Recognising the long overdue need to revamp science teaching at higher educational levels, IndiaBioscience organised a visit by Teri Balser at National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) on 1 February, 2016. Starting with a talk on ​“Teaching as if learning mattered”, she talked about the misalignment of traditional higher education methods with modern educational needs. She made the case that college teachers should go beyond content when planning their classes. Even with the primary constraints of large class sizes and the vast syllabus that needs to be covered, college teachers in India can have a tangible impact on student learning.

This was followed by an interactive workshop in the afternoon, ​“Undergraduate teaching: starting off on the right foot”. Starting with ​“What is teaching” and ​“What makes someone good at it”, she went on to discuss the four domains of classroom teaching: curation, oration, facilitation and evaluation. To effectively result in student learning, teachers need to engage all four dimensions. 

The second session (morning of 4 February, 2016 at NCBS) is an opportunity for participants to reinforce strategies introduced in on February 1^st — creating a template for a class, utilizing the four dimensions of teaching.

Target audience:
PhDs, Postdocs, Young Investigators from any field

Dr. Teresa Balser is Dean of Teaching & Learning for the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Curtin University in Perth, Australia. Prior to that, she was a tenured faculty of soil science, and the first female Dean of the College of Agricultural & Life Sciences, University of Florida. In addition to international recognition as an accomplished research scholar, Dr. Balser is widely known in higher education. She is a co-founder of the Society for Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER) and a National Vision and Change Fellow with the Partnership for Undergraduate Life Sciences Education, and is currently in India under the aegis of the Fulbright-Nehru program as Distinguished Chair to help build capacity for pedagogically advanced STEM education.