Students of biology are usually very eager to learn about genes, the molecular units that carry biological information from one generation to the next. At the undergraduate level they grasp that genes are made up of long stretches of DNA present in chromosomes. They have no trouble agreeing that the subtle differences in the DNA sequence across individuals brings about the variations of a trait, say human eye colour. They are happy to realise that most of these variations arise due to viable mutations, possibly from the same original variety or allele. Mention that the population harbors several alleles of gene A - and several concepts assimilated until then seem to evaporate in a bunch.

Now suddenly, in spite of visual illustrations, it becomes difficult for students to understand that

a) a given diploid individual can possess only one combination of these alleles,

b) all cells of the body, including most parts of the reproductive organs have exactly the same combination of alleles,

c) alleles of a given gene are located on only one pair of chromosomes among the many chromosomes in each cell, and

d) each set of alleles occupies the same chromosomal locus in all individuals, hence there are only two seats for them to fill in a given diploid cell/individual.

The confusions arising from lack of clarity on these details get carried forward into many lessons in genetics, molecular biology as well as evolution. Teachers can identify these early by simply turning the above statements into true or false questions or framing them in the context of inheritance of a trait in a population.

Sample questions:

1. True/False: In a diploid individual, one allele each of gene A can be found on chromosomes 6 and 7.

Answer: False. The locus for gene A can be present on only one of those chromosomes, not on both.

2. Siblings Vidya, Ankita and Sneha all have one allele for gene B in common, but the second allele is shared only by Vidya and Sneha. How many different alleles for this gene do their parents together possess?

Answer: at least 3 in total.

Answers of the students can be discussed in groups, facilitating them to reach sound conclusions.

Here I will first explain the correct meanings of (a) alleles at a locus and (b) alleles in a population and then illustrate this using a simple tangible example.

First of all, it is important to remember that the DNA sequence of a gene need not be identical across individuals. Subtle differences in DNA sequences give rise to gene variants, referred to as alleles of the gene. Since the alleles of the same gene in individual 1 may be different from the alleles present in individuals 2 or 3, and so on, the population as a whole may contain any number of alleles of that gene. Some alleles may occur more frequently than others.

In diploid organisms, each individual harbors only two alleles of each gene, one from each parent. These alleles may or may not be identical to each other. So when we say a gene has ten alleles, it means that ten variants of that gene are represented in the population, in different proportions, with two of them being present in each diploid individual of the population.

To simplify this further with a mundane example, imagine a room with fifty children in it. Now imagine that we have many candies of the same shape but different colours to serve them – say, a total of one hundred candies of ten different colours. The number of candies of each colour may be different – there may be six yellow candies and seventeen red candies. If each child picks up two candies arbitrarily, then the variety of candy colours in the whole “population” in the room still remains ten, with any two candies of either the same colour or two different colours available with each person.

Since a diploid individual inherits one copy of each chromosome from each parent, the number of loci for a given gene in the zygote is limited to two – one on each chromosome of this particular pair of chromosomes. So, alleles once assigned to the gene locus are faithfully replicated to all cells of the body – only a mutation (one that survives and shows up: which is another topic by itself!) can alter an allele in a cell. Even then the number of alleles of the gene in the cell remain the same as before, barring exceptional cases (e.g., if an abnormal cell division results in a missing or an extra chromosome, thereby resulting in a missing or an extra locus, respectively).

Teachers can use the above explanation to dispel confusions regarding (1) alleles in the population v/s individuals (2) ploidy and number of alleles. I hope this makes subsequent discussions more fruitful for everyone!

The CUBE (Collaboratively Understanding Biology Education) program at the Homi Bhabha Center for Science Education (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research) is a project-based science education program. It is designed to cultivate a scientific attitude within students in a collaborative and conversational learning environment. Formerly called the Collaborative Undergraduate Biology Education program, though most of its participants are undergraduate students and teachers, school students and teachers also join as and when feasible. The program is now eight years old and has gathered participants from several parts of the country in this period. It runs through its centres in Ahmedabad, Asansol, Assam, Bengaluru, Bhind, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Delhi, Faridabad, Goa, Gurgaon, Gwalior, Hyderabad, Indore, Jharkhand, Kanpur, Kochi, Kolanchery, Kolkata, Kozhikode, Meerut, Moradabad, Mumbai, Mysore, Nellore, Patna, Raigad, Ranchi, Sapekhati, Silchar, Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur and Visakhapatnam.

