Our alleged biology professor at Harvard got it all wrong.
The template strand of DNA is read in the 3' to 5' direction. The newly synthesized RNA strand is formed in the 5' to 3' direction; it runs in the opposite direction of the template strand. Hence, if the newly synthesized strand is synthesize in the 5' to 3' direction, the template strand is read in the 3' to 5' direction.
And contra another of his claims, the coding strand is not the strand that gets transcribed into RNA, the template strand does. The DNA strand that is not transcribed is called the coding strand because, except for DNA having T and RNA having U, that DNA strand's sequence is the same as the primary RNA transcript's sequence, since they are both complementary to the template strand.
You don't have to take my word for it (even though unlike our person who doesn't know biology but claims to be a professor from Harvard, I actually do have a degree in biology), here's an undergrad cell biology text confirming what I said ...
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“(1) In contrast to DNA replication, where both DNA strands are copied, only one of the two DNA strands – the template strand – serves as a template for mRNA formation during transcription. The nontemplate DNA strand, although not directly involved in transcription, is by convention called the coding strand because it is similar in sequence to the single-stranded mRNA molecules that carry the coded message. … During DNA replication the base A pairs with T, whereas in transcription the base A pairs with U. Hence the sequence of the mRNA molecules is not exactly the same as the DNA coding strand, in the mRNA contains the base U anywhere the coding DNA strand has the base T.
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And since mRNA molecules are synthesized in the 5’ -> 3’ direction (like DNA) ...
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The enzyme [RNA polymerase] moves along the template DNA strand from the 3’ toward the 5’ end. Because complementary base pairing between the DNA template strand and the newly forming RNA chain is antiparallel, the RNA strand is elongated in the 5’ -> 3’ direction as each successive nucleotide is added to the 3’ end of the growing chain.”
(The World of the Cell: Seventh Edition, Wayne M. Becker, Lewis J. Kleinsmith, Jeff Hardin, and Gregory Paul Bertoni, Pearson / Benjamin Cummings, 2009, p653, 654, 657, 659)
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It would be nice if people who don't know what they are talking didn't answer - then people who asked questions wouldn't be misled.
It would be even nicer if people who don't know what they are talking about didn't lie and claim to be professors at Harvard, which makes the question askers even more convinced of the correctness of information that is wrong.
Now that I had to spend all of that to refute a liar, let's get back to your actual question.
The thing is, you can't tell which is the template strand and which is the coding strand; there's not enough information. But we can make an educated guess.
1) The template strand is read in the 3' -> 5' direction. Since this is just an example, the teacher is probably not making it difficult. It would be easier to work with if the bottom strand were the template strand.
2) The first DNA triplet in the bottom strand would make the mRNA codon AUG, which is the start codon.
So it makes sense that the bottom strand is the template strand that is transcribed into mRNA.