MAINTAINING AN ENVIRONMENT FOR FIRST-CLASS TECHNICAL EDUCATION
Seven educational principles underpin the SKCET's teaching and learning objectives. These principles represent the shared view within the college on the teaching-learning processes and conditions that contribute to first-class higher education.
seven guiding principle
- An atmosphere of intellectual excitement
- An intensive research culture permeating all teaching and learning activities
- A vibrant and embracing social context
- Explicit concern and support for individual development
- Clear academic expectations and standards
- Learning cycles of experimentation, feedback and assessment
- Premium quality learning resources and technologies
The seven guiding principles are closely interrelated and interdependent. The first three principles relate to the broad intellectual environment of the college while the remaining four describe specific components of the teaching and learning process.
principle-1 AN ATMOSPHERE OF INTELLECTUAL EXCITEMENT
The excitement of ideas is the catalyst for learning
Intellectual excitement is probably the most powerful motivating force for students and teachers alike. Effective teachers are passionate about ideas. They stimulate the curiosity of their students, channel it within structured frameworks, and reveal their own intellectual interests. While students have strong vocational reasons for enrolling in courses of study, unless they are genuinely interested in what they are studying their chances of success are low. Gardens interspaced between the blocks provide the ideal ground for refreshing the intellectual mind.
principle-2 AN INTENSIVE RESEARCH CULTURE PERMEATING ALL TEACHING AND LEARNING ACTIVITIES
A climate of inquiry and respect for knowledge and the processes of knowledge creation
shapes the essential character of the education offered by a research-led Institution
It is a basic conviction within the Sri Krishna that the college's research activities and research culture must infuse, inform and enhance all aspects of undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and learning. Across all disciplines and across all study levels, education in a research-led institution develops its distinctive character from an understanding of and respect for existing knowledge and the traditions of scholarship in particular fields, recognition of the provisional nature of this knowledge, and familiarity with the processes involved in the ongoing creation of new knowledge.
principle-3 A VIBRANT AND EMBRACING SOCIAL CONTEXT
Premium quality higher education is an intensely social activity that extends beyond classroom interactions
The quality of the day-to-day interaction between staff and students and between students themselves, whether structured or incidental, is at the heart of the Sri Krishna Experience. The Sri Krishna is strongly guided by a belief with an importance to student development of a stimulating and encompassing social context that spills over from the classroom into the broader life of the Institution.
Educational research points to three compelling conclusions about the importance of the social environment for learning.
First, when students reflect on the quality of teaching and their overall college experience they invariably focus on the respect they are shown by staff and the availability, approachability and personal integrity of staff.
Second, students benefit from learning from each other. Activities that bring students together for the purpose of study, such as collaborative team projects and peer tutoring, have been demonstrated to enhance learning.
Finally, international research, as well as studies conducted here at the Sri Krishna; show quite clearly that involvement in the full college life within comprehensive on-campus institutions is an important determinant of student persistence and overall learning.
principle-4 EXPLICIT CONCERN AND SUPPORT FOR INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT
Learning is a highly individual process and students thrive when concern is shown for their individual development
Students learn in different ways and at different rates, and their understanding varies considerably according to personality, background and particular talents. This variation contributes to creativity and the generation of new knowledge. Within this variation, however, all students benefit from individual attention and deserve to receive assistance in developing their understandings. Such assistance must be based on insights into student backgrounds, what they are aiming for and the nature of any difficulties they encounter. Research indicates that informal, friendly contact with academic staff is a significant factor in students' engagement and academic success. Some studies indicate that contact with only one staff member can be quite influential for many students. Our Class Advisor program is based on this.
principle-5 CLEAR ACADEMIC EXPECTATIONS AND STANDARDS
Students study most effectively when they understand what is expected of them
Clarity of expectations is the first stage in the learning cycle, an essential precursor to the provision of feedback on individual progress and the assessment of learning. Students benefit from an understanding of the journey and destination that lies ahead, including both the subject-specific and generic skill development that is anticipated. The provision of clear expectations in higher education does not imply, however, that student development or creativity should be constrained by overly detailed prescriptions, or requirements narrowly formulated only in terms of tasks to be completed.
In most institutions, student diversity has re-focused attention on the need to inform students explicitly about what is expected of them and of what they can do to be successful.
In practical terms this attention has meant not merely providing students with lists of aims and objectives, but also permeating the day-to-day teaching and learning with discussion of intentions, purposes and desired outcomes. While an excessive focus on assessment requirements is undesirable, assessment tasks that are designed and scheduled in appropriate ways are an especially powerful means of confirming the expected learning outcomes.
principle-6 LEARNING CYCLES OF EXPERIMENTATION, FEEDBACK AND ASSESSMENT
Learning requires feedback on understanding and the freedom to experiment with knowledge
Learning requires the organizing, structuring and integrating new information into existing cognitive systems. Learners are never empty vessels who can be filled with knowledge: they are involved in the process of constructing meaning, even when apparently passive. But such constructions may be mistaken, confused or incomplete. They have to be tested against existing knowledge and the experience and the understandings of others.
For effective learning to occur, students need the opportunity to articulate and test their understandings and to receive informed and constructive feedback. The process of learning in higher education involves interactive loops of this kind and is enhanced by both the frequency and quality of the feedback given. During these learning cycles, students need some freedom to experiment with knowledge without the educational process in its entirety becoming one of 'trial and error'.
principle-7 PREMIUM QUALITY LEARNING RESOURCES AND TECHNOLOGIES
State-of-the-art information resources and electronic learning technologies are central to the development of independent learners.
Information and communication technologies are ubiquitous in higher education. In many fields, these technologies strongly influence and shape the character and day-to-day practices of research, scholarship and teaching. In particular, they dramatically enhance the possibilities for conceptualizing and designing educational activities. The quality of learning technologies and resources, of all kinds, is a prominent indicator of the overall quality of a higher education learning environment.
The rapid revolution in information and communication technology brings with it educational challenges for college teachers. The challenges are, and will continue to be, in integrating entirely new modes of learning into the curriculum: designing and selecting the best teaching and learning resources and activities for particular occasions; and supporting students as they experience new forms of learning and transform the information before them into knowledge.
Our College has put forth an e-learning portal and details of lecture notes and topics covered are available for the students. Further materials from industries serving as inputs for learning are also made available to students through our portal.
