Panel moots centre for teaching methodologies at IIT-B

Authorities said a significant rise in student intake had resulted in the institute’s transition from a “mostly small class institution” to a “large class institution”,following which the committee was appointed last year to review norms for teaching. “Several good recommendations have been made. We will now set up an implementation committee to put in place the suggestions,” director Devang Khakhar said.

The committee defines a large class as one with 50 or more students. If a course has a large enrollment,its students will be taught separately in several divisions,where each division could be a large class. The report says that a division in a core/non-core course should not have over 100 students besides recommending that a tutorial batch should not have more than 40 students and one teaching assistant should be provided for every 20 students in a single batch. It also says a tutorial should have sufficient number of faculty members so that the faculty to teaching assistant ratio is 1:5.

“All academic units should be required to audit all current and future courses with large classes. In this respect,one must consider the learning objectives of the course,evaluation schemes,textbook and grading policies (if the course has many divisions),techniques used during lectures to ensure high effectiveness and adequate instructor-students’ interaction. It must also focus on opportunities for peer and group learning among students and contents,accessibility and archiving of course files,” it says.

The committee has also recommended periodic audit of all classrooms in the institute,covering aspects like technological aids,classroom furniture and arrangement,among others. It asks for maintaining a course file for every division of each course in an electronic form,which would contain critical information like evaluation and grading schemes,grade statistics,description of lectures,handouts,tutorial sheets,assignments and projects. It has also sought a special cell to provide administrative support for running the courses.