WEEK 1:

From traditional lecturing to helping students learn

 A traditional lecture in engineering is usually not only `talk’ by the lecturer. It
also
 usually involves the use of an ancient teaching aid, the chalk board, or its
more recent variants – OHP, data projector, etc.
 However, it is still `I talk, you listen’.
 It assumes that all students are interested, are at the same level of
appreciation of the presented material and will pay rapt attention to the
material, the same way an interested researcher would listen to a research
talk at a conference.
 That does not apply to most students who are exposed to the material for the
first time.
How was the lecture improved?
 The students were not assumed to be at the same level as the teacher.
 They were invited to participate in the process
 The rationale was made clear at the relevant places
 The thought process at every stage was made clear
 A talented lecturer can significantly improve the learning of students in a class
(Taveggia and Hedley, 1972)

 “If clear objectives are given to students and good support materials are
available, research shows that student learning in a lecture course as
measured by a content examination is equal to that of other teaching
methods” (reference book- Wankat and Oreovicz)
Advantages of a lecture
 Audience focus. The lecturer can talk to individuals in a reasonably sized
class and give them a feeling of being inclusive.

 Versatile and flexible. Highly variable, and hence can be employed as the
base structure.
 Easily updated.
 Low technology. Except the lecturer being sick, it will mostly work.
 Acceptable and familiar.
 Professor-efficient. Reasonable preparation time.
 Time-efficient. The number of students involved can be large – efficient use
of the professor’s time.
 Instructor control.
 Anyone can lecture. No special knowledge needed – new faculty can just
follow the old methods to begin with.
 Potentially outstanding for motivation and for conveying information.
 Exhilarating. Can be, for the professor.

Disadvantages of a lecture
If not done properly, or misused (which can be easily done), the lecture becomes a
highly inadequate teaching technique
• Audience ignored.
• Stagnation. Passivity.
• Murphy’s law. Lamp, microphone not working, etc.
• Few learning principles may be satisfied. Usually true.
• Boredom for students.
• Inadequate preparation or over preparation
• False economy. “The economic efficiency of large lectures is abused by many
universities. Student learning of higher-level cognitive functions would be
significantly enhanced in smaller classes with more interactions.”
• Lack of individualization.
• Anyone can lecture?
• Extremely stressful. an emotional trial for some professors.
Content
Key points and general themes – provides a scaffold for students to build their
structures through details that they read on their own.
Clarify especially difficult concepts – e.g. pseudo steady state
Provide a lot of examples, especially numerical ones
Performance
“All lectures are performance”
 It is good to be prepared to throw one’s voice – practice needed. If there is a
PA system, using it would reduce tiredness
 Every class, I believe, is a slice of life.
 Be enthusiastic irrespective of the nature of the topic – avoid monotone at all
costs
 Have an interesting opening for each lecture – some relevant news, some
attention grabbing snippet, a joke, etc.
 Very briefly review what was done in the previous class to establish continuity.
As appropriate, review where the class is in terms of the overall course
structure
 Use humour if it suits you, and the occasion.
 Be fully prepared, but do things spontaneously – respond to the happenings in
class
 Every class, I believe, is a slice of life.

Other aspects

 It is good to be aware of how one comes across in a class – video using a

phone (TA/senior student)
 It is good to avoid distracting mannerisms – placing foot on the wall,
scratching, etc.
 Organization of writing on the black-board, use of multiple devices, etc.,
 Use teaching aids judiciously – remember they are aids. Avoid “death by
Powerpoint”
 It is good to have an accessible book (enough copies available in the library,
etc.) as a text book for an undergraduate core course
Building rapport with students
 Try to address students by name – may take some time; attendance call out
helps
 A friendly, open demeanour helps
  Maintain eye-contact, without staring, as much as possible
 Mention student efforts by name – “as Shyamala intuitively realized ...” “as
Sudhakar rightly asked ...”
 It helps to project oneself as a real person, without getting personal.
 there is an important distinction between the fairy tale narrative and the
scientific narrative, i.e. the concept of external and internal times [9, 10].
 External time refers to the time taken for the actual presentation of say, the
fairy tale, whereas, internal time refers to the duration of the sequence of
events that constitutes the tale. For example, if a person narrates the
Cinderella story in fifteen minutes, the external time is fifteen minutes, but the
internal time, is the few years over which the Cinderella story is set. While
external time is relevant for both the fairy tale narrative and the scientific
narrative, the internal time is normally absent in the scientific narrative,
except, perhaps in the background section.
 It is always good to begin at a place where the `below average’ student in
class is comfortable.
 A “lecture” can be considered as a base tool to facilitate learning
Better learning
(Bloom’s taxonomy)

What is better learning?

 Cognitive (loosely, “thinking”) domain:
Remember; Understand; Apply; Analyze; Evaluate; Create
 Affective (loosely, “feeling” – likes/dislikes, attitudes, value systems,
beliefs) domain:
Receiving and attending; Responding; Valuing; Organizing; characterization
by a value
 Psychomotor (loosely, “doing” – motor skills, hand-eye coordination,
fine and major muscle movements, speech, etc.) domain:
Gross body movements; Finely coordinated body movements; Non-verbal
communication behaviours; Speech behaviours

Examples:
1. Remember: retrieving relevant knowledge from long-term memory
1.1 Recognizing
1.2 Recalling
2. Understand: Determine the meaning of instructional messages, including oral,
written and graphic communication

2.1 Interpreting
2.2 Exemplifying
2.3 Classifying
2.4 Summarizing
2.5 Inferring
2.6 Comparing
2.7 Explaining
3. Apply: Carrying out or using a procedure in a given situation

3.1 Executing
3.2 Implementing
4. Analyze: Breaking material into its constituent parts and detecting how the parts
relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose

4.1 Differentiating
4.2 Organizing
4.3 Attributing

5. Evaluate: Making judgments based on criteria and standards

5.1 Checking
5.2 Critiquing
6. Create: Putting various elements together to form a novel, coherent whole or
make an original product

6.1 Generating
6.2 Planning
6.3 Producing

Development in the affective domain

Not well addressed in engineering education, but important

Example: ethical behaviour

1. Receiving and attending:

I. Awareness of the concept
II. Sufficient intellectual development (maturity) to appreciate the concept
III. Openness to listen to that concept
IV. Willingness to pay attention to that concept

