Teaching and Learning in Engineering (TALE)

Prof. N.J. Rao

Department of Electronics Systems Engineering
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

Lecture - 01
Overview of TALE and Good Engineer

Greetings to all of you. Welcome to the course TALE, Teaching and Learning in Engineering and
the first unit is concerned with not only teaching and learning in engineering but also the
characteristics of a good engineer.
(Refer Slide Time: 00:51)

Now, since 2015 there have been major changes in the field of higher education. The major shift
is related to from teacher centricity to learner centricity. What it means is, the focus is on what
the learner should learn and to what extent he has learnt. That is what we mean by a learner
centricity. And learning is measured in terms of to what extent a specified outcome has been
attained by the student.

Or saying that the level of achievement of outcome is the basis for planning and implementing
instructs. Now the major change is in the process of accreditation. What accreditation means the
some agency will measure to what extent a program that is conducted meet certain specified
criteria. These criteria are generally defined by an agency of the government in case of
engineering education, it is National Board of Accreditation and in case of general programs it is
NAAC.

And what do they do? The national board of accreditation defines a set of criteria and actually
assesses to what extent the particular program is, to what extent the program is making the
specified criteria. Why is this necessary? After all any educational institution, private or public is
a social institution. There are several stake holders concerned with that, anywhere from students,
teachers, and then you have parents, then you have government agencies, universities and so on.

And the stakeholder should be made aware of to what extent this particular social institution is
meeting its stated objectives. And the process of accreditation really serves that purpose. In
coming to the specific higher education, most of higher education institutions offering UG and
PG programs in engineering they would expect their programs to be accredited by the National
Board of Accreditation.

The engineering programs, both at UG and PG level come under the purview of National Board
of Accreditation - NBA. And NBA since 2015 requires all engineering programs attain the
program outcomes and demonstrate they are continuously improving their performance. We will,
here we define the, use the word program outcomes a little loosely but we will elaborate a little
later what they are.
(Refer Slide Time: 04:48)
Many of the higher education institutions also want to have their institution accredited by
NAAC. NAAC is National Assessment and Accreditation Council. The difference is National or
the NAAC wants only the institutional accreditation while they look at some programs in detail,
but they want a whole bunch of other characteristics of the institute to be reviewed and
evaluated.

And all teaching and learning activities in higher education institution should be planned and
conducted to facilitate the students to attain well defined and measurable outcomes. And this is
what we broadly call it as outcome based education. And this is, this particular requirement of
having OBE is a new requirement for all faculty members of engineering colleges as their earlier
activities were not directly related to this.

They are not in opposition to this but they are not perfectly in alignment with outcome based
education. Now, TALE is a course that is designed to facilitate teachers to meet these
requirements.
(Refer Slide Time: 06:24)
Now TALE aims at enabling the teachers in engineering programs to facilitate their students to
become good engineers at the time of graduation. That is what any engineering program should
aim at, has been aiming at. The course is offered as 4 modules, learning outcomes, course design,
instruction, and accreditation. Each module constitute one credit load which is approximately
equal to, equivalent to about 10 classroom sessions.

Each module is offered as 20 units of about half hour video lectures and each unit will have a set
of assignments. This is the structure of the TALE.
(Refer Slide Time: 07:23)
Who is, who will have interest in the course called TALE? Most importantly the working
teachers, either the experienced or newly recruited teachers in engineering colleges, aspiring
teachers, those who are outside the teaching profession and want to get into this and also
graduate students who wish to make their careers in education technology. And there is a
tremendous amount of corporate training these days.

Even the company is offering education technologies and training programs to corporates,
educational institutions, teachers and students. Such companies will also be interested in this
course.
(Refer Slide Time: 08:13)

I would like to particularly acknowledge the inputs and comments given by my friend, Prof. K.
Rajanikanth whose inputs are, have been very very valuable to me.
(Refer Slide Time: 08:29)
Now, let us look at the structure of the TALE. Module 1 is, we titled it as “Learning Outcomes”.
This will look at issues like who is a good engineer, what is outcome based education, the
accreditation, outcomes themselves how they are classified and taxonomy of learning, how to
write course outcomes and broadly how do you measure the attainment of outcomes. These are
the elements of module 1. These will be covered or addressed over about 20 units.

