Teaching Philosophy Statement

The millennial learners, who I attend to, are in need of practical oriented approach to studies than just theory based lectures. The learners come to the college to learn something new and that according to me in the need of the hour. I look at education as a way of providing the learners with ample opportunities to solve real life problems. Allow the learners to fail as many times as possible. By doing so, they learn from their own experiences and that learning would remain with them for lifetime. Rather than letting them work as individuals, I am all for team based experiential learning. I am more inclined towards formation of groups of varying learning abilities and handing them problems/projects to solve. There is no better technique than making the learners work in groups. It generally impacts them better.

In addition to making learners work in groups, at times even the facilitators need to work in tandem with each other. Efforts like co teaching requires the assistance of multiple faculty to cater to one classroom. I am all for it. The more one practices it, the better it is. Even the learners appreciate the work put in by all faculty involved.

Initially, there will be a lot of hesitancy in attempts to promote experiential and collaborative learning. There will always be a large number of learners who would not want to be a part of these group based activities and only a handful of people would be interested in taking active part in such initiatives. However, over a period of time, things slowly tend to change and we get to see the real impact of team based learning and reap its benefits.

However, there are a couple of areas in which I need to get better at. Efforts like experiential active learning require a lot of preparation and the design of such courses becomes a tedious exercise. Also, research is another area where I need to work on. I am slowly getting into a habit of writing papers. In times to come, I aim to do work more on research and development.

Currently, I am evolving as a facilitator and I reckon I have a long way to go. At least, I am happy that I am making an attempt to be a facilitator than a routine teacher/lecturer and I can feel the difference in my approach. It's a gradual process. It takes quite a bit of time for both the facilitator and the learner to get used to this unique approach and appreciate its beauty. I look forward to constant feedback from my learners and all other stakeholders who are a part of this activity. I try to work on the feedback given and strive to be a better version of myself. When I pose a scenario in front of my students and get overwhelming response, I know things are going in the right direction. In order to that, I must have visualized the classroom and must have a sense of preview of what to expect in the actual classroom. This could be perfected only with a lot of hard work and practice.

My immediate goal is to have a plethora of interactions with the outside world. My wish list includes interactions with people from industry and academia. By doing this, I could give my best to my learners. The world is undergoing a shift and technologies are evolving on day to day basis. Keeping abreast with the rapid advancements in technology and honing my skills is another goal that I am working on. Towards the end of the year, I am looking forward to successfully complete a few of the online courses which I am taking up on platforms like NPTEL and Coursera. I also intend to publish a couple of research papers that have been in the pipeline for quite a while. In the next year, I plan to get myself registered for PhD program which would definitely help me grow personally as well as professionally. In the long run, I aim to become a successful engineering educator who contributes to bring out professionals with high intellectual and human values at St Joseph Engineering College.