2. Responding:
I. Passive compliance
II. Respond with own initiative
III. Personal satisfaction and motivation for further responses
3. Valuing:
I. Acceptance of the value
II. Preference for the value
III. Commitment to the value

4. Organizing:
I. Organization of values into one’s own system of values
II. Finding interrelationships between those values
III. Establish a hierarchy of those values

5. Being characterized by others with the value:

I. The student’s behavior is congruent to the accepted value, and the value
system becomes apparent to others
II. Others characterize the person with that value (e.g. `an ethical person’)
Development in the psychomotor domain
Important for engineers, but has slowly moved out of the curriculum.
 • Laboratory skills
• Workshop skills
• Engineering drawing
• Communication
Problem based learning (PBL) and Problem solving
 Problem based learning (PBL) is probably the simplest extension to a
traditional lecture that can improve learning.
 PBL is presenting concepts, information, etc., in the context of solving
a problem. A guided discovery mode is turned on, which makes
learning interesting.
 Stating the problem (an application) first, and then giving the
information needed to solve it can better engage the students, since it
provides a context in which to process and understand abstract
information.

Closed-ended problem solving

1. What is needed?

2. What is given/known?

3. How do we connect the needs with the givens/knowns?

Any principles that we can rely on?

Problem solving taxonomy:

 The first one was remember which essentially means retrieving relevant
knowledge from long term memory such as recognizing and recalling.
 The second level is the understand level, it is determining the meaning of
instructional messages including oral, written and graphic communications.
For example, interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring,
comparing explaining all fall under this domain of understand, this aspect in
the cognitive domain of understand.
 The third level is the apply level, which means carrying out or using a
procedure in a given situation. Some of the things that describe this level are
executing, implementing.
 The fourth level is the analyze level which means breaking material into its
constituent parts and detecting how the parts relate to one another and to an
overall structure or purpose. To give you specifics, this could involve
differentiating between various things, organizing things to this gather
attributing something to a certain aspect and so on.
 The fifth aspect level is evaluate - making judgments based on criteria and
standards; such as checking critiquing fall under this level. And the highest
level is or the deepest level, whichever way you want to look at it, is the create
level, putting elements together to form a novel coherent whole or make an
original product. So, the activities here are generating, planning, producing
and so on ok.


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WEEK 2:
Writing Learning Outcomes for a Course
Learning Outcomes should address the following two aspects:
 What should your learner DO as a result of your instruction?
 In what level should your learner think as a result of your instruction?
Your expectations on learners’s performance = learning outcome
 Learning outcome is your expectation of the learner performance in a course
 Learning Outcome should contain an observable/measurable action verb
 The action verb should describe the expected performance from the learner
 Learning Outcome must contain a verb.
 The verb should describe the expected performance from the learner.
 It should be observable/measurable

Active learning

 Anything that involves students in doing things and thinking about the things
they are doing (Bonwell and Eison, 1991)
 Anything course-related that all students in a class session are called upon to
do other than simply watching, listening and taking notes (Felder and Brent,
2009)
 Problem based learning can be done in an active learning mode

Cooperative group learning

 Cooperative group learning can be understood in a simplistic way, as active
learning in a group to help all the group members learn better.
 The group members who are less skilled improve their abilities through peer
interaction in the context of a common goal. The ones who are more skilled
feel a sense of satisfaction when they help their group mates in an informal
context, in the same context of a common goal. They are also tangibly
benefitted through better clarity when they explain to other members.
 Informal groups – formed for a particular, short-term task. May be the groups
could consist of students sitting near each other. Informal group activities
could also improve involvement in class, for all students.
 Elements for group success
 Positive interdependence – group members must realize that for one to
succeed, all should succeed. The grading criteria can reinforce this aspect.
 Face-to-face promotive interaction
 Individual accountability – no free rides
 Social skills
 Group processing
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WEEK 3:
Flipped classroom

 Regular classroom – “first exposure” through lectures in class; homework at

home
 Flipped classroom – “first exposure” through lectures/equivalent at home
through videos, web material, etc.; traditional homework at school

Article by Eric Mazur in the reputed journal “Science” (2009) – discuss:

 Lower levels of the Bloom’s taxonomy: at home
 Higher levels of the Bloom’s taxonomy: in class

 Many studies have shown significant increases in learning, and student

engagement with the flipped learning technique.
 It may be advisable to flip a few suitable parts of the course, first, before one
becomes comfortable with the strategy.

Essential aspects
Reliable means for first exposure before the class:

 Video lectures – self, or standard ones, clearly identified with URL (NPTEL,
Khan academy, MIT open courseware, edX, courseera, etc.)
 • YouTube® channel for the course
 • Podcasts
 • Books with clearly identified chapter sections
 • Lecture material

Incentive to ensure suitable first exposure before the class:

 Best incentive for UG classes seems to be marks, with an appropriate weight
toward the grade (or internals marks) – a short quiz at the beginning of the
class

`Clearly planned, but flexible’ approach to class activities:

  A focus on exercises that promote higher learning levels (apply, analyze,
evaluate, create)
 • Carefully formulated MCQs with clicker/equivalent (apps) input
 • Follow-up discussion questions based on the understanding level of the
class
 • Mini lectures – carefully placed among the activities
 • Peer instruction (Mazur)
Assessment of student understanding (need not count toward the grade):
 Analysis of the results from the quiz at the beginning of the class
 • Analysis of clicker/equivalent (apps) input
 • Eyes/faces of students

Effective laboratory courses

What purposes do Laboratory courses serve?
To practically demonstrate some well established theoretical principles that are
learnt in `theory’ courses so that students appreciate the theoretical principles better.

Wankat and Oreovicz:

• Experimental skills.
• Real world.
• Build objects.
• Discovery.
• Equipment.
• Motivation.
• Teamwork.
• Networking.
• Communication.
• Independent learning.

