 So, we are going to discuss a particular questionnaire that was prepared by Michael Freshel and this was published in 1983 in the Journal of Chemical Education. This is a 1983 questionnaire which I would like to give to each one of you. There are 28 items listed. If you look at the questionnaire, you would find that it is numbered from A to Z and then it is followed by two statements called A, A and B, B. So, there are 28 statements. You will have to identify 5 which are priority items for you, which are the most important according to you that lead to a student learning in the classroom. So, I am going to ask you to identify those 5 most important items and further you can also identify the two least important items. Am I clear? The 5 most important items according to you that helps students learn and the two least important items that you think do not contribute to their learning. So, please go through this, I give you 5 minutes. The command is that you sit in force as you are just turn around and as a group come up with a collective list which are the 5 most important items which according to you help a student to learn and the two least important items which do not help the student to learn. So, you can sit in groups of 4 just turn around and you can form a small group and work for the next 5 minutes coming up with a collective list. Ok friends, if you have completed your group exercise, what you have to do is each group just tell me which according to you is the most important for a student to learn. Right and we will begin with you, your group which is the item you think is most important and in its helpfulness towards student learning, finds reason rational, rational for the subject being taught as most important, how about group 2 what is according to you the most important. So, 1 plus 1, Dr. Jogue and your group number 2, Q that is new ideas can be related to already established ones, that is the one, one second. So, group 2 thinks it is known to unknown, right that will be what the principle is known to unknown principles and we that students feel free to ask questions, ok and group 3. So, group 3 also believes that it is ask questions that is the most important and your group there so they know expectations, very good so far excellent and your group point H of varying degrees of difficulty, new material and the opportunity to review. So, problems, problem solving, problem solving and review, very good. Any other group that supports any of these points, would you like to add to any of these? All right. So, you gave us rational that was the first one, any of these which also G, a certain schedule is established. So, schedule is followed, ok they are allowed to follow their interests, all right. So, group 2 seems to have been very thorough in its homework, yes what else? Q is already there. Yes, Q is already there. Which is that one? Q is number 2. Yes. Yes, ok. So, that makes it 1 plus 1, any other? K. Yes. Visual, demonstrations and verbal explanation, very good, ok. X. Teacher's interest, right, in students, any other? V is already covered, V is asking questions so that makes it one of the most important items in this group. What about B? B, B, A, B, right. So, connect material with one future, ok, that is it, teacher is knowledgeable, right. Now, if you look at these would you like to reorder them in any way or that is it, they occupy important levels for you all along? Yes. Because even in these 10, do you think you would like to give anyone to? All right. I think we will leave it at this because then it could get a little hard. I should give you the background of this questionnaire before I share what exactly happened. 107 teachers from Purdue University chemical department were asked to complete this questionnaire and 106 teachers from the California State University Hayward. So, about 211 teachers completed this questionnaire and identified what according to them were the five most important items as helping students to learn and also the five least important, I deliberately changed that. Similarly, students were asked to complete this questionnaire and the student, now we do not have students here. So, we have that limitation, it is difficult for us to compare, but what I would recommend is that this particular questionnaire you do not even take it as it stands, you can design your own questionnaire in terms of what you think are the learning points and then administer it to students to see what they feel is according to them the priority. From that, we get to know what are our expectations of student learning and their expectations of what helps them learn and if we can bridge that gap, I think it will be good for all of us and it may happen that it varies from college to college, it may just happen. It is also likely says relish that at different parts of the courses, the students would find different items as enabling them to learn. I think one group pointed out how at different years, in different years they may have different items as helping them to learn. So, these are only indicators, there is nothing final. At the same time, I also want to give a word of caution which is that this was a result published in 1983. So, it is copyright material, I do not want to distribute it. I would only request you to return it to me after the whole exercise is over, but this was more a sample. I will therefore now show you what we are going to do. This is the line that I am going to follow. I want to share with you shortly student expectations of when they learn best as reported by relish and teacher expectations of when students learn best. The similarities and dissimilarities and implications for teaching and then we will talk a little about good lecturing. There is something very interesting, Robert has to say. He says, we never thought of teaching effectiveness until students started enrolling for colleges, until students started