strengths included his immense knowledge of the subject combined with being a very personable guy resulted in a great course where he encouraged discussion.”

• What suggestions would you make to the TA for future teaching?

  • “Better system for handing back papers, maybe have a student do it”

  • “Focus more on material for test review.”​​​​​​​​​