Module 2 is “Course Design”. This course design process assumes the knowledge of module 1
and the course is designed in the framework of ADDIE Model. ADDIE Model has 5 phases. A
analysis phase, design phase, development phase, implement phase, and evaluate phase. The
course will look at how to look at each phase in detail and we will try to present a kind of a
template for each phase for designing the course.

And module 3 is related to “instruction” and we will talk about instruction design and
instructional methods, evidence based instructional methods particularly instructional strategies
which are nothing but a collection of instructional methods, script for writing an instructional
unit and what we broadly call as learning design and then also look at instruction for projects and
presentations. Module 4 is related to “accreditation”. It can be NBA accreditation as well as
NAAC accreditation.
Because these days engineering institutions are not only interested in NBA accreditation, they are
also seeking NAAC accreditation. So broadly that is the structure of the course TALE.
(Refer Slide Time: 11:00)

Now as we are talking about outcome based education without talking about the kind of
statements that one should write as course outcomes, we will mention what the outcomes we are
trying to attain. At the end of this course, that is after the 4 modules, the students, here the
learners are practicing and aspiring teachers should be able to in module 1 understand the nature
of outcome based education and objectives and outcomes of an undergraduate program in
engineering as required by NBA.

So broadly that is the one of the first course outcomes that we have. And we require some kind of
a language to communicate between the learners and that is where we talk about the taxonomy.
The particular taxonomy of learning that we are looking at will be called Anderson-Bloom-
Vincenti Taxonomy. So the course outcome is: Understand Anderson-Bloom-Vincenti Taxonomy
and the three domains of learning.

The course outcome three then we learn how to write outcomes of a course in an engineering
program that address a subset of program outcomes and program specific outcomes. So these are
the three course outcomes of the module 1.
(Refer Slide Time: 12:45)
And module 2 looks at designing a course in an engineering program in the Instructional System
Design framework of ADDIE. And also specifically we emphasize designing assessment that is
in good alignment with the course outcomes. And module 3 is design instruction following
Merrill’s principles which we will elaborate at that time for attaining the course outcomes and
competencies ensuring good alignment between course outcomes, assessment and instruction.
(Refer Slide Time: 13:24)

Module 4 prepare for NBA accreditation at the department level and CO8, course outcome 8
prepare for NAAC accreditation at the institute level. So these are the course outcomes of TALE.
(Refer Slide Time: 13:44)
Now coming to module 1 a little more specifically, learning outcomes of an engineering
program, first require an understanding of characteristic of a good engineer, education, teaching,
learning, assessment, and instruction. Then we look at outcome based education. Then we look at
role of accreditation, levels of outcomes, program outcomes of NBA. We take considerable time
in trying to understand the nature of the program outcomes of NBA, then taxonomy of learning.

Then based on this knowledge, we what you call, we write Program Educational Objectives,
Program Specific Outcomes and Course Outcomes. The particular meaning of these three types
of outcomes, we will look at it at a later stage.
(Refer Slide Time: 14:47)
And now coming to actually what do engineers do, we want to understand who are good
engineers? Before we go and understand what are good engineers but actually look at what do
engineers do. Let us change the sequence a little bit. Engineers broadly architect or plan, design,
develop, manufacture, test, install, operate and maintain technological products and systems. Of
course, any single engineer will not be doing all these activity.

Maybe at different points in his career he may be involved in these activities, but by and large at
any given time he is involved in one of these activities. And all these activities will have to lead
to some wealth generation for the organization for which he is working. And again engineers not
only perform all these activities, sometimes engineers provide services using technological
products and services.

They provide services on for example you take a electric supply or water supply, the engineers
will have to make sure right kind of services are provided on these products. Again, coming to
the first one, actually engineers very rarely work in isolation. Always any activity, engineering
activity will involve a group of engineers, either at the same level of competency or sometimes
organized in a hierarchical fashion along with some non-engineers they solve socially relevant
complex technical problems. That is what the engineers do.