enrolling in colleges. We never thought of what is teaching effectiveness for the simple reason that good teachers just attracted good lot of students around them. So, if you think back on to Grecian times when Socrates used to teach, we know what a great teacher he was and until today people talk of the Socrates method of teaching. We have heard of teachers at whose feet in India many a student has sat and gained knowledge. So, it is only when students have started formally enrolling in colleges that we have started talking of teaching effectiveness. Another point to consider is that when students pay for their education, they now believe that they are our customers. They believe that they are our customers and as customers they have a right to get the most effective teaching from their colleges. So, unfortunately says Freilich, the students have been at the losing end. Rather teachers have benefited a lot from formal educational institutions. For example, we have good salaries, we have a status, we have certain benefits. But in the process, did the student really get what he or she paid for? And that is why it is important to undertake studies where we get to know what is teaching effectiveness, what is what helps learning. Some colleges have what is called teacher evaluation. I presume many of your colleges has it. But I have also heard some teachers complain that students do not know how to evaluate us. Now that means that your course evaluation form needs to be modified because by and large students do know what they want. They do know what it means to be delighted by a teacher. They do know what it means to be disappointed by a teacher. So, teacher evaluation forms if they are not working need to be modified. They cannot be thrown out because that is important input to us in the improvement of our teaching styles as well as in the improvement of our courses. Indeed one may even consider giving the evaluation form in the middle of a course. To check how it is going and in case we find that students have a certain sentiment we could modify our course of action. And therefore, student expectations of when they learn best is a very important consideration. And I am going to show you a comparative chart on the left side. This is a summary of relish's questionnaire because that was complete with student views and teacher views. These are in my own words just the key concepts have been put. As I told you that is copyright material. So, items in order of relative importance. Here you would observe that if you take a look at student views. Ranking at the top is logical progression. They expect the teacher to teach in a manner that connects one point with the other. So, they have a sense of coherence and connection. And it makes sense because unless my students know what point comes first, what comes next and what is following. How do we expect our students to take down notes? So, logical progression is extremely important from the student's point of view. Number two, rank examples. Students learn best when a teacher gives examples. And we are going to find an illustration of this when we replay your own lectures. The teachers who have used life examples, everyday examples are the ones who are likely to have helped us learn more. And by contrast, for teachers it ranks number 10. It's on number 10. Examples are not important. We believe that we are here to give knowledge. So, I give a lot of principles, I give a lot of concepts. But when I don't exemplify what I am saying, my student does not connect with what I am teaching. And hence doesn't learn. So, look at the variance here. Examples rank number 2 and for teachers they rank number 10. Not at all that important. And if I may connect this with what Dr. Ranvind Banerjee said to us this morning, that we teach in a mathematical analytical fashion. Engineering is taught in a mathematical analytical mode. We don't have the engineering sense. I would like to say that that is because of our educational system. That we lack the sense, not because we are Indians. Now I will explain this point. I will take up Dr. Banerjee's own example of the car which needs repair. He sends it to the garage but who repairs it? Not a PhD in engineering. But a young illiterate boy who has done some diploma. I think the analytical mathematical mode which is not real life related is not a problem of the educated middle class than the uneducated or semi-educated classes. In fact, you know in IIT we have the reservation system. And I did a lot of study on the students who used to come here through the reservation scheme. And we found that the students do best if they joined mechanical engineering. So this is very intrigued. Why do they do very well when they come to the mechanical engineering? Not so well if they go in for electrical or chemical and so on. And I happen to talk to the director of tribal welfare in Delhi. And he said they are the tribals. And the people from villages have a mind which is very much oriented towards machines and mechanical things. You give them things to do with their hands and they will do very well in IITs or in any engineering college. So we are beginning at the wrong end of the spectrum. We are following what is called a metrocentric model of engineering education. Which is I follow what happens in Caltech, I follow what happens in MIT and so on. But we haven't done enough research as to what makes my own people engineering oriented. And where lies their engineering sense? And I remember one of my colleagues in Mysore, colleagues in the sense since you know one would go for a seminar. I used to meet this elderly gentleman. And he told me he said isn't it amazing that my imported car goes to the garage and a 12 year old boy repairs it. He is not educated. They are wonderful he says with machines. So it's not that we don't have an engineering sense. We have it that not in the colleges. It's