 Laboratory exercises are essential [1, 2] toward the development of a good

Chemical Engineering graduate with desirable skills such as independent-
learning, interdependent-learning, problem solving, critical-thinking, creative-
thinking, interpersonal, teamwork, leadership, integrative, communication and
change management [3].
 However, the standard laboratory exercise … revolves around an apparatus
which remains unchanged for several years and thus, even leads to unethical
practices among students [1, 4] such as submission of data/reports from the
previous years. More importantly, the application of thought, which is crucial
for a good appreciation of laboratory work and the development of the skills
mentioned above, is almost non-existent in the standard laboratory exercise.
From an instructional objectives viewpoint [5], most laboratory exercises are
designed to be at Bloom level 2 (comprehension) out of the possible 6 levels.
This leads to severe resentment toward laboratory work among students and
professors alike. The students consider lab courses as a formality to be
completed and the faculty treat them as poor cousins of theory courses,
befitting the relegation of the entire responsibility for lab courses to lab
supervisors or teaching assistants.
  To quote from our laboratory guidance manual, `the overall aim of this
laboratory course is to help and inspire students to appreciate the underlying
themes of the experimental aspects/approach to engineering/science, with the
fluid flow aspects as a model subject. The main goal is to develop, in
students, the ability to think with their hands. In addition, this laboratory
course aims to better the understanding of fluid flow principles, to develop a
physical feel for some fluid flow situations, to develop a familiarity with some
commonly used fluid flow equipment, to inculcate a concern for safety, to
improve the skill in communication of experimental results, to improve the
quality of analysis and inquiry and to kindle the spirit of discovery, in students'.

 Experiments are performed in groups

 Groups are formed by students themselves, but subject to a criterion:

group average CGPA = class average CGPA ± 0.25

Or it could be based on the performance in your/your colleague’s earlier course

 Confidence of students with low learning abilities improves during the course
and is high toward the end

ASSESSMENT

 The word ‘assess’ comes from the Latin verb ‘assidere’ meaning ‘to sit with’.
 In assessment one is supposed to sit with the learner. This implies it is
something we do ‘with’ and ‘for’ students and not ‘to’ students (Green, 1999).
 Assessment : All activities undertaken by teachers, and by their students in
assessing themselves, which provide information to be used as feedback to
modify the teaching and learning activities.– Instructional interventions
designed to increase learning, not just monitor.
 Evaluation is the process used to evaluate student learning at the end of an
instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark.

Why do we assess?
To measure students learning
■ To assign grades
■ To compare students
■ To meet requirements by the professional body and achieve required standards
■ To improve quality of teaching
■ To address public expectations and social accountability

Purpose of assessment
The primary purpose of assessment is to enable decision makers (i.e., faculty and
learners) to make better decisions!
– What kinds of data might improve decisions that learners make when taking a
course?
– What kinds of data might improve decisions that faculty members make when
teaching a course?

Positive Aspects
■ Quantitative
■ Members discussed with all stakeholders
■ Continuous process….
■ Teacher comes with better preparation
■ Cross verify

Constructive alignment
Constructive alignment starts with identifying:
■ Learning Outcomes (LOs) which are appropriate for the level and
depth of the program
■ Teaching and Learning Activities (TLAs) are then developed to
provide students with the opportunity to actively engage with the LO
■ Assessment Task (AT) is developed to assess how well the
student has achieved the LO.

ILOs and ATs

■ Design different types of assessment tasks
■ Are all LO’s being addressed?
■ Is there balanced coverage of LO’s?
■ The important LO’s are given appropriate emphasis?
Various types of assessment tasks
■ Mcq’s-Quizzes
■ Exams-Subjective/objective
■ Seminars
■ Viva
■ Projects
■ Assignments
■ Group discussions
■ Debates
■ Impromptu quizzes

Types of assessment task

■ Formative assessment:
Purpose is to provide information to learners to help them improve their learning.
■ Summative assessment:
Purpose is to evaluate learning at the end of a prescribed period of time.

Formative assessment
■ A primary focus of formative assessment is to identify areas that may need
improvement. Assessment when learning is being formed.
■ It is good practice to incorporate this type of assessment to “test” students’
knowledge before expecting all of them to do well on an examination.
■ “Formative assessment promotes learning because it encourages students to take
risks, make mistakes, and then use different approach to improve their learning.”

1. Identification by teachers and learners of learning goals, intentions or outcomes

and criteria for achieving these.
2. Rich conversations between teachers and learners that continually build and go
deeper.
3. The provision of effective, timely feedback to enable students to advance their
learning.
4. The active involvement of learners in their own learning.
5. Teachers responds to identified learning needs and strengths by modifying their
teaching approach(es).

Examples of formative assessment

■ Observations during in-class activities of students’- non-verbal feedback during
lecture.
■ Homework exercises as review for exams and class discussions which provides
feedback to students.
■ Reflections journals that are reviewed periodically during the semester.
■ Question and answer sessions, both formal—planned and informal spontaneous.
■ Student feedback collected by periodically answering specific question about the
instruction and their self- evaluation of performance and progress.
■ Team Based Learning (TBL)

Summative assessment
■ Summative assessment is more product-oriented and assesses the final product.
■ Whereas, formative assessment focuses on the process toward completing the
product.
■ Make judgement about student’s competency/proficiency after an instructional unit.
■ Summative assessment sums up the level of learning.
■ The most traditional way of evaluating student work.
■ Assessment of learning. Whereas formative assessment is assessment for
learning.
■ "Good summative assessments must be demonstrably reliable, valid, and free of
bias" (Angelo and Cross, 1993).
■ When writing exam questions- e.g MCQ –the options used as distractor should
have same difficulty index. A good question should be able to discriminate high
scoring students to low scoring students.
■ Use of well designed rubrics makes the process more objective when deriving a
final, summative grade by following the same criteria learners used to complete the
project.

Examples of summative assessment

■ Final examinations (final, high-stake exams)
■ Term papers (drafts submitted throughout the semester would be a formative
assessment)
■ Projects (project phases submitted at various completion points could be
formatively assessed)
■ Portfolios (could also be assessed during it’s development as a formative
assessment)
■ Student evaluation of the course (teaching effectiveness)

Assessment Plan
■ Most important!!! Align assessment task with learning outcome. Developing data
gathering measures to assess whether or not our intended learning outcomes have
been achieved
■ Assessment plan should be able to evaluate students achieving goals specified in
the expected learning outcomes (MEASUREABLES…action verbs!).
■ Grading policies could be designed based on students reaching certain milestones
(or cognitive demands)- SHOULD BE AS OBJECTIVE AS POSSIBLE.
■ Remember that assessment is much more than designing question paper!