But while doing all these they are required to operate and behave within a within well-defined
professional and ethical standards because every professional organization has certain
requirements of behavior and these are enunciated as professional and ethical standards. So all
engineers are required to work within them.
(Refer Slide Time: 17:24)
And now we come to trying to understand who is a good engineer? Where do we find who is a
good engineer? It is generally because engineers dominantly are employed by industries and we
go and consult really the top worldwide or well-known respected industries and ask their CEO’s
or their managers to say whom do they consider somebody as good engineer? And this kind of
surveys have been done fairly many times. Because as the technology changes as the
requirements change what is considered good engineer may also keep changing with time. So
this is a kind of a summary of what they consider as the characteristics of a good engineer. Some
companies may consider something as a higher priority than what is indicated but these are
indicative, not necessarily arranged in a particular hierarchical order.

But all of them will start with say all good engineers must have sound knowledge of engineering
sciences and technologies, on that there is absolutely no second opinion about it. There is no
substitute for poor knowledge of engineering sciences and technologies. Then come the other
one namely ability to solve well-defined and ill-defined problems. Because in an educational
institution we are likely to get trained in solving dominantly well-defined problems what we call
end of the chapter problems or the kind of examination problems that we ask.

But in real world problems are never that well defined. So one should be able to tackle an ill-
defined problem and convert into a well-defined problem. That process is not very simple and
which involves many assumptions which may be valid or not valid. So the first two are truly
what you call disciplinary in some sense disciplinary requirements. Then another characteristic
of a good engineer, awareness of customer’s needs and market trends.

Anything that an engineer does, he is to meet somebody’s requirement. Either government is

meeting the general public’s requirement or a company is trying to make certain services and
products available to customers. So the one of the requirements of any good engineer is that
awareness of customer’s needs and market trends. Even if one designs a beautiful product and it
is not relevant to the current market trends, the product has no chance of getting accepted by the
market.

And next one is ability to work in a team. As we mentioned earlier, engineers always work in
teams. So there is no question of anyone working in isolation. So one should be able to work in a
team which requires its own skills, to work in a team one cannot take a very hard independent
stand and that one should learn to work with others. Then come the ability to document plan and
communicate effectively.

Unfortunately this is in Indian context most what do you call considered least important.
Somehow many engineers consider documentation is something or communicating is a
secondary requirements and the primary requirement is to solve the problems. But if you look at
if you ask many companies, they consider this ability to document plan and communicate
effectively - fairly at the top.

And with technologies continuously changing and market trends continuously changing what
you learn during the 4 years or 2 years of post-graduation is not going to be adequate. You cannot
stop your learning after the a formal program. You have to learn continuously on the job. So
willingness and ability to learn on the job is one of the important requirements.

And finally having an interest and awareness in all facets of engineering activities. One should
be aware of all the other facets. An engineer’s work does not end with designing something,
testing something and documenting it. One should be aware of what are all its facets and these
are broadly the characteristics of a good engineer. What National Board of Accreditation has
designed, has affectively absorbs all these characteristics of a good engineers and characterizes
them as required outcomes of an undergraduate programs and calls them as program outcomes.
We will see the 12 outcomes that have been stated by NBA in another unit.
(Refer Slide Time: 23:31)

Now all engineering programs are required to impart knowledge, skills and attitudes which will
be stated as program outcomes and to facilitate the graduates of 12th standard, that is the entry
point to engineering program to acquire the characteristics of a good engineer. That is what an
engineering program ought to be, okay.
(Refer Slide Time: 24:00)
Now, what we will look at is an assignment. The assignments will serve a great purpose of
exploring a little bit beyond what has been presented in the lecture. For example we talked about
what are the characteristics of a good engineers? Can you identify or you identify your favorite
good engineer. You can look at, there is plenty of literature available on the net, on the internet.
You can identify and select your favorite good engineer and then write a few words anywhere
from 250 to 400 words why do you consider him or her a good engineer. So those are the
assignments at the end of the first unit.
(Refer Slide Time: 25:02)

And then we move on to in another unit M1U2. M1U2 attempts to reintroduce the familiar words
education and teaching. These are words, education and teaching are something that everybody is
familiar with but many times they are used a bit interchangeably or ambiguously and so on but as
a teacher one is required to have a clear understanding of the words “education” and “teaching”
which we will explore in the following unit. Thank you very much for your attention.