Dr. Ashraf Bastawros has taught a variety of courses at Iowa State University at the graduate and under-graduate level.  Dr. Bastawros's philosophy towards education, in general, is evident from the structure of his courses.  He believes that education is not an end in itself but only a means to an end.  The primary objective of all of his teaching endeavors is to equip students with all of the tools that they require for a lifetime of learning.  There is no way of teaching students everything they will ever need to know in their future professional life, so the goal is to create self-sufficient independent learners.  The syllabus for the courses taught by him is very fluid and is ever-evolving.  He is devoted to developing and implementing a student-oriented curriculum wherein the students, themselves, take charge of their education rather than following a static, rigid curriculum.

Course Development

Dr. Bastawros has developed a full curriculum for mechanics of materials at Iowa State University.  While some of these courses are already listed in the department course catalog, however some of them have never been taught in 10 years.  The curriculum now includes two new courses in theory of dislocation and plasticity (EM590F) and a general rounding course in solid mechanics (EM516).  Other courses have been almost completely changed to reflect the recent trends in fracture and tin film mechanics (EM564) and the new techniques and phenomena in experimental mechanics (EM417) and (EM517).  The devised strategy combines the origin of nonlinear behavior of materials with the proper mathematical framework in a simple but rigorous approach to enrich the student experience.