In this program, the participants work collaboratively on simple experiments using model organisms, like fruit flies, earthworms, snails, Moina, butterflies, Hydra, rotifers, C. elegans, and E. coli, to observe their features and study biological phenomena, like olfaction, circadian rhythms, regeneration, hypoxia, biodiversity, etc. Students then discuss their observations with their peers, in the lab and on social media.

With the lockdown, the labs became inaccessible to the students. However, this did not discourage them from continuing their engagements. This article is based on our conversation with six undergraduate students who with their mentors and other students from across the country are dedicatedly working towards a shared learning experience and making effective use of the lockdown time. We take a look at their 'new normal' mode of learning through the CUBE home labs and the CUBE chatShaala.

CUBE Home Labs

The CUBE home labs feature frugal methods to culture and study different model organisms, right in students’ homes using locally available and easily accessible items, e.g., transparent plastic or glass bottles, tissue papers, water, milk, fruits, vegetables, soil, leaf litter, etc. (Figure A). Even the model organisms are obtained from local surroundings. The students’ mantra, as Saida Sayyed put it, is, "whatever things we need, we break it down to what is its function and can it be replaced by things available at home".

The mantra helped! Within the first few weeks of the lockdown, students were able to trap native fruit flies, take soil samples for nematodes, etc. from their localities. For culturing and isolating the soil nematodes from soil samples, students used boiled potato slices and a drop of curd/milk in place of 2% agar and bacteria. Students (Aswathy Suresh among others) collaboratively worked out a substitute for the standard fruit fly medium, called TRSV, using tomato, rava (sooji/semolina), sugar and vinegar, which are easily available ingredients. They used a pressure cooker as an autoclave.

An exciting development was the use of a mobile phone camera in place of a microscope. The non-access to microscopes had been one of the major concerns for the students in the initial weeks of the lockdown. However, they overcame this obstacle by using a drop of water over the camera lens of their mobile phones and using a magnifying glass as an external lens to further magnify the images. "Just basics of microscopy (physics involved!) and common sense, and it happened!” said student Drishtant Kawale. Students were able to identify the features of wings, proboscis, etc., of fruit flies using this hack as shown in Figure B.

Today students are sustaining their cultures with daily maintenance (housekeeping) work. The Moina culture is given drops of milk every day and its population has now increased to 400! Tomatoes are used as bait each day for studying the circadian rhythm in fruit flies. Using the homemade medium, the CUBE centres in Mumbai, Patna, Kerala and Kolkata are maintaining their fruit fly stocks successfully.

Some students are already conducting their experiments in addition to maintaining their culture of model organisms. For example, a group of students have progressed in their observations of circadian rhythms in fruit flies and compared these observations (e.g., graphs of day and night cycle in fruit flies) with their peers from other parts of the country (Figure C). Some students are working on studying the effects of hypoxia (low-oxygen condition) on Moina by setting up control and experimental cultures (though faced with challenges discussed below). "To be honest, this lockdown has been a boon to the CUBE Community. We have witnessed the upcoming of the CUBE Home Lab Movement", says Kawale.

Challenges

Though productive, managing a CUBE home lab has not been without challenges. As students used boiled potatoes as media for nematodes, their challenge was to maintain them for a long time without any fungal growth. Observing nematodes just 1 mm long without microscopes was another challenge. However, students Lydia Mathew and Anshu Kadam explained how this challenge was resolved by using the full zoom feature of a mobile camera -- an idea that came from discussions with other students. In hypoxia experiments with Moina, students found it difficult to estimate the amount of dissolved oxygen in the dechlorinated water used for culturing Moina -- a task that requires chemicals and relevant glassware that were not accessible to the students due to the closure of shops. Although these challenges have hindered some of their wet lab work, students are seeing this as an opportunity to study the literature and design experiments through online discussions.

