Rechelle Jacobs
Teaching Portfolio
Welcome to my electronic teaching portfolio. My name is Rechelle Jacobs and in the presentation of this comprehensive and coherent teaching portfolio you will learn a little about me, my motivation and philosophy about teaching and learning.
ABOUT
ME!
I was raised in the township of Heideveld on the Cape flats in South Africa (SA) and received my Masters of Statistical Science from the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in March 2014. After 15 years in corporate, I entered the academia as a Statistics lecturer in June 2014 (view CV ). My entry into the academia was sparked by the life changing experience of becoming a mother in my mid-thirties. I found my niche in quantitative analytics and I was excelling in developing and recalibrating risk models for the bank earning an income that was over and above my expectations. Moving out of corporate was indeed a difficult decision, needless to say, I had to sacrifice a substantial portion of my income whilst knowing that I have two babies who were only two and three years old at the time. It felt good to use my skills to benefit corporate, however, it did not feel like I - as a woman of faith - was really leading the life I was designed to live.
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Being a relatively new ‘hybrid’ academic, I decided to allow at least two years to orientate myself into the academia. I am a member of the Statistical Association of South Africa (SASA) and my research interest incorporates statistics, finance and education in the context of South Africa. It is important to me to maintain a balance between teaching and research as this approach will positively benefit my students and my discipline at large.
In January 2016, I was awarded the NRF Desmond Tutu Scholarship to do a joint PhD at Vrije University (Amsterdam) and a South African Higher Education Institution in Township Economics. In view of my employment background in finance/banking and my academic background in Statistics I requested (in my application) that the degree be cross disciplined between Economics and Statistics at Vrije and UWC. The application request was accepted, but after approval the Supervisor at Vrije required me to register at the University of Cape Town (in view of his existing and longstanding relationship with UCT) and that the degree would need to be in Economics only. After consultation with my HOD and UWC’s director of postgraduate studies, I declined the offer. In January 2017, I registered to do my PhD in Statistics at UWC and my research focus will be on survival analysis.
From 1 to 3 July 2018 I visited with Prof I Mechelen (at KU Leuven University in Belgium), within the framework of my PhD study. I learned that when presenting at International conferences, it is important to:
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Ensure that the terminology used is clearly explained as researchers especially Statisticians in different countries use different terms for the same meaning.
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Know the importance of and difference between research novelty and application.
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Be able to explain the Mathematics and Statistics of the techniques used in simple terms.
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Explain rational, logic and sensibility of the research question that is being proposed.
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I attended my first International academic conference, the European Conference on Data Analysis (ECDA) from 4 – 6 July 2018 at Heinz Nixdorf Museums Forum, Paderborn, Germany (http://groups.uni-paderborn.de/eim-i-fg-huellermeier/ecda2018/).
We were two delegates from UWC and the paper presented was titled, “Feature selection as a modelling tool to assist in the prediction of sexual activity amongst incoming first year students.” Brydon, H., Jacobs, R., Luus, R., Blignaut, R., Karangwa, I. and Jacobs, J. I met some very intelligent people (and Nadine, the latest robot addition at Heinz Nixdorf) and I enjoyed networking during the conference. It was an experience to remember and it has given me a global perspective into the field of Data Science.
In 2019 I attended the Woman in Statistics and Data Science (WSDS) conference, which was held from 3 – 5 October 2019, Hyatt Regency, Bellevue, Seattle, Washington State, USA. It was my first time traveling to a foreign country on my own. I did a speed poster oral presentation and a poster presentation, which was well received with many delegates validating and complementing our departments’ participation in the interdisciplinary collaborative approaches we adopted over the last two years. The title of the poster was, “Statistics surviving in the world of data science”, Jacobs, R., Blignaut, R.J. & Luus, R. (view poster)
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The most impactful realisatons for me was that:
* If I don't find a community of statisticians that I fit into I would need to create my own.
* To be an academic (researcher) it is wise to first collaborate with colleagues that have similar research interest thereafter diversify across disciplines.
*Female Statisticians can achieve great careers in academia and in corporate (it does however require sacrifice especially on your personal life).
* Creating more awareness about the discipline of statistics to scholars is needed in South Africa.
I believe that my experience as a Business Manager and Quantitative Analysts in the financial services sector re-enforces my teaching ability, adaptability and agility. I vacillate between my new world in higher education and my prior identity in the business world, which affords me the ability to draw on my experience in business to create business cases that links my subject to the "world" out there. I deem myself as an educator, who is equipped to facilitate learning.
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