Teaching

Inspiring students to be lifelong learners and be passionate about their packaging profession

Teaching Philosophy

During my years at MSU, I have taught different undergraduate and graduate courses. The table below show a summary of these classes. 

Course Number Title Semesters Modality
  Undergraduate    
PKG221 Glass & Metal Packaging Fall 06 and 05, Spring 05 In Person
PKG 322 Packaging with Paper & Paperboard Spring 07 In Person
PKG 323 Packaging with Plastics Summer 15 In Person
PKG 370 Packaging and the Environment Spring 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 09, and 08 In Person
PKG 470 Packaging Sustainability Spring 23, 22, 21, 20, 19, and 17 In Person
  Graduate    
PKG801 Packaging Materials Fall 10 Online asynchronous
PKG825 Polymeric Packaging Materials Fall 23, 22, 21, 20, 18, 17, and 16 Online asynchronous
PKG827 Polymeric Packaging Materials Fall 15, 14, 11, 10, 09 and 08,   Online asynchronous
PKG828 Packaging Plastics Processing Spring 14, 12 and 11  In Person - lab
PKG880 Life Cycle Assessment: Background, Principles, Calculations, and Applications Spring 24, 22, 20 and 16, Fall 13 & 12  In Person

I have also taught a variety of courses and seminars for different audiences and learners. If you need a list of them, please contact me at aurasraf(at)msu.edu.

Scholarship of Teaching

As a Lilly Scholar, I take a research perspective to my teaching. I have been able to consecutively reassess the classroom environment to obtain my students’ best outcomes and engage in the scholarship of teaching and learning. During the last 18 years at MSU, I have taught four different undergraduate courses and three different graduate courses. I co-developed a unique undergraduate course around packaging sustainability (PKG 470) and graduate courses in the areas of polymeric packaging materials (PKG 825) and life cycle assessment (PKG 880). Due to the significant need for teaching and advancing sustainable packaging systems, I co-authored the textbook for PKG 470, titled Life Cycle of Sustainable Packaging: from Design to End of Life (forthcoming from Wiley in 2022). Also, I championed the development of the new undergraduate packaging curriculum assessment methodology for the SoP.

SoP-to-MSU
Different levels of learning outcomes for the packaging curriculum mapping at the School of Packaging, Michigan State University

 

CLO-CPLO-MSU-LG
A graphical representation of relationships between packaging (PKG) course learning outcomes (CLO), the School of Packaging (SoP) competency-based programmatic learning outcomes (CPLO), and Michigan State University learning goals (MSU-LG).