not taught in the colleges. Now part of this relates to our examples, lack of examples. We are teaching in the classroom without the engineering sense. And to us it is not important. And so it's not being generated. So examples are very important if we want to be effective in helping our students learn. Now here number 3 and 4 and you'll find that some numbers are listed on the same plane. That happens both for students and teachers. They regard studying problems and prompt feedback as extremely crucial. So if you are giving them problems and we analyze those problems simultaneously, that is extremely important to students. Here teachers and students have both agreed. For students, teacher's knowledge comes number 3. So I will say that there is a fair amount of comparativeness. For us teacher's knowledge is most important. Yes in a way, a teacher has to be 10 steps ahead of students. But today you realize that some of our students are 10 steps ahead of us sometimes. They are younger, they have access to internet, they are far more internet savvy. They are technology savvy, they have many ways in which to get the knowledge that they need. And they are well read also in many a case. In fact, many of the computer games that they play show them to be far more techno savvy than you and I are. Like I have found many teachers would be hesitant to repair a switch or to use PowerPoint technology. But our students are very adept at it. Many of us would give our students and ask them to make the PowerPoint for us. And they'll do a great job. But we are one step behind. And so teacher's knowledge also, while we regard it as extremely important, needs to be 10 steps ahead of our students. But I want to also add that a teacher may be extremely knowledgeable and yet not very effective as a teacher. Would you agree? In fact, I remember once a student saying, X is such a, he knows so much, he's used to teaching PhD students. So he can't teach us at the first year. I think that's a very sad statement. A good teacher, an effective teacher is one who knows how to move up and down with the level of the students. And more learning does not contribute to effectiveness as a teacher. So you were also right when, ask questions. Students would like to ask questions. There you are very right. To no expectations, you were again right there. Concepts and principles and future well-being. Where you talked of connecting material with future. Future well-being here really means grades also. How good were my grades? Very practical actually, you know. Students definitely look at a teacher who would, whose course would make it easy for them to get good grades. They don't want only a hard taskmaster who is too stingy about grades. So they are concerned about their grades. Their future well-being depends on it. The kind of jobs they get listed for or if they are shortlisted in campus interviews will definitely depend on the kind of CPI that they have gathered. Now if we look at the teacher's point of view, knowledge is, and they talk of knowing the goals and expectations, which is not too bad. On sixth, we have no expectations. Teacher is well-organized. Well-organized, but we are not too sure if it means the same as logical progression. Schedule is followed, which also was stated by you, but surprisingly for the students it did figure very high. That particular schedule is followed, it doesn't matter to the students. And then logical progression comes at the seventh place, known to unknown and so on and so forth. So that was the difference and we will further take on the implications. But for the moment, I would like to talk about the similarities between their views and all teachers and students were agreed that teacher should know the material. Nobody likes a teacher who doesn't know how of stuff. In fact, students look up to teachers to give them all the information that they need in the classroom. Study problems are followed by prompt review and so on. And when they are told of learning goals and what is expected, and implications for teaching of least importance to students for frequent quizzes. Surprisingly, many of us think that students will be made to work harder if we give them lots of quizzes. But I know from personal experience that when that has happened, the students are only moving from one quiz to another and there is very little learning that happens. So they find that quizzes don't yield too much learning. And interestingly even teachers, when they filled up that questionnaire, felt the same. Then a dearest and established schedule for students was at 22nd position. All right, very interesting was instructor's distractive manners. That is if a teacher has a particular mannerism. Like I know one teacher who is very good actually, that whenever he speaks in the classroom, he must keep on touching his head here as if he is thinking from the middle of his cranium. Whenever he makes a point, his hand is here. But I find that after a while you just get used to these mannerisms. So mannerisms do not distract students. And teachers also felt it did not. But having said that, there are certain aspects about body language which are important today and which I would like to discuss a little later. What was of least importance to students was additional reading materials. I think this you will all agree that no matter how often we have given reading material, our students rarely read it or it's an exceptional student who reads and counts. That's because they just want one good textbook. So if you are the course instructor, just choose one good textbook which gives good examples, which explains the concepts well. And that's it. If they are mastered those, they will be quite all right. At least they will do a good job. Right, so we are now on to good lecturing. And I would like to ask you, in the morning you lectured, so what was most important according to you? Or when you