Rubrics
■ For your course once you have assigned LOs, TL activities and assessment tasks
then next thing to do is design the marking rubric guide which you will be using to
make judgements about your students' performance for assessment task.
■ Rubrics are marking/scoring guides which are designed based on specific criteria
and each criteria clearly describe different level of achievements- Objective method.
■ It allows to provide formative feedback on specified criterion and helps student
understand different areas of improvement.
■ Marking rubric should be shared with students prior to assessment. It allows
students to come to test well prepared.

Good-Robust Rubric
■ Gives clarity to students on what is expected in assessment based of level of
achievement.
■ Improve learning through detailed objective feedback.
■ Time saving task for teachers in providing grades.
■ Provide consistency to marking
■ Potential for giving timely and effective feedback.

Components of rubric
■ Set specific criteria's
■ Set levels
■ Assign weightage for each level

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WEEK 4:

Right students (RS)

. Need not necessarily have the highest CGPAs (our X axis was `relevant abilities in
a particular subject’)
• Do not need help with the regular aspects of a course
• High attention in class
• Methodical follow-up
• Smart (not necessarily hard) work
• They know when to ask the instructor for help toward better appreciation of the
course
• However, due to their inexperience in the subject, may need guidance to reach the
higher learning levels (analysis, evaluation, synthesis)
• Likely to contribute to the development of the field in the future (research, new
application/innovation, better comprehensive view communicated through book
writing)
• It would be desirable to help them reach the highest learning levels
 Faculty members, most likely, were RS in their classes
 Some faculty members empathize with LS, but cannot understand the mental
torture they go through.

Left students (LS)

Who are LS in IITs?

- All have scored 70 or 75% in their XII board examination

- All are in the top 20 percentiles of their boards
- All have come through two highly competitive exams (affirmative action, yes, but
a student from any social category could be a LS or a RS; if a student does well,
(s)he
gets into the `general category’)
- Even the last entrant can be categorized as RS when the entire country’s relevant
population is considered. They possess basic skill level in mathematics, physics, and
chemistry (at least recall of information, and some understanding)

Why do they become LS?

Based on personal interviews (conducted in an informal tone – notes made

immediately
after each interview):
1. Relatively lower learning ability levels, especially in apply, analyse, evaluate and
create skills, compared to their highly competitive classmates in the undergraduate
program

2. A feeling of inferiority that they develop when they compete with the best in the
country in the large, common first (freshman) year courses
3. Lower language skills of some LS, which leads to a lack of understanding of the
class material
4. Lower time-management skills of some LS that quickly lead to a feeling of being
overwhelmed. Although many students in class do not possess good time-
management skills, a lack of this skill in combination with the other reasons,
significantly affects the LS

5. Psychological aspects including minor ones such as home-sickness and other

major ones such as depression due to a variety of reasons, academic and personal
(CAUTION)

6. A rebel mind-set, probably because of worldly disdain or because the student was
forced into the program by parental/societal pressure

What happens?
• Unable to concentrate to the needed extent
• Unable to recall, understand or apply relevant knowledge
• Attend classes as a ritual (most); about 10% are highly irregular
• Become de-motivated
• Loose self-confidence (disastrous); unable to do tasks for which they are capable
• Are unable to do course exercises or write exams; fear failure
• Suffer multiple anxieties; worry about the future
• Talk about `being in a hole’

Strategies that don’t work

• Directly asking the LS to get help from the instructor or classmates
• Forcing the LS to attend study sessions after class conducted by senior students or
faculty
• Asking them to meet us to discuss difficulties

Strategies that work

 Needed to understand the LS-`psyche’ (helplessness)
 Taking a dance class helped

 Key: unobtrusively identify the LS as early as possible

 Diagnostic test (difficult test)
 All LS are identified. About 10% false positives.
 Advertised purpose of the diagnostic test: to form groups for cooperative
learning (tutorials)
 Be fully aware of their highly sensitive nature
 Once identified, it is crucial that the LS are never directly addressed or
unkindly commented upon in class, in front of their classmates.
Gain their confidence
(e.g. discuss distribution as a natural occurrence, discuss during active learning
exercises, etc.,) Then, it becomes easier to fine-tune suggestions

 Question paper design - balanced

 After completing the undergraduate program, it may be best for the LLS to
choose careers that match their strengths. With the above methods of
proactive advising (Varney 2013) combined with due consideration to the
human elements (kindness, empathy,understanding, etc.,), the process of
graduation can be made less traumatic for LLS,especially when it is too late to
drop out of the program. The kindness they experience in the process would
possibly have a lasting effect on them, and that can be positive for all
concerned. There are significant practical consequences too. It is known
(Morgan 2014) that students who feel good about their alma mater, and can
do, help the Institution, as alumni. The help could include better engagement
 with the Institution, financial gifts, and other means. Efforts toward reducing
the negative feelings in learning in LLS, and providing suitable opportunities to
the average and HLS to improve their learning would increase the possibility
of students associating positive feelings toward their alma mater Prof G.K.
Suraishkumar, IIT-M .
 The first principle of true teaching is that nothing can be taught. The teacher is
not an instructor or task-master, (s)he is a helper and a guide. His/her
business is to suggest and not to impose. (S)he does not actually train the
pupil’s mind, (s)he only shows him/her how to perfect his/her instruments of
knowledge and helps and encourages him/her in the process. (S)he does not
impart knowledge to him/her, (s)he shows him/her how to acquire knowledge
for himself/herself. (S)he does not call forth the knowledge that is within; (s)he
only shows him/her where it lies and how it can be habituated to rise to the
surface

-Sri Aurobindo

Psychological type (orientation) and learning

 Let us recall that this will help us toward better understanding (g value
experiment and air resistance). It needs to be applied wisely, not directly, to
classes.

