IIT-Bombay to train engineering teachers to enhance teaching

To enhance teaching in core Engineering and Science Subjects, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) has taken an initiative to train teachers of Engineering Colleges across the country.

In the two week long pilot workshop on "Effective teaching/learning of Computer Programming" which begins on December 14, IIT will be reaching over 800 engineering college teachers from 22 different centres in the country using EDUSAT network of Indian Space Research Organisation, Dr Kalpana Kannan, a manager of the e-Outreach Project told PTI today.

This e-outreach programme is under the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (ICT) of the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

During this year, IIT conducted two workshops for the coordinators so that they will be able to coordinate the programme from December 14 to 24 in their respective centres.

Once this pilot project, which is meant to give a flavour IIT style of teaching to engineering colleges, becomes successful, 12 more such workshops for core engineering and science subjects will be conducted, Kannan said, adding that all these workshops will conducted free of cost.

Although there are 70 EDUSAT centres in the country, it will be possible to conduct the training workshops in 22 centres for this pilot project, she said.

Lectures will be delivered by IIT faculty using the two-way video broadcast facility of Isro to multiple remote centres.

The participating teachers will attend these live lectures at a Centre close to their own college, and will attend tutorial and lab sessions conducted in the same centre. Each centre will have a course Coordinator, who will supervise the conduct of tutorials and Labs.

Professor DB Phatak, chair professor, and other expert faculty from department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay will train the teachers.

All the participating teachers will later contribute collaboratively to the contents. The final edited audio-visual contents including recorded lectures, along with other course material created, will be released in open source through a portal. This can be freely used later by all teachers and students, Kannan said.

"The workshop will benefit faculty colleagues who are teaching the computer programming subject in their colleges. They should have taught a course at least once and should be familiar with the syllabi and examination pattern of their own
college or university," she said.

Computer Programming is taught in all engineering/MCA colleges in the country. An estimated 7,00,000 students study this subject every year, taught by about 7,000 to 10,000 teachers covering lectures, she said. An added attraction for those teachers who will undergo training will be the live recording of the workshop and other created contents would be released under Open Source through a portal, Kannan said.

The recorded CD/DVD of the workshop lectures would be available for distribution at cost, to any individual/institution. All participants are required to sign a certificate for such release of contents contributed by them during and after the workshop.

"The recognition and citation will naturally be made for all contributors," she said.