lecture in the classroom, what is most important to you? Motivation or is it coverage or is it understanding? What is your focus? So let's see what happens. All these three points are to be kept in mind. But let's see what motivates students? What motivates students is body language. When I say body language, which parts do you think motivates students in body language? What is it that they like in a teacher in terms of a body language? A smile on the face. What is that? What is that you are trying to tell me? Facial expressions, whether the face is animated. Are you enjoying what the teacher is saying? Is the teacher enjoying what he or she is saying? Looking at them. Yeah, looking at them. I contact. Excellent. Are we looking at our students? Or are we looking at the floor? Or are we looking at the roof and addressing the air conditioner out there? In teacher's view it is interest in students but in this point I would like to elaborate. I was going to do so a bit later that when it comes to the intellectual dimension in a teacher, vis-a-vis the personal dimension or the interest a teacher takes in the student, it is the intellectual dimension that proceeds. They will forgive a teacher who is cold towards them, strict with them, doesn't care for them or show that he or she cares for them as human beings. Provided that teacher is very good in the classroom. They can forgive. In fact, they love that teacher because the teacher is giving them the staff that they want. But a teacher on the other hand who is very friendly and at the same time doesn't teach well, rates very low in their estimation. So what matters really to students is that we are very good in our teaching and we definitely have a little bit of the interest in our students. As I said earlier, this particular questionnaire and the results are dependent on another culture and it's now over 25 years old. But it seemed very interesting for me as a beginning point to make us think and I would want us to modify this questionnaire and use it in your own classrooms and check out for you what is happening today. Whether interest in the student, how high is that point and how does it compare with the teacher's knowledge and ability to teach better and so on. So body language, the way you stand, the way you speak, the way you look at your students, the use of the voice. Am I clear? Is my language clear? Is my pronunciation clear? You know, some of us could have problems with English for example or the way we pronounce words, the pace at which we speak. Do we speak too fast? If I speak very fast, my students will not understand what I am saying. Let alone take down notes. So how do I speak? Can I make a moderate rate? Can I speak at a moderate pace? Then use of examples motivates students and then modes of teaching, partly analytical, conceptual, partly telling people the stories behind their inventions like one of you did. You began very nicely with the history of one of the concepts. Then anecdote too, you take examples from your personal life like Rangan talked of engineering sense through his car being repaired. I think that is a very simple way and I think one or two of you have also taken some very simple examples to explain fairly complex concepts and then we replay your particular module. I would like to highlight that. So these three things definitely motivate our students. So when we create our lectures, when we construct our lectures, if we can take care of motivating them, if we can take care of including lots of good examples, simple real life examples, that is the hard part I tell you. And if we can vary our teaching with some kind of narration, some storytelling which leads on to the concept. It is not for nothing that they talk of Newton's law of gravity being preceded by Newton having seen the apple falling from the tree. Now they say that did not happen. But that is a nice story to illustrate the law of gravity, is not it? It makes you understand why people stand on their feet and are not standing on their heads, not floating in the air. And anecdotal, if you make it anecdotal, these are the things that add interest and make it enjoyable to listen to a teacher. And what students enjoy, they remember, is not it? We learn far better when we enjoy a session by our teacher. Would you agree with me there? And in fact, sometimes I have come across maths teachers who are great jokers, but you know, the way they teach. You just cannot forget those concepts. Because they were horsing around, they were trying to make things memorable for you. They were spinning stories and fairy tales around those formulae. How can you forget them then? We just love those formulae because linked up with those formulae are the stories. And because you recall the stories, you recall the formulae. And so, all these help motivate our students. What do you think of this slide? The process of explaining the proof of a geometrical theorem. If x is true, then y2 is true. Every statement should lead to understanding of the problem. That is when students learn best. That is a student learns best when every statement leads to understanding of the next statement as in a geometrical problem. So, very often we are assuming things. If this is true, then this too should be true. And we go on explaining point after point after point. How do we understand Pythagoras' theorem in standard 9 when you are just 14? It is the ability to link up each step beautifully with the next and make sense out of it. So, this is what a good explanation is. It is one that leads to understanding not in me, but in another. A good explanation is one that leads to understanding in another. So, it appears that the most important element in good teaching is helping our students to learn and understand. So, I am now going to give you, this is how we are going to integrate our explanation. There is a structure. I am going to give you a structure