The information can be used possibly to

• Plan appropriate teaching strategies

• To accept the differences in learning in students without irritation
• To decide where extra effort would be needed for best outcomes
• To improve interpersonal relationships
These psychological types are pre-dispositions or orientations. The preferred
development is toward this orientation. However, any person would exhibit a
spectrum of behaviours between the two extremes (types/orientations) that are
mentioned. In other words, the person may expend the effort to display a behaviour
of choice that is different.
For example, a person rarely exhibits a pure extroverted or pure introverted
behaviour under all situations. An introvert may expend the effort for a purpose –
office get-togethers. Prof. G.K. Suraishkumar, IIT- M

 Group activities and Cooperative learning – E and I types approach

differently. When a group is not performing well, one would want to look at this
aspect too. I type students may need to be counselling on the need for group
work skills in the real world, and that they need to consciously develop those
skills.
  S type students tend to go from specifics to the general. N type students are
more comfortable with `comprehensive view’ to the specifics. A judicious
blend of the two approaches while teaching a concept could satisfy a larger
fraction of the class.
 In routine problem solving, accuracy is important. Students of the N, F types
need to put it more conscious effort to achieve this.

Cognitive development theories – two main examples

 Theory: A set of logical, self-consistent statements to describe a

phenomenon. The phenomenon could be natural (e.g. gravitational theory) or
social or ...
 Needs to be supported by experimental evidence
 A theory is widely applicable
 A theory provides a framework for understanding
 Acceptance of the theory
 The understanding a theory provides can be helpful for developing effective
strategies

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development

 Intellectual development happens in 4 distinct stages

 It is a continuous process – no abrupt changes
 The order of progression is the same for all
 The rate of progression could be different for each child
 A child may be in two different stages in different aspects
Sensorimotor stage

 From birth until 2 years of age

 Relationship between self and objects – say toys, feeding bottles, etc.,
 Basic movements, and activities based on perception – e.g. holding a toy
 Later stage, the child starts to develop `meanings for symbols’; starts thinking
about events that are not currently on.

Preoperational stage

 ~ 2 to 7 years of age
 Start using language
 Thoughts are tested with actual happenings – may not be able to appreciate
warnings of impending danger (fire will burn)
 Thinking is concrete, self-centered; reasoning is crude
 Later part: “intuitive” – less of `conclusions based only on experiences with
objects’; respond to verbal commands; capable of primitive conversations;
can classify objects based on a given criterion
Concrete operational stage

 ~ 7 – 12 years of age (30 – 60% adults are also in this phase)

 Capable of mental operations with tangible aspects; abstractions are difficult
 Understands conservation of conserved quantities
 Understands logical reasons; cause – effect relationships
 Does things that (s)he cannot understand, by rote – e.g. does higher math by
rote

Formal operational stage

 ~12 years onwards

 Capable of abstract thought
 Creative
 Can formulate and mentally test hypotheses
 Capable of meta-cognition (thinking about thinking)

 Piaget postulates the existence of mental structures that determine how new
material is perceived.
 If the new material makes sense to the existing mental structure, it is
accommodated
 If the new material is very different from the existing mental structure, it is
rejected
 If the new material is somewhere in between, a state of disequilibrium sets in,
and the person works to attain equilibrium through formal operative structures

Perry’s model
(development in college students) 1970

 The stage of development may be necessary to appreciate some engineering

courses in which multiple solutions may be equally valid – projects, open-ended
exercises, etc.

 Faculty members could assist in the development, with care (e.g. stage 4 to 5)

 Importance to Humanities courses could help students manage the transitions

between stages
 Learning theories
We earlier saw that students construct their knowledge to overcome the dis-
equilibrium between an existing structure and new information (Piaget)

The above view is called a `Constructivist view’ of learning. It follows a theory called
Constructivism

There are three other theories of learning – Behaviourism, Cognitivism,

Connectivism

Let us recall that a theory is a set of logical, self-consistent statements to describe a

phenomenon, which is widely applicable, and provides a framework for
understanding

Behaviourism is the study of a mechanical process of associating a response with a

stimulus to formulate a new behavior. Reinforcements, both positive and negative
are used to strengthen such behavior. The new behaviour is seen as learning.
Learners are not mentally involved in the learning process. e.g. memorizing math
tables with reward/punishment: Pavlov’s dog experiment

Easy to employ
Specific learning is guaranteed (dog trainer)
Learning is easily measurable
However, it is seen as an extension of animal behaviour to humans; does not explain
all learning e.g. development of language in humans
Cognitivism is the study of the mind processes for acquiring new information
Learners are mentally involved in the learning process. How the mind obtains,
processes and stores information is the main aspect.
Learning strategies, prior knowledge, and attitudes (schemas) determine learning
It is teacher-centered for organizing and presenting information in an effective
fashion
Does not explain changing already learned material – reconstructing knowledge
structure (Newtonian mechanics and relativistic mechanics).

Constructivism is the study of the learner’s own knowledge construction.

Learner gives meaning to new information based on his/her prior attitudes, beliefs
and experiences

Instructor is a facilitator of the above process

Knowledge is constructed by assimilation (new information matches an existing

schema) or accommodation (an existing schema needs to be changed to make
sense of the new information)
Closer to the learning needed to operate in `the real world’, and for life-long learning
Connectivism is the study of the process by which the learner makes connections
between various pieces of knowledge that exist outside him/her.

The connections made help the learner create his/her own learning network

Learners stay current with the changing content. However, the learner must be able
to identify credible sources (major concern – opinion vs. fact) of knowledge

Capacity to know more, effective networking, maintaining accurate current

knowledge, and decision making with ever changing information, the diversity of
credible opinions on the network are important aspects

Closer to learning needed in the ‘real world’, and for life-long learning

Research is effective in this mode

Kolb’s learning cycle (1984)

Concrete experience

Active involvement is important to learning

Learners (individually, or in groups) do exercises as the first step

Activities: Assigned readings, laboratory work, problem sets, fieldwork,

simulations/games, etc.

The flipped classroom technique seems to have this basis

Reflective observation
Distance oneself from the task

Review what has been experienced

Activities: Ask different questions to self or to others (for teams), brainstorm,

discuss, record the outcomes (logs, blogs)

Abstract conceptualization
Making sense of the experiences

Interpreting the events experienced and understanding the relationships between

them

Interpretations based on the learner’s previous knowledge, information from books

(theories), thoughts from colleagues, etc.

