The Department of Civil Engineering hosted the Faculty Development Programme on Teaching and Leaing, which was conducted from 13th to 18th January, 2020 by Dr Claire Komives, Professor, Chemical & Materials Engineering, San Jose State University, Califoia.
The event is aimed at empowering teachers with technical skills in order to enhance the content delivery and bring in transformations in the teaching-leaing process. The training is intended to focus on design experiments, project-based leaing, teaching students professional skills, writing joual papers for engineering education, writing an effective research proposal and engineering ethics.
The FDP was inaugurated by the Chief Guest Dr Claire Komives, Professor, Chemical and Materials Engineering at San Jose State University, Califoia, USA, in the presence of Rev. Fr Rohith D’Costa, Incharge Director of SJEC, Dr Rio D’Souza, Principal of SJEC, Dr Yajnheswaran, HOD of Civil Engineering Department at SJEC and Ms Bhavya, Convener of the program.
Dr Rio D’Souza, while welcoming the gathering said that the FDP provides a perfect opportunity for the teachers in the technical forum to interact with Dr Claire who has been actively involved in imparting her experience and vast knowledge in the field of teaching-leaing.
Dr Claire Komives said that her experiences in participating in conferences and workshops related to engineering education have helped her acquire skills to improvise the teaching-leaing process without inflicting any additional burden on the teachers. She expressed happiness on the conduction of the FDP and congratulated the efforts of the college in this direction.
Rev. Fr Rohith D’Costa, in his presidential address, spoke briefly about the usefulness of this FDP. While appreciating the enthusiasm of faculty members in attending the FDP, he wished them a fruitful leaing experience over the course of the next 5 days.
Ms Bhavya, Convener of the FDP proposed the vote of thanks. The inaugural was compeered by Ms Vani D and Ms Vinitha Pasanha.
Post inaugural, Dr Claire anchored an intriguing session on teaching students design experiments for all the participants.
Day 1 & 2, the session was on “Teaching students design experiments, Orchestrating project-based leaing, Teaching students professional skills throughout the curriculum” conducted on 13th and 14th January 2020. In this session, the resource person, Dr Claire Komives introduced the participants the advantages and disadvantages of using cook book in the curriculum. She also explained about the structured lab. She gave an idea about self-management, social awareness, organizational awareness, service orientation, relationship management and leadership skills. She shared her idea about incorporating professional skills, inductive leaing, project based leaing, collaborative leaing methods in the class.
Day 3, Dr Claire introduced the participants to the “Engineering Education Research” (EER). She inspired the participants to carry out engineering education research. She explained the mission and history of EER. She gave an insight about the core EER areas, engineering diversity and inclusiveness, engineering assessment and measuring student leaing. She asked the participants to form their own problem statement on engineering education and motivated them to publish their engineering education research in the jouals.
Day 4, the session was on “Writing effective research proposals”, the resource person introduced the participants to the concept of design thinking in order to formulate the problem. Then she explained how to write the quantitative impact statement. She shared her experience of how to start with the research proposals, how to apply for funding from the different agencies. Participants were also taught about the preliminary requirement that had to be taken care of before proceeding with the project proposal. Different activities like brain storming, think pair share, collaborative leaing were included throughout the session which made it more interactive.
Day 5, Dr Claire Komives presented a topic on “Engineering Ethics”. She started the session by stating that every individual should lea philosophy as ethics and philosophy help us to face the challenges in life. She explained about ethics and morality and how moral laws gove human actions but can be broken unlike the laws of nature. She conducted think pair share sessions where participants understood the concept of moral relativism that is ‘what is right for one person may not be for another’. She said that the ultimate goal of man is happiness but it should not be the possession of some goods with the exclusion of others.
