Mumbai: From the next academic year, several courses at IIT-Bombay will be delivered in an unconventional manner. The premier institute has decided to enhance the existing teaching pedagogy with more activity-based learning focused on problem-solving projects, enhanced hands-on training and greater emphasis on discussion-based classroom interactions. It will not be a one-size-fits-all solution and will therefore have department-specific approaches.
One of the proposed initiatives will be voluntary summer internships for first-year students in their own hometowns to tackle technically and socially-relevant local issues with help from the institute’s alumni chapters.
The idea is to re-look at traditional approaches in the teaching-learning process, given how online resources have transformed education. Many faculty members appointed in the last three years have shown interest in jointly developing innovative pedagogy for their classrooms before the new semester. The decision have been moulded by feedback from the Teaching Learning Assessment (TLA) review committee of students and faculty members on the campus.
“The focus…is on nurturing an ecosystem where learning is a natural expression and students have an opportunity to discover and build on their innate talents. The effort is based on a bottom-up approach and is being carried out through discussions and workshops with students, faculty, alumni and experts,” said a professor from the review committee.
The first phase – courses incorporating practices of shared contextual learning, hands-on and field-exposure-based classroom exercises, and industry and alumni-supported internships – will be rolled out in the 2025-26 academic year. The committee is also proposing to introduce voluntary internships at first-year level, for students to take up technical issues with social relevance in their hometowns with help from the institute’s alumni.
IIT-Bombay Director, Professor Shireesh Kedare, said the TLA committee had a meeting with about 100 faculty members from different departments. “They are willing to offer courses from the next semester in activity mode. The idea is to have more project-based, exposure-based and discussion-oriented learning. Students should be able to solve problems instead of banking on artificial intelligence-based tools. It will be custom-made based on students’ and departments’ needs,” said Kedare. The TLA review committee also had a meeting with students and alumni and more such meetings are planned in the near future.
The review committee was set up after the institute’s five-year review report presented last year highlighted the need for evolving the teaching-learning process. The report had said, ‘…given the considerable expansion of the institute, there is a growing consensus on the necessity for academic oversight, enhancement of teaching quality, mentoring students and researchers for careers in academia or R&D, standardization of grading practices, systematic collection of feedback, and a potential revision of academic policies…’
The professor from the review committee said, “The aspirations of students have undergone major changes over the last decade. This proposed initiative is important for the faculty body to be able to serve the students at the institute, and in turn, the future leadership of the country. IITs were set up in the late 1950s and early 60s as a part of the nation-building exercise, and now need to be a part of creating the new future as India-2047.”
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