Activities: Lectures, analogies, model building activities

Active experimentation
How to put the new learning into practice in a relevant context
Predict what will happen beforehand, based on new learning
Think of actions to refine the outcomes of the exercise

Activities: Home-work exercises, case studies, simulations, laboratory work, field-

work

One can use Kolb’s learning cycle in creative ways to effect learning in individuals, in
a class or in teams

Lecture 3:
 In the improved lecture, the students were not assumed to be the same level
as the teacher.
 They were invited to participate in the process.
 The rationale was made clear at all the relevant places.
 The thought process at every stage was made clear.
 A talented lecturer can significantly improve the learning of students in a
class’
 If clear objectives are given to students and good support materials are
available, research shows, somebody has gone and done clear controlled
research with these things, research shows that student learning in a lecture
course as measured by content examination is equal to that of the other
teaching methods.
 There are various advantages of the lecture as reviewed by Wankat and
Oreovicz.
1. audience focus
2. It is a versatile and flexible.
3. Lot of preparation needed for updating.
4. It is acceptable, it is familiar.
5. It is professor efficient.
6. It is time efficient.
7. The instructor is usually in control of the lecture
8. anyone can lecture and that is what we rely on really.
9. It is potentially outstanding for motivation and conveying information.
10. it could be exhilarating for the professor.
  disadvantages of the lecture
1. The audience can be ignored.
2. You could stagnate.
3. Few learning principles may be satisfied.
4. false economy
5. Lack of individualization
CONTENT
 The first thing - is never attempt to cover [Link] that is all we are
supposed to do - uncover a part of it. You are not supposed to cover the
[Link] is good to cover the key points and the general themes alone. You
need to provide them with enough scaffolding, so that when they go back and
read, that scaffolding is good enough for them to make up their own
knowledge, to create their own [Link] that is actually a very well
accepted theory of constructivism.
 Clarify, definitely clarify, especially difficult concepts.
 The concept that comes to mind in my recent course is that of pseudo steady
state.
 you need to do all that and then provide in very clear terms the principle; in as
short a time as possible. That is the best way that they can get it, or one of the
best ways that they can get it. There could be many ways. Provide a lot of
examples, especially numerical ones for engineering that would be very
relevant, that would improve the content.
 all lectures are performances. That is a well-known quote.
 It is good to be prepared, to throw one’s voice especially if you do not have
aids - the microphone and so on so forth if you do not have, it is good to
practice throwing one’s voice so that it reaches the end of the class.
 Be enthusiastic irrespective of the nature of the topic.
 Be enthusiastic irrespective of the nature of the topic.
 Have an interesting opening for the lecture.
 Definitely review briefly, what was done in the previous class to establish
continuity
 Then this one is important - be fully prepared, but do not have step by step
delivery in mind. You be fully prepared, the material, then go with the flow,
right. Do things spontaneously, that is the best that can happen and you need
to respond to questions, respond to happenings in class.
 it is good to be aware of how one comes across in the class and it is difficult
to find out for yourself. Therefore, it is good to have somebody videotape your
lectures. You could ask either a teaching assistant or a friend or one of the
senior students who has already taken the course to come and sit at the back
and video lecture.
 It is good to avoid distracting mannerisms.
 Organization of writing on the blackboard - that is very important. Or for that
matter, using multiple devices, being organized in its use is very important.
 Use teaching aids judiciously. Remember they are all aids, they are all there
to help your teaching. They do not replace your teaching.
 Building rapport with students through lectures - try to address students by
name.
 A friendly open demeanor helps. Maintain eye contact.
Lecture 4:
  The next question is many engineering courses are math intensive.
Mathematics, a lot of mathematics. Can storytelling be used in math intensive
courses. The answer is yes,
Lecture 5:

Apply is just use that. Here you need to look at various aspects. Analyze is breaking
material into its constituent parts and detecting how the parts relate to one another
and to an overall structure or purpose, differentiating, organizing, attributing.

The evaluate level - making judgments based on the criteria and standards, checking
and critiquing.

The specifics are generating, planning and producing.

Affective domain:
Remember there are 3 domains; cognitive, affective and psychomotor. This is
development in the affective domain. ethical behavior right. That directly falls under
this [Link] to pay attention to that concept. That is also an important
aspect, and the second level is responding which includes passive compliance. Now
the third level is valuing.

Lecture 7:
Taxonomy is putting them into certain categories. You at least need the apply level
skills to be able to address problems

a taxonomy of problem solving activities:

1. When there are routines to be solved, this is the first level. The operation of
algorithms implemented without any major decision making. This is the
surface level kind of or the first level in the taxonomy.
2. The second level is diagnosis. Selection of the appropriate routine is
diagnosis,
3. The third is the strategy level of problems, choice of appropriate routines
which could be multiple. There are multiple routines that are required to solve
the problem and the order in which to use them is also not known earlier. One
needs to make a decision on that and that could be a strategy level problem.
4. Fourth is the interpretation level, reducing a real world complex problem to the
one that can be meaningfully solved. The assumptions and appropriate
extensions of data may be needed to solve interpretation kind of problems
and we need multiple higher levels of the Bloom’s taxonomy to be able to
solve this problem. Definitely analyze, apply, analyze, evaluate, create to be
able to solve the problems and finally, generation which is the highest level in
problem solving, which needs the highest level skills or problem of a learning.
5 different levels,
1. routines,
2 diagnosis,
3 strategy,
4 interpretation and
5 generation
Lecture 8:

what is the intended learning?

Learning outcome design should address the following 2 questions.
1. what should your learner do as a result of your teaching?
2. in what level should your learner think as a result of your teaching?
 Bloom’s taxonomy acts as a helping tool or a technology for faculty to decide
what will be the appropriate verb to represent the intended learning.
 Bloom’s taxonomy focuses on 3 domains - cognitive domain, affective domain
and psychomotor domain.
 According to Bloom’s taxonomy, there are 6 levels of thinking which are
shown in this slide from bottom to top. Remember, understand, apply,
analyze, evaluate and create.
 The basic element to check whether the LO is properly framed or not is to
check whether LO contains an action verb or not. And if the verb action verb
is present, then the next question is whether the action verb is observable or
not, or measurable or not.

 there is no difference between learning objective and learning outcome.

