20 Aug 2014|Noida | Amity University Campus, Sector-125 Noida
"Excellence in Engineering education can be achieved through active learning amongst the budding Engineers in classrooms", suggests Prof. Krishna Vedula- Executive Director during Workshop on "Global Excellence in Engineering Education" at Amity University
Amity University organized a Workshop on "Global Excellence in Engineering Education" by Prof. Krishna Vedula- Professor of Chemical Engineering and Dean Emeritus, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Co- Founder, & Executive Director of "The Indo US Collaboration for Engineering Education (IUCEE)" for the faculty members at Amity University, Sector- 125, Noida
Welcoming the distinguished speaker, Prof. (Dr.) Ravi Prakash- Director, Amity School of Engineering and Technology laid stress on the need for students to stay abreast with the global education trends in Engineering so that they become globally employable. He expressed his hope that Amity and IUCEE would have a fruitful association in future.
Sharing her views, Dr. (Mrs.) Balvinder Shukla- Vice Chancellor, Amity University said that education has become global and Amity University has been pacing fast towards the goal of achieving global excellence in Engineering education. She shared that various efforts are being made at Amity to comply with all rules, regulations and standards outlined by relevant statutory National and International bodies including ABET, IET, NAAC, Washington Accord, ACB etc. Highlighting the numerous initiatives taken by Amity University to promote active learning based education amongst students, she outlined that Amity has already implemented new system of Outcome Based Education, Flexi Time Tables, Choice Based Credit System etc.
Addressing the gathering, Prof. Vedula stressed on the need for over 1, 50, 000 quality faculty members for 3, 000 Engineering colleges in India however, India faces an acute dearth of quality faculty. Highlighting the measures to revive the Engineering education in India, Prof Vedula opined that teaching is important but more important is learning. "The emphasis, in classrooms, should be on active learning which could be practiced by a basic concept of 'Think, Pair and Share'. The faculty members should encourage students to think creatively, pair with their friends and share their learning with them." suggested Prof. Vedula. He further added that the Engineering students should be like Magicians who could create something out of nothing and they should be able to address the challenges faced by the world including water, security and infrastructure.
He averred that in a University, faculty members are entrusted with three main responsibilities- "Knowledge Creation", "Knowledge Application" and "Knowledge Transfer to the students". He rued that Universities tend to give more impetus to Knowledge Creation and opined that equal importance should be given to "Knowledge Application" and "Knowledge Transfer" which are equally challenging and intellectually stimulating. He called upon the faculty members to think and devise new ways to deliver content every year to make the content more interesting and easier to relate to. He suggested the faculty members at Amity to try and practice the concept of "Flip Classroom" which is a form of blended learning in which students learn new content online by watching video lectures, usually at home, and the homework (assigned problems) is done in classroom with teachers offering more personalized guidance, instead of lecturing.
He appraised gathering with the various initiatives taken by "The Indo US Collaboration for Engineering Education (IUCEE)" to bridge the gap between Engineering Education in U.S and India.
Prof. (Dr.) Ajay Rana- Director, Amity School of Engineering and Amity Technical Placement Cell proposed the "Vote of Thanks" .