CUBE chatShaala

The CUBE program is engaging students with feedback mechanisms even during the lockdown. In addition to the home labs, about 30 students from across the country and their mentors meet daily (for about 3 hours) for discussions in an online forum called CUBE chatShaala. The forum runs on the BigBlueButton webinar platform (a free and open-source software) hosted on HBCSE's server.

The chatShaala is a conversational learning mode where students talk about their work progress, challenges, goof-ups, designing experiments, model organisms, and so on. Several hot topics in biochemistry, molecular biology, developmental biology and neuroscience get touched upon during these discussions, including the biology of the COVID-19 outbreak and its causative agent SARS-CoV-2 (Figure C).

By engaging in the CUBE chatShaala, students have even developed an e-book on fruit flies based on their discussions using the platform. "Engagement with peers [and] mentors on CUBE chatShaala has been extensive, exciting and very helpful”, said student Yash Sheregare. Interested people can join the CUBE chatShaala and participate in the discussions, and can follow the blogs related to CUBE Chat. A profile of the CUBE chatShaala is shown in Figure D.

Advice to Peers

Based on their experiences, students of the CUBE home labs and chatShaala have some advice for their peers whose lab-based engagements have got disrupted due to the pandemic and who were not able to develop their home labs. They urge them to utilize their time by studying the literature, which would help them immensely when they conduct experiments later. They reiterate the importance of finding alternatives, or ‘jugaads’. "Collaboration is the main key!” says Mathew, explaining how collaborations can help in data collection, developing ideas, research questions and more.

Community Engagement

In addition to their research activities, students have also been working towards educating people living in slums about the pandemic, the infection, the importance of frequently washing hands with soap, wearing masks, myths about the disease, etc. Students are keenly attending webinars and talking to mentors for developing their scientific skills.

Parting Thoughts

The undergraduate students have developed and sustained an exceptional research platform in the form of CUBE home labs, and integrated it with the CUBE chatShaala, for not only working on their experiments but also keeping their model organisms alive! "Lockdown has helped us in improving ourselves in our research work. In fact, we learned that nothing can stop our research! We have alternatives for everything. We can do research wherever we are. Possibilities are there around us. We need to get there", said Mathew. This conversation with the undergraduates is evidence of their 'new normal' mode of learning.

With educational institutes closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the government has been encouraging online education to achieve academic continuity. Most high-end private and public institutions have made the switch smoothly using online platforms such as Zoom, Google classrooms, Microsoft teams, etc., while many still find it a herculean task. The challenges of online education are multifaceted. It is time that we Indians, as a society, understand the realms of online education – in India, for India.

The Good

Online education allows for learning something beyond the norm. A learner has access to unlimited topics and global experts in niche subjects – something otherwise not affordable or imaginable for many. Online programs allow people of a wide age group to learn at their own pace, without inhibitions, and without compromising on their other responsibilities.

With the emergence and spread of COVID-19 in India, online education has trickled down to the most basic level - schools and colleges! When asked about their experience with online teaching, a student from a college in Bengaluru said, “The online option is a need in this pandemic situation. It has brought education to us without us going anywhere, and it is more flexible”. Probably, students are finding it a welcome change from strict schedules and long-distance commutes to attend classes. For some others, who find learning in large classes intimidating, this may be a less stressful option. Many teachers are making the best of this situation by exploring new methods of teaching and assessment.

This is encouraging. But the moment online education moves from an optional to the only form of learning, and that too long term, the bad and the ugly slowly become evident. India is beginning to get a taste of this now.

The Bad

Using the internet for entertainment is common, but for online lessons is a big challenge. Teachers may not be well-versed in creating digital content and conveying it effectively online. A sudden expectation from them to upgrade, and from students to adapt, is unfair.

