Time to Innovate Teaching-Learning Strategies

Dr. Sr. Rosy Joseph fmm, Principal at Stella Maris College (Autonomous) in an interaction with Higher Education Review shares her thoughts on the critical topics concerning Student engagement, Self-learning and peer to peer learning, student assessment methods, and more.

Student engagement is crucial when it comes to determining the success of an education system. With that being the case, what measures should liberal arts colleges adopt to make their students active learners?    

Liberal arts colleges can adopt several proactive measures to make their students active learners and create a culture of active learning on campus. In the first place, faculty should, according to their years of experience, be put through rigorous training in student-centered learning techniques. These training sessions should ideally be in workshop mode, with discussions, interactive group work and hands-on activities, role play being the crux of the training. Institutions should also set up a data-base of online resources on active learning strategies for faculty to use for facilitating learning. Train faculty in enabling students to take ownership of their own learning; training them to train students to step in and take responsibility for their course work. Departments should also be encouraged to publish their own resource material focused on multidisciplinary and disciplinary content for enhancing and encouraging active learning.

HEIs could encourage and reward innovative teaching-learning strategies: faculty could be encouraged to submit a portfolio of their new/successful pedagogic interventions each academic year to a committee appointed to evaluate/assess the outcomes of teaching-learning innovations. Faculty could be encouraged to create challenging learning experiments and to share their experiences at specific forums every week/fortnight. These meetings could be made a best practice at which faculty and management interact and discuss their experiences and findings.

Self-learning and peer to peer learning are crucial aspects in developing critical thinking capabilities in students. Considering this, how can liberal arts colleges in India create an environment/culture within the campus to ensure the same?

Faculty members should be encouraged to include group discussions, interactive sessions, flipped classroom, and case studies as part of their teaching-learning methodologies. These should be recorded in their course teaching portfolios and form part of faculty evaluation.  Service-Learning could be institutionalized as pedagogy in at least one selects course in every discipline

Owing to outdated student assessment methods, accurately measuring the performance of students has become a hassle. With that being the case, how can liberal arts colleges address this issue and, in your opinion, what are some of the most effective student assessment methods/techniques?

In the first place, it is the responsibility of the faculty members to understand clearly that assessment is a learning tool. Having said that, every member of the teaching community should know the different kinds of assessment (for example, diagnostic, formative, summative etc.) and deploy them at relevant stages in the learning process of students. 

Oral presentations, class assignments, portfolio development are some effective assessment methods. However, efficacy of assessment methods also depends upon the course/programme.  The faculty member, in consultation with the students could decide the most relevant/effective method of assessment. Students very often come up with creative assessment methods. This would be in addition to institutionalized assessment processes, to be considered as part of formative assessment.

Education and training outside the classroom are a great way to make the learning process more engaging for students. Considering this, can you talk more about the growing importance of outbound training programs in liberal arts education?  

Outbound training programs or OBT is an important method for experiential and hands-on training for students in liberal arts education, and aids in giving them a feel of workplace environments. However, it is important to have a trained facilitator to conduct such programs for students, since he/she should have a clear understanding about the outcomes and objectives of the courses and programs that the students are studying.  

Visits to places of historical interest by students of History and Tourism, rural camps for Social Work students and visits to rural communities by students of different disciplines enable a learning process in real-life settings. Service Learning (SL) pedagogies can be used to enhance reflection, develop empathy, and to enable mutual learning.  Through SL, students’ classroom learning is reinforced while the community can learn from students. It allows for experiential and hands-on learning experiences, while enhancing classroom learning and team-work.

Study Abroad Programs, if even for a short duration, enable students to experience learning in diverse contexts, develop a global/broader outlook, and enrich their disciplinary, leadership and teamwork capabilities through exposure to different teaching methods and real-life experiences. 

Evolution of teaching pedagogies is crucial to equip students with the skills required to thrive in the modern world. Owing to this, how do you view the impact gamification can have in improving the quality of liberal arts education in India? 

According to researchers, “The gamification theory in education is that learners learn best when they are also having fun. Not only this – they also learn best when they have goals, targets, and achievements to reach for, of course in a way the learner still perceives as fun.”

This technique or procedure, integrating game-based elements into the classroom has been used in education for several decades. Today, advanced digital technology has enabled a wide range of apps and computer games to be brought into the learning arena of the classroom. Gamification can enhance technological skills, problem-solving skills, encourage team-work, motivate students to learn, engage them at deeper levels of content learning, and encourage peer learning and acquisition of skills such as goal setting. The element of “fun” is what will sustain their interest in the classroom and beyond, and help them to find multiple avenues to learn.

Gamification, if used with a clear and purposeful outcome-based intent, will create an atmosphere of active learning, and motivate students to think-out-of-the-box, find creative solutions and eventually understand and apply content and skills that they have learned by using their own abilities.

Multidisciplinary education is slowly but surely becoming more and more important. In your opinion, how can liberal arts colleges ensure multidisciplinary education to the students and what are some of the other changes/trends that you foresee in the Indian liberal arts education stratum? 

The CBCS ensures that colleges offer a multidisciplinary education to students through choice of electives. The curriculum structure can be framed in such a way that students are required to select courses with a specified credit load from different disciplines in order to graduate.

The NEP 2020 will bring in many changes in Indian higher education.  Larger HEIs, removal of single discipline colleges or their merger with multidisciplinary institutions, online course options with credit allocation for obtaining degrees, four-year undergraduate degrees with multiple exit options are going to be directions for the future.