To use innovative education methods, a professor from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE) at IIT Delhi has introduced a new initiative in technical education by amalgamating technical papers with art forms. Prof R Lakshmi Narayan from the DMSE guided an experiment with his undergraduate scholars by dividing them into six teams each consisting of six members. Each team was supposed to read a technical paper from the journal, Acta Materialia, and elucidate it using art forms like plays, music, illustrative dance shows, memes etc. An official release from the institute reveals that the current initiative by professors to combine art, technology, and soft skills, aims at imbuing energy into the traditionally recognized ‘research-heavy’ field of Materials Engineering.
"This gives rise to a creative mindset more easily than conventional training. I was amazed to see that each team produced a technically brilliant performance and composed songs as well. The added advantage of this is that these performances cannot be generated by Open AI", said Narayan. These performances were made a part of the course curriculum and students were marked out of 20, which was then added to the grades for the course ‘Mechanical Behaviour of Materials’. The major challenge in promulgating technical education in fields like Materials Engineering is to retain students’ interest in education. Though the main solution is to generate more jobs in the field, it also becomes important to create students who can provide jobs in the future. This in turn requires imagination, creativity and instinct. Realizing the challenge of keeping the interest alive in technical education, Narayan pulled out motivation from the unique nature of materials science.
"Materials science is more than just equations and formulas, it involves understanding materials as if they are life, much like human beings. To convey this concept, I gave my students the task to choose any topic and enact based on it. The idea was to humanize materials and make the subject matter more relatable", Narayan quoted. The diversified teaching methods within the department aim to break away from the prototypical image of technical education. By involving creativity, soft skills, and diverse perspectives, we are preparing our students not only to be brilliant in their domain but also to adapt and innovate in a continuously changing professional landscape.