in which we are going to fix motivation and we are going to have understanding and coverage of course. By contrast, I want to say this and you can correct me if I am wrong, that I find that a large number of college teachers focus only on coverage. And whenever we tell them that you should enliven it up and do this and tell them stories and tell them jokes or tell them examples, their one patent answer is where is the time and how will I complete the portion. And I think this is very deadly. This is a very deadly statement to make. When I am focusing only on coverage, both motivation and understanding are sacrificed. I once went to a college where I was training them up for effective teaching and one young faculty, he got up and he made a presentation where he listed 22 characteristics of a certain part of a concept, 22 characteristics. And he went at the speed of at least Deccan Queen, if not more fast. And then I requested him, I said, see these 22 items no student can remember. He could not accept my statement. He said that a student has to know these 22 and I am going to give them all those 22. Let me give you as an illustration what I mean. Supposing I had given you this questionnaire and asked you to rank all the 28 statements, would you have been able to do it? It would have been very difficult. That is why I made it simpler. I said just rank the five most important and the two least important. And even then what I got was just the five most important. Two least I didn't get to that also. This is our structure, very simple structure. And what's this? You open in a friendly manner. Hello, how are we today? Not too tired today? Or I could begin with an example or I can ask you a provocative question to make you think. So it's a friendly opening. You pick in in a friendly manner with your students. Very often we teachers think that the longer my face is when I meet them the more my students are going to feel impressed with me or respect me. But I can assure you that that has never ever worked. So a friendly beginning, a friendly opening. Maybe like somebody beginning with the history of that particular concept. That was a good friendly opening at the same time leading to learning. Then you announce the topic and its relevance to the student, the application. Through examples, some of you have done that today. One or two at least who began by giving the entire concept initially by a number of examples from everyday life and application and then taking them through the concepts. While others kept giving them the analytical or the theoretical part and waited to give the examples at the end. So I would say reverse the order, it always has more impact. And then you have the structure of four main points. Never take more than four points in any group. In any session never more than four points. You can have sub points but limit yourself to four points. And each point can begin with a good example or you can have a graphic. You can tell them a story around that point. You can ask questions around that point. But take it from concrete to abstract. Move from concrete to abstract. Not the other way round. We are not here to display our knowledge. We are here to help our students learn. It is as simple as that. And if my student can learn, then I am a delighted teacher and they think I am effective. And then the conclusion. Now within this I want to say one or two points. Always announce your outline that these are the points I am going to cover. Announce your outline. So similarly when you are lecturing, please announce your structure. That I am going to cover the following two points, three points, four points. Or these are the four points that today there are time constraints. So I am going to cover only two points. That is also alright. And having announced your outline as you move from point to point, you connect it. My first point is this. You talk about the first point and sum it up. Then you say my second point is this. And then you sum it up. Now when you sum it up, the student can take down notes. There are cues that we throw at the students with the body language. Which indicates to the student this point is important. And then the teacher says and now I am going to sum up the point that I have just made. So the teacher is indicating to the student that this point is important and you can take down that note. So frankly speaking as a teacher, I don't have to dictate notes. But I can guide my students to take notes by using my voice, by using repetition as a technique. Repetition is very important. If I repeat something, my student is more likely to remember that point than if I just talk of it once. And now to create the structure, how do I compress twenty-two features? Or what I want to tell my students into four points? I am just illustrating what the professor there insisted he would like to do. I am going to show you a method. So you have twenty-two points you have or you look at your chapter and you find it is strong with ideas. It has got so many subsections and most of us would start the way the textbook starts. I start teaching it like this and I go on like this and I move like the textbook linear. But if you look at your textbook chapter or any particular chapter that you wish to teach, you would find that there are some points that are similar to others which can be clubbed and classified. They can be clubbed and classified. Now if you take a look at this particular slide, what do you find similar? You find that there are one, two, three, four squares. There are how many circles? Five circles. Five circles. How many polygons? Four. Okay. Four. And then triangles? Three. Okay. So can I classify them? When I classify them like this, my students are likely to remember better. Now I have got my four main points. My twenty-two features get classified under four headings. This is easier for a student to remember and learn. What is