Towards effective teaching- learning process

The evaluation process by any teacher should encourage transparency and positivity towards a student and should be able to satisfy each student’s curiosity about his performance.Dr S S Verma, is working as Professor in the Department of Physics, SLIET, Longowal (centrally funded institute, established by Govt. of India & funded by Ministry of Education) since 2011.

He has been teaching Physics to Diploma, Degree and Master of Sciences (in Physics) students since 1994. He did M.Sc. (Physics) from HP University, Shimla and Ph.D. from Department of Physics, IIT Delhi. He also did post-doctoral studies at Toyohashi University of Technology, Japan under Japanese government (MONBUSHO) fellowship. Has published about 200 papers in research journals and about 600 articles.

Teaching-learning process makes an important component of education system anywhere in the world. I strongly believe that no one else can motivate a teacher than himself to be a good or perfect teacher. However, with an experience of about twenty-six years of teaching I can only share with you my personal beliefs on the above topics related to teaching and learning process with a hope that you will make yourself more effective teachers taking into consideration some of the insights being presented here:

Tips for effective teaching

• Manage yourself in an impressive manner in the class like be positive, prepared, organized, clear, active, patient and fair.

• Be confident about yourself and your delivery of course contents. Know your subject as a teacher should be well prepared about the lecture to be delivered in order to make the teaching-learning process effective.

• A teacher should go to the classroom well prepared and well equipped with educational materials like notes, chalk, white board pen, duster, attendance register etc. Looking for these items in the classroom or asking students to arrange these at that time means wastage of time and give a bad image to the teacher.

• Make use of smart educational tools/devices (like smart classrooms) in order to make the teaching process interesting and interactive.

• Make use of white boards in an effective way by dividing the boards into 2-3 parts, showing different contents.

• Be logically friendly towards the students in the class. Do not pamper the students un-necessarily in the class as some times praise can do more harm than good.

• Instruction matters. A teacher should be a good communicator as well as entertainer to make teaching-learning process more interesting.

• Make the teaching-learning process interactive (a two-way process) and always encourage students to give free and fair feedback on your teaching process and then try to incorporate the changes suggested.

Tips for classroom management

• Always be regular in the class and establish standards of behaviour that promote student learning (be patient, well prepared, well behaved and good communicator). In short, a teacher should be a role model in true sense.

• Avoid any type of distractions (like phone calls etc.) during class time.

• Treat each and every student at par.
• Always make the teaching-learning process interactive (two way) by giving full opportunity to students to ask doubts.

• Develop effective working relationships with students by interacting with every student on regular basis.

Tips for setting question paper…

• Question paper being as one of the main tool for evaluation of teaching-learning process which can measure the change in knowledge of the student is also a means for students to get grades which will help them in their career. Therefore, a good amount of care and caution is necessary for setting question papers.

• Thus setting up of question paper at one hand needs to be satisfying the desired requirement towards effective learning as well as on the other hand it should take into account the different levels of student’s capabilities.

• Question paper for any course should comply with course outcomes as well as programme outcomes which have been specified in true spirit.

• Question paper should be prepared fully as per the paper setting guidelines prepared by the academic body of the institute from time to time.

• Teachers, while setting question papers, should be careful about many important issues and not simply pick and choose some questions from the matters taught in the syllabus prescribed for the course.

• Question paper should not be extra tough and lengthy. Before, giving the question paper to students, a good teacher must evaluate it by putting himself in place of student by solving the question paper in terms of time and toughness.

• The question paper setter should fulfil the assignment with great honesty, dedication, integrity and seriousness.

Tips for evaluation…

• Student evaluation is to measure student course engagement and learning development, and then involving students in improving the overall experience.

Question paper should not be extra tough and  lengthy. Before, giving the question paper  to students, a good teacher must evaluate it by putting himself in place of student by solving the question paper in terms of time
and toughness.

• Evaluation of a student in our institute has many components like: General proficiency marks, Attendance marks, Quiz, Minors, Assignments & End semester examination and each of these component needs a distinct evaluation practice.

• Teacher should evaluate every component with honesty, sincerity and without any biasing towards any student.

• The evaluation process by any teacher should encourage transparency and positivity towards a student and should be able to satisfy each student’s curiosity about his performance.

• As an evaluator, always try to stick to timelines of evaluation system.