A talk on "Bloom's Taxonomy" was delivered by Dr. Vishal Gupta from the Department of Computer Science and a member of the Teaching Learning Centre (TLC), BITS Pilani, Pilani campus on 5 January 2017. To an audience of BITS faculty members, he explained the concepts with the help of examples from their everyday teaching experiences.
TLC, BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus, in collaboration with the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences organized a two-day workshop on “Orienting Teaching towards Outcome Based Learning” during 18-19 February, 2017. Major (General) S.S. Nair, AVSM (Retd.), Director, BET, Pilani delivered the keynote address in which he highlighted the need to improve the teaching-learning scenario in the country and emphasised localized solutions for different nations. 28 teachers from 14 schools of Pilani and nearby places, 4 research scholars and 31 students from 13 schools of Pilani participated in this workshop. Dr. Paritosh Shukla (Department of Chemistry), Prof. S.K.Choudhary (Department of Humanities and Social Sciences) and 4 Teach India Fellows conducted sessions on "Why Outcome Based Learning?" and "Teaching of English and Science with Outcome Based Learning".
"Together at BITS" was jointly organized by TLC, BITS Pilani, Pilani campus, the Staff Association and the Students' Union on 18 February, 2017 at the BITS auditorium. It was an evening of music and dance performances by faculty, their family members and BITS students. It was an attempt to bring faculty and student community closer through their involvement in the event. Classical music and dance performances by Gurukul and Raagmalika and a special chorus medley performance by the Department of Biological Sciences were some of the show's highlights.
TLC, BITS Pilani, Pilani campus conducted its second Open Forum Discussion (in a debate form) on 27 March, 2017. The motion for the debate was "It's high time BITS Pilani implemented compulsory attendance policy". Two teams of five students each debated this motion in three rounds with audience reactions in between. The event was attended by the Vice Chancellor, Prof Souvik Bhattacharya and the Director, Pilani campus, Prof AK Sarkar. There were two rounds of pre and post-debate-opinion polling to gauge the power of the debaters to swing public opinion. The results of the polling were: before debate-- for the motion: 62 & against the motion: 175; after the debate--for the motion: 45 & against the motion: 208.An interactive session on “Research in Teaching” was held on 20 April 2017 where Prof. Sanjiv Kumar Choudhary, Faculty in charge, TLC, Pilani Campus had shared his above mentioned ideas with faculty members.
A two day ITW Part I for newly inducted faculty members of the institute was held during 26-27 July 2017 where Director, Dean (admin) and Associate Deans of ARCD and ID and a few senior faculty members of the institute introduced the newly inducted faculties with BITS system and also delivered talks on various aspects of classroom teaching.
ITW part II for newly inducted faculty members was held during 17 August-21 September 2017. 15 faculty members divided into 2 teams participated in this workshop. 12 Senior faculty members, also divided into two teams observed the presentations and gave valuable suggestions for further improvement.
The 3rd Open Forum Discussion on “My expectations from my classroom” was held in the NAB auditorium on 22 August 2017 where students and faculty members shared their expectations from each other. Findings of the Empirical study on Effectiveness of Classroom Teaching at BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus from Students’ Perspective” were also shared with the audience. The function was graced by the campus Director and the Dean of administration apart from about 60 faculty members and 25 students.
A one-day workshop on Teaching and Learning for Ph.D. scholars of the institute was held on 10 September 2017. 160 Ph.D. scholars across disciplines participated in this workshop. Prof. S. K. Choudhary, Faculty in-charge, TLC, Pilani campus started this workshop specifying the purpose of organizing this workshop. Prof. A. K. Sarkar, Director, BITS Pilani, Pilani campus talked about the rationale behind the establishment of TLC and also emphasized on the need for teachers to adapt to the changes which are happening due to new technology and also because of the changing aspirations of the young generation. Prof. P. Srinivasan, Prof. Rajesh Mehrotra, Dr. Rajeev Sakhuja, Dr. Paritosh Shukla and Prof. Sanjiv Kumar Choudhary conducted sessions on different aspects of Teaching and Learning during the workshop. Dr. Tapomay Guha Sarkar coordinated the feedback session at the end of the workshop.
Teaching Learning Centre, BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus organized a 3-hour workshop on “Maximising the Use of NALANDA (LMS) in Teaching and Evaluation” on 2nd November 2017 where 31 faculty members from across disciplines of the institute participated. The workshop was conducted by Dr. Virendra Singh Shekhawat and Dr. Vishal Gupta, faculty members from Computer Science and Information System department. In the beginning of the workshop Prof. Raj Kumar Gupta from the Physics department shared his experiences in using NALANDA for conducting tests and quizzes in the courses he teaches. He also demonstrated how question papers could be designed using this LMS tools. Dr. V S Shekhawat and Dr. Vishal Gupta demonstrated in details the tools available in the LMS for conducting tests and quizzes and provided hands on experience in using all those tools to the participating faculty members. They also demonstrated how to upload marks which can be seen by the respective students only.
Intensive Teaching Workshop (ITW)-Part I was conducted for newly inducted faculty members where senior faculty members introduced the newly inducted faculties with the BITS system (27-28 August 2016).
Intensive Teaching Workshop-Part II was conducted for newly inducted faculty members, in two groups, where newly inducted faculties gave lectures using Blackboard and PPT and a group of senior faculty members observed their lectures and gave feedback on their teaching (20 September-26 October 2016).
An Open Forum Discussion, titled “How do I find my class?” was held on 23 September 2016, where students of the campus shared their classroom experiences with the administrators, faculty members and fellow students. The Vice Chancellor and the Campus Director attended the discussion and made their concluding remarks.
A two-day National Convention on “Current Practices and Future of Classroom Teaching at Higher Education Level” was held during 30 September-01 October 2016, where more than 80 participants from higher education institutions across the country participated. Experts from National University of Singapore, IIT Madras, IIT Kharagpur, Manipal University, Jaipur, etc. delivered the key note lectures during the convention. Vice Chancellors of Dr. APJ A K Technical University, Uttar Pradesh; Shivaji University, Kolhapur (Maharashtra), BITS Pilani and Directors of CEERI Pilani and BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus participated in a panel discussion which followed the inauguration of the convention. The former Vice Chancellor of BITS Pilani, Prof. L.K.Maheshwari moderated the panel discussion. The convention was inaugurated by the former high court justice of Patna and Allahabad High Court and senior advocate of the Supreme Court of India, Shri Dharnidhar Jha.
A two-day National Workshop on “Outcome Based Learning Using Pedagogy Framework Model was conducted during 28-29 November 2016. This workshop was conducted in collaboration with the Centre for Educational Technology, IIT Kharagpur Under the MHRD government of India funded project “Developing suitable pedagogical methods for various classes, intellectual calibers and research in e-learning (Main Phase)”. More than 60 participants from engineering colleges across the country attended the workshop.
The first issue of the TLC newsletter, named Tāleem, was released by the Vice Chancellor, BITS Pilani; Director, BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus; and Prof. Anupam Basu, Head of the Computer Science Department and Chairman, CET, IIT Khargapur on 29 November 2016.
A three-day workshop across all the campuses of BITS Pilani was conducted on effective teaching and learning at Goa campus in July 2015. It was conducted by experienced resource persons from both academia and industry.
Prof. Shreepad Karmalkar gave a talk at BITS Pilani, Pilani campus in Sept 2015, on "Improving ones teaching through feedback and reflection".