not easy is that I just mix them up and teach them the way a textbook is written. Are you with me on this? Does this make sense? So classifying information according to similar and dissimilar enables us to focus better and the student remembers better. When I choose my points, there are certain principles we can use. Always try and explain the most important concepts. I think in the morning Rangan said something similar that in the classroom, if you can teach the basics, even in engineering today, if our effort is to help our students master the basic concepts, basics don't change too much. The basics remain steady for a fairly number of years, long number of years. If you help your students master the concepts, basic concepts, as knowledge advances, they are able to draw that knowledge into those basics and integrate it. It's not difficult for them. But it's difficult for anybody whose basic concepts are weak to be able to gather new knowledge very easily or to update themselves. So first focus on teaching the most important points. Don't teach 22. Who has asked you to teach 22? 22 are not important. Just teach 4 or 5 important points. And if you have ignited the student's mind and interest, he or she will go and read many more on his own. The second is select a few interesting points. So make the class enjoyable. And very important, which is the very purpose of education. Make your explanation thought-provoking. Make them think. Which is our role as teachers? Our role as teachers is not coverage. Even in the syllabus focus on the most important concepts and make your students think. If we have created thinking students, we have done a great deal for our college and our country. Because no educational system can ever be complete. We can only give the tools and the training to our students to be good hereafter and excellent. So if you have made thinking students, then they will innovate, they will create and they will go far in life. And that's when we will really feel effective as teachers. When our students come back as great innovators, as people who have created excellent products, as people who have made a mark in their profession and in personal life. So this is the main thing that I wanted to say. That there is a lot of variation between what students think helps them learn. What they look for is knowledge, proper objectives from the teacher. Lots of examples, problems which are reviewed from time to time and the ability to get good grades. What teachers think helps students to learn is their own knowledge. But in some parts they are not matching what the students' expectations are. So we want to be very effective by matching the students' expectations. And I am sure all of you in your own colleges will undertake a small study or big study and come up with some interesting results and show to us how today's students would learn better. But certain universal principles there are, which is that a good explanation is one which transfers knowledge and helps to create understanding about that subject in another. So it is learner-centric. Our teaching becomes learner-centric. And secondly, we create interest by motivating them through the right kind of body language, through lots of interesting illustrations, stories and we use a structure to teach. Use a structure. Always teach from a framework. When we teach from a framework, students remember it as a framework. And that framework becomes a framework of their notes. They do not need digests after that and they do not need coaching classes. It is when their ideas are not clear, when their concepts are not clear, that is when they are driven to become members of coaching classes and enroll there at great stress to themselves also. And these are some of the principles I have given you on selecting the points and I would say use graphics wherever you can to create interest. Some of the very good graphics are available on MIT OpenCourseWare. No matter which engineering subject you want, there is a lot of guidance there. Just go to the internet and take it. It is OpenCourseWare. And use it to your advantage as long as you give acknowledgement. There is no stealing involved. And when we present out of textbooks, we are using an OpenCourseWare. So, what is the problem with making it even more interesting with the use of graphics and pictures and if you can create the engineering sense in the classroom, I think our purpose as engineering teachers has been served very well. I hope I have structured my module well for you. The third is what Professor Rangan Banerjee mentioned, the muddy cards. This is a very popular concept in American universities and almost all universities. What they do is at the end of the class, they ask the students to write down what was the most confusing point. Muddy means not clear. So, what was the most confusing point according to you? And they collect it. The teacher collects it from the students and then they go through that and in the next lecture they explain that. It also helps the teacher to become better because if you find a recurring pattern in the kind of muddy points that are gathered in class after class, then instead of pointing a finger at the student, it is better that you blame your own self for the way you are teaching. And perhaps it means that I as a teacher need to modify my style. So, if we teach in a structured manner, if we emphasize the main points, then I am very sure that the students will also take down the points fairly authentically. Basic intelligence they all have, they are very quick on the uptake. We talked of that in the morning. Engineering students definitely have a quicker grasp. There is no denying it. And so, why should they not be able to take down notes if I have as a teacher have been clear. And if I have helped them, identify what is important from unimportant. Thank you very much for being so interactive and interesting to me.