Creativity and innovation are becoming increasingly important for the development of the 21st century knowledge society. They contribute to economic prosperity as well as to social and individual well being and are essential factors for a more competitive and dynamic India. Education is seen as central in fostering creative and innovative skills and Teaching is an essential part of education. As much as teacher will be creative, it will hold students’ attention. Keeping this in mind, Oakbrook Business School has organised yet another FDP programme on “Embracing the Creative side of Teaching” for engineering faculties.
Principals and Professors of various engineering colleges came to be part of this seminar. Also it had a panel of eminent personalities from the engineering background.
Ms Shraddha Sheth –Academic Head delivered welcome speech. She gave the brief introduction about OBS and why there is a need for the Faculty Development Program. She showed her gratitude towards all the eminent speakers and participants for becoming the part of this programme. She emphasised that basic management traits to be added in the engineering curriculum for growing and developing better engineers and leaders for tomorrow.
Speaker 1:
First speaker of the event was Dr. Rajul Gajjar, Civil Engineering Principal, Government Engineering College. She has more than 30 years of academic experience. She is the dean of GTU, Civil Engg.Dept. She has a number of papers and publications to her credit and has also attended a number of conference and workshops based on engineering, infrastructure and related fields. Dr.Gajjar has played an active role in various Govt. infrastructure projects and guided students for their thesis and research. She is member of Institute of Engineer (India), Indian Society for Technical Education, Indian Society for Earthquake sciences, Gujarat Institute for Civil Engineer and Architects and Ahmedabad Management Association.
She started her session by interacting with fellow participants by asking them how they make their class interesting and how they make sure that everyone is responsive.
Later she talked about different types of teaching method and gave its pros & cons. She also discussed about learning and teaching process of student and teacher respectively. In her session she also talked about catching a pulse of the class. It was necessary for a teacher to understand that all students are not same and understanding level of student varies from one student to other.
Speaker 2:
Next speaker was Dr.G.P.Vadodaria who is M.E. in Civil Engineering from M.S.university. In March 1995 he topped GPSC examination and posted as a lecturer at LD Engineering College and since 2014 he is serving as the principal of LD engineering college.
During his research work he published many research papers in reputed peer reviewed journals. He has presented several research papers in national and international conference which includes paper of EWRI conference at Bangkok and International Conference on Information Technology in construction at Tsinghua University, Beijing. He has supervised more than 20 thesis at masters’ level and also supervising PhD students in the area of water resource management. And he is the man who is behind establishing new concept in GTU examination system i.e. electronic delivery of question paper.
Addressed participants on topic “work of teacher in making noble students.” And shared various incidents from his personal observation on how students should be faced during certain situations. He further added that mere scolding and not listening to them won’t help; rather they become more offensive which will consume time and energy of both the parties. It is needed for better future of the student that whenever they approach any faculty with their problem, faculties should listen to them, if they are busy then they should give their time.
After that participants and speakers had the group photo, followed by high tea.
Speaker 3:
After break, Mr. Kabir Thakore took a session who is Eminent Theatre Artist and Dramatics Expert. He conducted activities with participants who enthusiastically participated and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
He engaged the participants in playing various games that made them interact with each other and shed their inhibitions. He asked the participants to be expressive and vocal about themselves. He made them interact with each other in innovative ways. Those activities let them open up, interact, induce alertness, listening, expressing and developing creative ability of the participants.
After making them play games Mr.Thakore explained them why it is necessary for a teacher to be expressive in class. And who are the teachers whom students tend to remember easily.
After this session every one enjoyed a sumptuous meal and also bond well during lunch.
Speaker 4:
Last session was of Mr.Chandramauli Pathak who is mechanical engineering from LD engineering college and has over 30 years of experience in the field of teaching & training in management and entrepreneurship at school, graduates and post graduate level. He is well known entrepreneurship expert with diverse experience having worked in more than 30 countries teaching and developing entrepreneurship courses. He is director and mentor at Oakbrook’s Incubation Innovation education centre(IIEC) to foster entrepreneurship talent amongst youth for start-ups.
He said that now-a-days there is need for self innovation and creativity development in faculties and students. And faculties should motivate their students’ innovative and creative ideas. They should always encourage their students to think out of the box, and also keep on trying new methodology in class to make them interested.
The program ended with interaction and feedback of the participants about program. The program indeed was well – received by all of them.
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