Lecture 9:
Active Learning:
Anything course- related that all students in a class session are called upon to do
other than simply watching, listening, and taking notes is called active learning. This
understanding was given in the paper by Felder and Brent in 2009.
Lecture 10:
Coorperative Group Learning
You have a group you have active learning in a group, so as you help all the group
members learn better, that is essentially what cooperative group learning is.
one could form informal groups to improve learning. Informal groups is nothing, but
they
are formed for a particular short term task, a few minutes may be a part of the class
and it could just be the students were sitting near each other could be asked to form
a group. the involvement significantly improves
Lecture 11:
Flipped Classroom:
Active learning is an important aspect of this flipped classroom.
This approach has two benefits - it continuously actively engages the minds of the
students and it provides frequent and continuous feedback to both the students and
the instructor about the level of understanding of the subject being discussed and so
on and so forth.
Lecture 12:
In a traditional lecture the information is given in the classroom the students go back
to their home or hostels and work on it to understand it better. In the flipped
classroom the initial exposure is outside the classroom, and then in the classroom
the student engagement is improved to improve their understanding and to develop
various other skills that are reflective of the deeper levels of learning according to
Bloom’s taxonomy.
Lecture 13:
the word assess comes from the Latin verb assidere which means to sit with.
Green in 1999 clearly described this as assessment is a process where the teacher
is supposed to sit with the learner, which clearly means that assessment is a process
where we do some work with the students and for the students rather than working
or assessing to the students.
Another word which is often used along with assessment is evaluation. accreditation
body also requires us to assess our students and based on their performance or
their assessments scores, the accreditation body decides what needs to be changed
or how things can be taken forward. assessment is also important to address public
expectations and social accountability. The primary purpose of assessment is that it
enables decision makers. a strong focus is on the central role of constructive
alignment in outcome based teaching and learning which means based on what your
competency as a graduate needs to be, all the learning outcomes of the course or
the lecture or particular content is designed based on those outcomes. Based on
these learning outcomes teacher, needs to decide what type of teaching learning
activity do I need to conduct to address the active verb within that learning outcome.
The next thing is the teacher also needs to decide how am I going to do the
assessment for that particular learning outcome so we have a clear understanding if
the students have achieved that learning outcome or not. All these three things need
to be in alignment and that is what is called as constructive alignment. your
assessment needs to be in alignment with the teaching learning activity and the
learning outcome. Hence the principle of constructive alignment requires us to keep
the learning outcome, the teaching learning activity and the assessment task all in
alignment. Hence it is important to ensure the action verb which we use in our
learning outcome is in alignment with the teaching learning activity as well as the
type of assessment. It is also important to consider, are all the LOs or the learning
outcomes within that course has been covered appropriately or not and all these LOs
have a proper weightage or not which means that if there are two or three learning
outcomes within the course, which has got more significance then we need to give
more weight age to those learning outcomes when it comes to assessment
compared to the ones which could be of lesser weightage.

Formative assessment: the purpose is to provide information to learners to help them

improve their learning which means formative assessment is always conducted to
improve the learning of the student. Hence it is always conducted at regular intervals
during the course compared to summative assessment which is usually or rather
always conducted at the end of the course. And the purpose of the summative
assessment is to evaluate learning at the end of a prescribed period of time which
could be end of the semester, end of the program or at the end of the specified
duration of the entire course.
Formative assessment task is designed to help improve their learning, hence it
needs to have a strong feedback mechanism incorporated within that assessment
plan. When it comes to summative assessment, summative assessment since it
happens at the end of the course or program, its feedback is usually more in terms of
grades or the scores.

What it does is - it allows students to improve their learning because going through
various internal assessment which is formative it helps them understand where they
have made mistake and how they can improve or use different approach to improve
their learning. Black and William in 1998 summarized formative assessment as a
process which allows teachers and learners to identify their learning goals, their
intentions or outcomes and criteria for achieving these, Because formative
assessment is a process where students and teachers get feedback it provides
opportunity to have rich conversations between teachers and learners that
continuously builds and go deeper and deeper.

Formative assessment could be either an observation which you make when you
give an in class activity to students and these observations gives you a nonverbal
feedback during a lecture as well looking at how students are engaging within the
class, or how they are responding to questions, these are all part of formative
assessment. When you give a homework exercise to student and then student
submits the homework and you provide feedback to students either in form of a
written, feedback or an oral feedback, then this becomes a formative assessment.
Reflective journals are very good formative assessment task where students are
asked to maintain reflective journal based on what needs to change or improve in
their learning, what are the concepts in which they are struggling and if you as a
teacher review this periodically and give them feedback, students would know how to
improve their learning. Questionanswer sessions both, formal, planned, informal or
even impromptu quizzes, all this if you provide feedback then it becomes a part of
formative assessment.
lot of teachers do conduct multiple choice question as an type of assessment.

Summative assessment is more of a product oriented or it assesses the student’s

final learning because it happens at the end of the course or the end of the program.
Formative assessment is all about the process towards completing the product
whereas, its summative assessment it is about the end product. summative
assessment sums up the level of learning for the entire course. It is the most
traditional way of evaluating student work and I would like to highlight the summative
assessment many times is also just referred as evaluation. summative assessment
is assessment of learning whereas, formative assessment is assessment for learning
because it helps you to improve the learning. Compared to formative assessment,
the usual split would be a formative assessment altogether would be around 20 or 30
percent for the entire semester, the summative assessment we are looking around
70 percent weightage. Free of bias refers to the exam being an objective exam and
the way we do it is by designing different rubrics, which makes the whole process
more objective when deriving final marks or grades and because the students get
here a clear criteria of what is expected for them to come prepared for this particular
exam or test.

