Entertainment Quotient of a Session

This is an issue many of are confronted with while teaching - how 'entertaining' should your session be? Maybe one also needs to define what one means with entertainment, because in my experience I found a very thin line dividing what is pure entertainment and what adds value to the content of a session. And it is very easy to err on the side of being just an entertainer.

The setting is post-graduate teaching, with the expectation that the students are more mature and experienced. And are there for serious learning..

I think at the fundamental level all of us would agree that class room learning has to improve especially the lecture format , where the role of the teacher is to deliver a lecture and in the context of ready availability of multimedia and other technologies it is easier to bring more life into them.

The problem with making a class more 'entertaining' is that the message might get lost in the clutter of entertainment , and though the students might find it good in the short run, but in retrospect, would feel short-changed in the overall perspective. But how do we decide how much is too much?

Teacher's Day

I have not written on the blog for two months, today being Teacher's day thought will write a small post to remember our teachers.

I don't think there would be anyone who would not acknowledge the role teachers have played in their lives. Dr Abdul Kalam in his book 'Wings of fire' remembers the explanation on how birds fly given to him in his school days by his teacher inspiring him to pursue further studies in the area. Manyof us have such small stories and memories relating to our teacher...

Today's editorial in Economic times, also talks about the role of teachers (5 million teaching 220 million children) especially in the context of the passing of right to education bill. The article also talks about how one needs to look at teachers as change agents and not just resources....

In pursuit of "freshness" in teaching

As a teacher who is new to the craft of teaching I was worrying on how a teacher needs to keep himself "fresh". Once someone has taught the same course a couple of times, sets in a tendency to relax a bit , hoping that the preparation which he or she had done the last time around would be enough to carry him through. But the need to keep oneself "fresh" cannot be overemphasised, not just for the students but firstly for himself. Because the first person who has to be interested in the course is the teacher himself and I feel if the same examples and cases have been used over a period of time there is a high chance that he himself might have lost of the enthu of going into the class and sharing it.

In today's era of ppts it is both easy as well as difficult to keep one's material fresh, because as easy as it is to update the ppt, more is the inertia not wanting to change the presentation. Paradoxically though the imperative to change and update is higher in the information era, reasons being two-fold. Firstly owing to fast paced change and the wider availability of information. And the second reason why the ppts need to be updated if not changed, is because in the computer-era chances are that what you shared with the students last year is anyway there with students of this year.

There are some teachers whom I have heard tend to tear-off the notes that they have prepared for their class as soon as the class is over so that he has prepare afresh the next time he has to teach the same course, though might seem a extreme , but then we all tend to prepare the best when we have very little to fall back on.

I watch with envy the spring in walk of teachers walking towards the teaching block ready for their class after doing the same for 15-20 years, maybe all teachers more so the ones who are new to teaching should also access that elixir of freshness in teaching...............

Teaching Ethics

We have been grappling with the issue related to ethics and corporate governance for quite some time now.  Till now we had the luxury of examining incidences of major corporate frauds from a distance and commenting on them in a relatively dispassionate manner, but the Satyam fiasco has brought the severity and urgency of the issue into forefront in our own home ground.

The question is can ethics be taught to students, especially in a business school. Psychologists are of the opinion that moral development of an individual is more or less through by the time he or she is about twelve year old, then on the environment either reinforces of discourages these tendencies. So basically trying to put these 23 plus year old into a class room a trying to teach them morality or even ethics may not be a very fruitful exercise. 

But then should we sit idle and as teacher absolve ourselves from the responsibility and role we have . Some people who have headed institutions which have been known in the country for their high ethical stand rads felt that these ethical values can only be inculcated in them with the help of setting examples which the young people can see and emulate. Examples being set by people around them. And then maybe including some interaction with the world outside through some community development activities, so that young minds get sensitised to issues beyond business.

The issue of ethics and how can it be taught to students is something which has a issue for which there are no easy solution , but then we need to keep thinking and discussing on the issue with the hope that we would reach to the optimal solution  ....

Are Teachers Powerful ?

I for one have felt that we as teachers are very powerful, I have not qualified the word powerful but want to believe it is powerful in the positive sense, in our ability to influence the life of the students we teach. Most of us would be able to relate to this positive power of a teacher, more so in the early days of our schooling , at the school level ..........

This power has implications for a teacher, as it is a sort of double edged sword. It is because of the fact that students most of the times would put a lot of faith on our judgment and ability to evaluate, and even a stray remark from a teacher can lead to a lasting impression on the student.

To see how a teacher can positively influence a student I would recommend two movies for everyone aspiring to become a good teacher . One which I watched today is based on a true story " Freedom Writers" . The movie is about a new teacher who inspires her class to move beyond their differences based on races and learn to apply themselves, inspire them to pursue education beyond school.... There is a foundation which has been set so that the experince could be replicated, the Freedom writers foundation. It is worth a visit..

Another movie which inspired me was "pay it forward" (Was recommended by my friend with its linkage for a teacher). Though this movie is a work of fiction but still I could see that there were many take-aways for a teacher...........

Knowing When to Stop

Many a times while teaching I have felt that one needs to know when the class has totally switched off and its a time to give the class a break. This happens more when you have either longer sessions or continuous sessions. Though one might have a urge to go on with his teaching and finish his quota of content , but then one needs to revisit the basic goal of why you are teaching, which is not just to finish the teaching for the day but also see that students learn...

There is a lot of theory on the sapn of attention which students can have and there are varying estimates from 40-60mins. Then it would also be a factor of what you are teaching , who is teaching and what pedagogical tool are you using. In a monotonous lecture the span of attention might be lower than when you are using discussion based methods like case method of teaching.

But even then if one finds that the receptivity of the class has gone dramatically in the last few minutes, and you still have a long way to go , it would always be better to give a small break and then go on with the teaching. This would make the teaching and learning both easier...

Maybe knowing when to break, could come with experince or at times with experience one might even become more immune to the receptivity of the class to your teaching???

The virtuous cycle of teaching and enjoyment

When i thought of a blog on teaching, motivation was more of consolidating my own thoughts on many issues which I would think about while teaching. And many a times this thinking is fueled by comments which come from my interaction with people who have been teaching for a long period.

One such instance was a few days back when one of our senior Prof said " One should enjoy his teaching, and his or her students should enjoy the teaching , and this is what makes a teacher enjoy teaching". Which essentially meant that to enjoy teaching (from a teachers perspective) his or her students should enjoy what is being taught............

The context in which the statement was made was the amount of preparation which is needed before a class. With increasing teaching load one tends to make zero or very small incremental preparation for his classes and in the class he goes and reproduces what he told last time , in the process the teacher himself losses interest in what he is teaching and the students also stop enjoying and thus the vicious cycle kicks in .......

It is essential that one is able to prevent stagnation and maintain freshness in classes to prevent loss of interest ....both his own and as well as his students