Higher Education Pedagogy: Being - Knowing - Applying

Education is not the learning of facts; but training of the minds to think - Albert Einstein.

Every stakeholder of higher education understands the implication of low percentage of employability in India. Irony is that the solution does not lie in bigger capital outlays, better labs or highly paid fancy professors from blue chip campuses. It is here and with us, if we are ready for a change. Both the faculty and students have to walk that extra mile to succeed in preparing students for future employments. It does not cost much, but requires a change in mindset, own understanding of the problem and a missionary zeal to find solution. Students and learning focus has to change.

Before launching any product, consultants and market specialists ponder over the go-to-market business strategies for months if not years. Faculty need to look at the package given admission in a holistic manner and design pedagogy to suit students critical weaknesses, while enhancing their existing skill-sets. Contrary to the claims, most of us still persist with chalk and talk, lecture method of delivery in a class rooms. It is a one sided dialogue with a passive audience whose creativity remains untested. Worst is that many of us teach without understanding our students. No data analysis, no identification of strengths and weaknesses and all are treated at par. Our students need the following four essential components during their stay at the university: Communication skills. Positive deportment or personality. Team playing. Domain knowledge. Hands on experience in chosen specialization.

The focus of pedagogy has to shift from inserting theoretical concepts in students mind to show the practical application of each concept. This is where, student teams led by faculty members can create added value by planning useful visits, establishing domain specific discussion forums, preparing business plans, developing new idea generation culture. Prof. Yashpal had described a university to be a living organism with huge networking of intellect and cross disciplines. Faculty need to encourage creation of intellectual ecology and move out of silos of knowledge. Moving from being to knowing and applying must remain the constant refrain for each sub-topic in various subjects. Students must be encouraged to develop a self-belief to solve complex problem, do risk analysis under all disciplines, prepare contingency plans and get the job done under adversarial circumstances.

Like launching a new product, students must be market-ready. For this the pedagogy must change from knowing to applying. Dr Srikanth of Harvard Business School had lamented in his article, Schools seem to have lost it where practical skills are concerned. Three important and defining pillars of active pedagogy are creating faculty as a coach and consultant, constant experimentation and learning by doing work spaces, and technological drivers for increased learning. The faculty must adopt problem based learning or PBL as sine-qua non of teaching. It is better than case based learning due to its spread over days or weeks instead of one to two hours on a case. Faculty can easily add short term projects addressing the conceptual knowledge. Under PBL, it is mandatory for a faculty to be less of a lecturer and more of a coach or consultant. To address the second requirement, we need to generate short term internships with multiple companies in place of three to six months internship. Intensity, practical involvement and recapture of lesson are the need of academics, if internship has to be made a backbone of practical training.

Students are immersed in technology, at least social networking enablers. This also includes studies, note sharing, and collaborative problem solving, connecting to each other and accessing knowledge. It resembles a business scenario and can be replicated in our teaching and learning. PBL combined with the technology applications can make students self learner, coming to classes for discussions and contact programs for interaction between students, faculty and industry.

Dr KK Sharma