Lecture 14:

Assessment - (Part - 2)

assessment plan should be able to evaluate students achieving goals in a specified

expected learning outcome or the measurable action verb which we have used in our
learning outcome. Assessment plan should also cover about grading policies which
would tell us how are we
going to ensure that student achieve A plus grade or B grade or C grade, those
criteria and
those grading policy should all be incorporated within the assessment plan
1. the first thing you need to do is write down the learning outcome of the
course. Based on the learning outcome and the teaching learning activity, we
need to design our assessment which should be in alignment with the action
verb and then the decision about how are we going to incorporate the
feedback, reflections or the scoring depending on whether it is a formative
assessment or a summative assessment.
The next thing which you want to do is design a marking rubric guide. Marking rubric
guide is objective way to mark the assessments where your students’ performance
will be marked in an objective way. Rubrics are mainly designed based on specific
criteria. Specific marking criteria based on the type of assessment task which you
have chosen for your course. While designing a rubric, what it does is it takes
account of each of those criteria specifically and when you share these rubrics with
your students prior to their assessment during their preparation time, students comes
better prepared for the assessment because now they know on what all criteria they
are going to be evaluated for this particular Assessment. It is a time-saving task for
teachers The other thing you would notice is, once you are marked on a particular
rubric to one single cohort and you use the same rubric for next cohort, your marking
will become more and more consistent and that is a good way of comparing how the
students have been performing in a particular course as well as how you are
teaching practice has been from one cohort to the other. The last thing on this rubric
you which you really want to know is a potential for giving timely and effective
feedback. The most important or rather the three components of rubric are first you
need to set specific criteria. Specific marking criteria which could be what are the
different criteria for a written assignment, what are the criteria for oral presentation
on which you are going to mark your students. Once your criteria are set you need to
set different levels of achievement. once we have set the criteria and the levels, the
hardest bit is actually to write the descriptions in each of these levels. The
descriptions here are, so for research let us look at what are they looking in terms of
research. For research they are looking in terms of quality and broad spectrum of
information. So, in terms of quality, they are looking whether the information is
accurate, resources are legitimate and resources are varied when appropriate. The
last one, the information is unreliable and or are inaccurate resources are not valid.
The next criteria is content of presentation. assessment tasks need to be aligned
with the learning outcomes and the teaching learning activity needs to be in
alignment with the learning outcome and that assessment task. Three important
components of designing rubrics is setting clear criteria, setting levels and assigning
weightage to each of these criteria and [Link] levels and weightage is
much easier task, but writing descriptions to make this rubric as objective as possible
will take some time

Lecture 15:
How can we use research in education ? - ( part - A1 )

The rigor and the acceptability are important aspects

cognitive domain consists of mental skills and knowledge, affective domain

consists of attitudes and emotional growth, field and psychomotor is physical skills.
choose focus analyze exercise: This exercise is assigned to students at the very
beginning of the course, in the first class

Lecture 16:
How can we use research in education ? - (part - A2)
to experience what left students are going through, sign up for something that you
are not good at right, students from any social category can be a LS, The lower
language skills of some LS which leads to lack of understanding in the class material
could turn them into LS. Psychological aspects including minor ones such as
homesickness and other major ones such as depression due to a variety of reasons
- academic and personal, can turn somebody into an LS. give them a diagnostic test
at the end of the first week.

Lecture 17:
Academic advising is a critical component in ensuring
student success and increase graduation rate, academic advising becomes a
theoretical concept, some other aspects active learning, theoretical concept and so
on.
Proactive advising is a deliberate structured intervention to enhance student
motivation at the first indication of academic difficulty. It provides students with
information before they request it while simultaneously building a relationship with
them.

Lecture 18:
Psychological Type (Orientation) and Learning
these psychological types are pre-dispositions or orientations. The preferred
development is toward the orientation, a particular orientation that is given here;
however, any person would exhibit a spectrum of behaviors that we all know, what
we find in reality is going to be a mix of these concepts, spectrum of behaviors
between the 2 extremes or type orientation that is mentioned.
The introvert they perceive the world. they have perceived the world, they
consciously process information through either their senses, abbreviated as S or by
intuition abbreviated as N. Feeling is personal subjective values, does not refer to
personal emotions. they have perceived, they have they have made sense and they
have processed the information and the orientation toward the world is either, is
through either one of the two modes, judging J type or perception P type. J type are
structured, they prefer ordered existence, they attempt to control events. The P type
collect more and more information as they go along and adapt to situations as they
arise. The J type function in a planned orderly fashion, they like to be in control of
events, the P type function in a flexible and spontaneous fashion, understand and
adapt to events we have these 4 different types, extroverted introverted, sensing
intuition they either are the thinking or the feeling type, they process the information
through thinking or feeling and
then they interact with the world back again through a J or a P type judging or
perception.
So, there are 4 variables here each with 2 options and therefore, there are 24 = 16
psychological types, ESTJ ENTJ and so and so forth, Another situation the S type
students tend to go from specific to general, the N type students are more
comfortable with comprehensive view to the specifics. In routine problems
solving,accuracy is important
Lecture 19:
Cognitive Development Theories - 2 Main Examples- (part - C)
Theory is a set of logical self-consistent statements to describe a phenomenon.
The Piaget’s theory says that the intellectual development happens in 4 distinct
stages. It is a continuous process, there are no abrupt changes is what the theory
says. The order of progression is the same for all; however, the rate of progression
could be different for each child, a child may be in 2 different stages,in different
aspects at the same time. The various stages, the first stage is called a sensorimotor
stage, from birth to about 2 years of age, The relationship between self and objects
is what comes about say toys, feeding bottles and so on so forth is what is
predominant in this phase - the sensorimotor face. And the next stage is called the
preoperational stage, in the preoperational stage or the preoperational stage is from
typically 2 to 7 years of age, these are typical values, please keep that in mind. They
start using their language, languages. Thoughts are tested with actual happenings.
They may not be able to appreciate warnings of impending danger, you know fire will
burn, may not make much sense to a child until the child goes and burns it finger or
something like that, it should not happen, but that is the part of development. And the
fourth stage is the formal operational stage, 12 years and above 12 years minimum
and above, capable of abstract thought creative, can formulate and mentally test
hypotheses, capable of metacognition which essentially means thinking about one’s
own thinking process. The sensorimotor stage until about 2 years, The
preoperational stage is 2 to 7 years, operational stage 7 to 12 years.
Dualism, multiplicity, pre-legitimate is the second stage where existence of different
views are acknowledged, but not accepted, Then come the early multiplicity stage,
stage 3, where a person realizes all knowledge is not currently known, will be known
later, authority may not know the right answer. It is unclear there is right, wrong and
the unknown is what the person is able to do give consideration for in stage 3. Then
the stage of advanced multiplicity stage 4 where independence in thought sets in,
one can never be sure, one can never know for sure also starts dawning on the
person. The fifth stage relativism, relativism becomes the norm where very few
things you can categorizes as right or wrong, they are essentially exceptions, that
becomes clear, self makes the meaning, this also becomes slowly clear to the
person. And then commitment levels as they are called 6 to 9; there are 9 levels,
various levels of
commitment;