Towards Being a Better Educator – Understanding the Learner
How many times in our teaching career have we thought that Miss Wormwood, the long-suffering teacher in the Calvin and Hobbes comics, still had it easier than us? How often have we wondered why our students seem to be quite different from how we were in our university days? Wasn’t it just last week that we declared that life would be simpler if we could teach only those who are interested to learn?
It is a truth universally acknowledged that even the most updated and upskilled of us struggle, many a time, to ensure that our teaching remains relevant and interesting to every student of ours. The Faculty Development Programme (FDP) organised by Chinmaya Vishwavidyapeeth, in June 2020, seeks to address this ubiquitous concern, through a 7-day online workshop on ‘Towards Being a Better Educator – Understanding the Learner’. The series has been conceptualised to provide a platform for its faculty members from diverse disciplines to come together, deliberate on universal teaching practices and principles, and apply the distilled droplets of knowledge to their everyday teaching lives at the University.
It is often quoted that those who dare to teach should never cease to learn. Embodying that thought, let’s re-learn what it is to be a learner and a teacher who understands the learner, through this FDP, from 8th to 14th June, 2020.
Facilitators
- Smt. Devika Nadig & Shri. Vijay Gupta, Directors, Shikshangan Education Initiatives
- Dr. Nagaraj Neerchal, Vice-Chancellor, Chinmaya Vishwavidyapeeth
- Dr. Radha Mohan, Professor and Head, Department of Education, Chinmaya Vishwavidyapeeth
Devika Nadig holds a Master’s in English Literature and a B.Ed from Mumbai University. She has taught in ICSE schools, and was a School Principal for more than a decade in Pune, before becoming a teacher educator. She is the Co-Founder of Shikshangan Education Initiatives, an organisation that works on the professional development of school leaders, teachers and young adults; development of teaching-learning material; and assessment of schools and plans for improvement.
Vijay Gupta did his engineering from IIT Kanpur, and followed it up with an MBA from IIM Bangalore. He worked for many years with Wipro in Bangalore, before joining the education initiatives of the Azim Premji Foundation. He, too, is the Co-Founder of Shikshangan Education Initiatives.
Dr. Nagaraj Neerchal, prior to assuming office as the Vice Chancellor of Chinmaya Vishwavidyapeeth in August 2019, was a Professor and Graduate Program Director for Statistics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore Country, USA (UMBC). He is also the Director of Center for Interdisciplinary Consulting and Research (of which he is also the co-founder) in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, at UMBC. With a Ph.D. in Statistics from Iowa State University, USA, Dr. Neerchal’s research and publications encompass theory and applications of statistics in a broad range of disciplines including transportation, environment and ecology, pharmacology, high performance computing.
Dr. Radha Mohan brings with her over three decades of experience in educational teaching programmes, with Master’s degrees in Education and Physics, and a Doctorate Degree in Education. She also holds a Diploma in Technical Writing from SA International Simon Fraser University, Canada. She was a UGC JRF Fellow at the Department of Education, University of Madras (1985-87) and a gold medallist in IGNOU for her Post Graduate Diploma in Higher Education (1999). She has also completed a Diploma in System Analysis and Data Processing from Annamalai University, and has served as the Head of the Institutions of a renowned educational college in Chennai. Her research interests include Teacher Education, Knowledge Management System in Teacher Education, and Innovative methods in Teacher Education Programmes.
Schedule and Session-wise details
- June 8, 3.00 pm to 4.30 pm
– Planning for Teaching
– Smt. Devika Nadig and Shri Vijay Gupta
This session will introduce the teaching-learning cycle of ‘What-How-Whether’, and will explain how to understand ‘What’ in terms of concepts and skills. It will also introduce Bloom’s taxonomy as a framework to think about ‘What’.
- June 9, 9.00 am to 10.30 am
– Pedagogical Content Knowledge
– Smt. Devika Nadig and Shri Vijay Gupta
This session will focus on looking at discipline/subject from a Pedagogical Content Knowledge perspective – essential questions, misconceptions, complex ideas, etc. – with the objective to help make teaching effective. It will also deal with understanding how human beings learn – covering 3 principles proposed by Brain/Mind research.
- June 10, 9.00 am to 10.30 am
– How Students Learn
– Smt. Devika Nadig and Shri Vijay Gupta
Following on from the previous day’s session, this session will discuss a further 6 principles from Brain/Mind research.
- June 11, 9.00 am to 10.30 am
– Assessments and Bloom’s Taxonomy
– Smt. Devika Nadig and Shri Vijay Gupta
In this session, the remaining 3 principles from Brain/Mind research will be discussed. Bloom’s taxonomy will be explored from an assessment angle, and formative assessments will also be discussed, as a means of engaging with ‘Whether’.
- June 12, 9.00 am to 10.30 am
– Motivation and the Learner
– Smt. Devika Nadig and Shri Vijay Gupta
This session deals with motivating students for learning. Five principles of motivation, and the means of incorporating them into teaching plans, will be described and discussed.
- June 13, 9.00 am to 10.30 am
– Micro Teaching
– Dr. Radha Mohan
This session will discuss the concept of micro-teaching, its components, and its importance and application in the context of University-level education. Key skills and tools that can be used to implement this will be discussed, through a series of hands-on exercises.
- June 14, 9.00 am to 10.30 am
– The Student-Teacher Partnership for Learning in the Choice-Based Credit System (CBCS)
– Dr. Nagaraj Neerchal
Increasingly, we must engage with the idea that the teacher is not merely a teacher, but actually a facilitator of learning. In that sense, the notion of what constitutes “teaching” itself has changed. This session will discuss what teaching means, and what is expected of teachers/facilitators, in the context of the Choice-Based Credit System (CBCS).
Learning Outcomes
At the end of this FDP, faculty members will be able to:
- Pick up specific methods and techniques to be implemented in the courses they are teaching.
- Improve their understanding of the PO-CO table.
- Recognise the importance of the connection between course outcomes and continuous assessment.
9th June – Preparatory Reading 1
9th June – Preparatory Reading 2
11th June – Reading 1
11th June – Reading 2
11th June – Reading 3
14th June – Reading 1
14th June – Reading 2
14th June – Reading 3