On Teacher’s Day (5 September 2024), six faculty members were conferred the IISc Awards for Excellence in Teaching 2024 for their contributions to promoting a deeper and more engaging learning experience for the students.
Debasis Das (Assistant Professor, Department of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry)
Pavan Nukala (Assistant Professor, Centre for Nano Science and Engineering)
S Karthikeyan (Associate Professor, Department of Materials Engineering)
Atanu Kumar Mohanty (Associate Professor, Department of Instrumentation and Applied Physics)
Ramray Bhat (Associate Professor, Department of Developmental Biology and Genetics)
Gautam Bharali (Professor, Department of Mathematics)
At the panel discussion during the award ceremony, topics ranging from the most important quality for a teacher and teaching techniques to the existing educational structure and impact of technology on learning were discussed.
CitationsÂ
Debasis Das
Debasis has been teaching first-year UG students every year since joining IISc about five years ago. These are large classes. The students come from diverse backgrounds and have different interests. Keeping them motivated is challenging and this is what Debasis has been doing consistently with remarkable impact. He has restructured these courses to not only convey the basic principles but to also connect students to environmental and societal challenges. This has enhanced their problem-solving skills and creativity. Going beyond standard pedagogical methods, Debasis connects curriculum topics with those that appear in research articles in journals and encourages students to participate in group discussions during and after class. This has resulted in better collaborative and communication skills. Special care is given to those who find the material challenging. He brings in a lot of energy, drive and enthusiasm in his UG teaching.
Pavan Nukala
Pavan has put together three new courses soon after joining IISc. All of them have an interdisciplinary flavour and attract a very diverse audience. One of them is in fact the only advanced electron microscopy course in the country. All of them have been received very well by students. There are several points that standout in his nomination:
Breaking hierarchical barriers: Often uses flip classroom model where students teach with help from the instructor who assumes the role of a student. Entire class participates irrespective of size, and participation is rewarded.
Teaching is a performance: Pavan believes that teaching is a performance art, the act of which should inspire the students to learn. Complex concepts are deconstructed often with well-designed analogies.
Big picture teaching: The students are always kept aware of the big picture by the inclusion of state-of-the-art developments in the field that go beyond textbooks. In-class demos are frequently used. Philosophy (time is a good teacher): Students are impressed upon the notion that sometimes it is OK to not understand a complex idea instantaneously, rather “time” will be a good teacher if one keeps at it. Non-linear learning is impressed upon. Evaluation schemes are designed in creative ways and are aimed at maximising student learning.
S Karthikeyan
Karthikeyan has been the backbone of the UG Materials major (Bachelor of Science (Research)). At least two courses and two laboratory courses were entirely designed by him. At the graduate level, he designed a very insightful course titled “Defects in Materials” that is one of the most popular courses among the graduate students. His students have credited him for shaping their career through his teaching. Outside the IISc curriculum, he has been actively involved in pedagogical short- and long-term courses in both industry and academia. A colleague noted that by combining his in-depth understanding and excellent oratory skills, Karthikeyan weaves magic in the classroom.
Atanu Kumar Mohanty
Atanu Mohanty’s contribution to teaching at IISc can be best judged by the sheer diversity of courses that he has taught, each many times over. He has offered courses in applied mathematics, computational sciences, electromagnetics and electronics. And in all these areas, his scholarship is acknowledged to be deep, and his colleagues are struck by his sincerity, sympathy for students and clarity of thought. He also regularly offers lab courses for which he personally sets up the demonstrations and experiments. He is always open and available to any student from anywhere in the Institute who seeks his help to either learn a certain topic more deeply or make progress with their thesis research. He generously offers huge amounts of his time and expertise by writing programs, building electronic systems, teaching new mathematical techniques to help research students with their projects. A lesser-known aspect of his work is his practice of generating teaching material: he regularly writes programs to visualise many important and interesting theorems in geometry, and aspects of differential equations, and create webpages for them.  These serve as very useful resources to educators and to specialists alike.
Ramray Bhat
Ramray has been instrumental in teaching a graduate course called “Fundamentals of Physiology and Medicine” which is a one-of-its-kind course that introduces tissue, organ, and systems-level discourse to molecular treatments of the topics of health and disease. More recently, he has incorporated modules that cover socio-cultural and literary-art dimensions to highlight a connect between natural and social sciences for students. He is active in the Naturalists Club and the training programmes at Challakere. He has also co-organised several girl child immersive education programmes for Class XI students. As a member of the Indian National Young Academy of Sciences (INYAS), he participated in outreach activities at neighbouring schools on the outskirts of Bangalore and in his hometown Kolkata. He has also worked with INYAS to translate relevant content into his vernacular native language Konkani. As an editorial board member of Confluence (Indian Academy of Sciences), he has worked to frame educational and communication content at the interface of science and community through debates and essays.
Gautam Bharali
Gautam has taught at all levels many times and more. On every occasion he has been appreciated by students. He brings thoroughness and rigor to his teaching in every course, and this provides a wonderful opportunity for students to realise the importance of such traits in their formative years. He is very patient with students and invests an enormous amount of time and energy in ensuring that learning outcomes are maximised. His dedication and sincerity stand out as is clearly seen from student feedback.