Body language and eye contact, which are important cues for the teacher, are difficult to perceive in an online class. “I do not receive continual feedback in the form of students' reactions during online sessions, which reduces the effectiveness of teaching”, says a college teacher in suburban Mumbai. How many students have paid attention in a class? Of those, how many understood the lesson? Is the teaching pace alright? Are some students getting left behind? These questions arise even in traditional classrooms, but they are harder to address in online classes. A parent of an 8-year-old attending a private school in Gurgaon says, “There shouldn’t be online classes for such young kids. Their concentration span is small and they do not pay attention after a while.” The 8-year-old added, “I hate them (online classes)!”

Even college students seem to value the in-class physical learning experience much more than a virtual one. Many acknowledge that phones can be very distracting. In addition, science and technology programs often include hands-on laboratory sessions, dissertation projects and field trips to complement theoretical studies. This aspect of learning is severely limited in online education.

Finally, education is not just about subject knowledge but also about developing social skills and sportsmanship among the students, which is built over years. Relying solely on online education may hinder the holistic development of children, and many may underperform later in their professional and personal lives.

The Ugly

While India enjoys a wide geographic and cultural diversity, it also suffers from a huge socio-economic divide. Only a small part of the Indian population has access to online education right now. Interrupted power supply, weak or non-existent internet connectivity, and unaffordability to buy necessary devices are major concerns. “In a Class of 40 students, after two months of online classes, around 20 students regularly attend class with whatever device and connection they have. Around 5-8 students are completely absent to date and the rest are fluctuating”, says a school teacher in Ratnagiri in Maharashtra. A teacher in a government-aided school from the small town of Chamba in Himachal Pradesh says, “It is a frustrating experience to engage students of lower classes in online mode. There are network issues on both teachers’ and students’ ends”.

To deal with internet connectivity and device availability issues, 'classes' in many places are happening via sharing of videos by teachers over WhatsApp or YouTube so that students can watch them at their convenience. This too, however, comes with difficulties in understanding the lessons and promotes rote learning. The same is true of pre-recorded sessions aired on the television (e.g., Swayam Prabha DTH channels) and radio (audio lessons, through All India Radio), although they do cater to a wider student population that cannot avail live online classes.

That is not all. With limitations of livelihood in a family, the first ones to receive a blow are often girls. In a recent survey of 733 students studying in government schools in Bihar, only 28% of the girls had smartphones in their homes, in contrast to 36% of the boys. These smartphones almost always belonged to male adults, often being lesser accessible to girls than boys, and half of these families could not afford internet data packages. Therefore, lessons aired on television were the main option for a majority of the students participating in this survey. However, girls were found to spend a disproportionately longer time on household chores than boys, which often overlapped with the time of telecast of these lessons. Such gaps in education could worsen the already wide gender gap in employment in India.

Students with disabilities are among the most dependent on in-person education and hence least likely to benefit from distance learning. A survey by Swabhiman (an NGO working mainly in Odisha), in association with the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People, indicated that 73% of the students with disabilities had concerns regarding the availability of study material in appropriate formats. Also, 79% of their teachers were apprehensive about teaching effectively without the use of touch to students with learning disorders, autism and low vision. The lack of effective education may further aggravate the high dropout rates of these children from schools (nearly 50% pre-COVID) in developing countries.

Uniform and effective online education in India - what is being done and what more is possible?

There is a global recognition of the need for inclusive education policies during the pandemic. To make online education more effective, accessible and safer, various online resources (links listed below), training programs and schemes have been developed by the Government of India for students, teachers and educational institutions. The teaching community has come together to form a nationwide informal and voluntary network of teachers, called the Discussion Forum of Online Teaching (DFOT), to discuss different aspects of online teaching, and create repositories of essential resources.

Cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) could open new possibilities for innovative and personalized approaches catering to different learning abilities. IIT Kharagpur has collaborated with Amazon Web Services to develop the National AI Resource Platform (NAIRP), the future possibilities of which include monitoring eye movement, motion and other parameters for better teaching and learning. Google has also indicated future support for AI-based education in India.

Parting thoughts

Online education opens up a lot of possibilities for students and teachers alike. Yet, it may also widen the inequalities in the socio-economic fabric of India. All our policies and interventions with regard to online education should strive to be inclusive. Good vision, sincere efforts and time will show India the way ahead.

As part of their internal assessment, students were given an online assignment, which was uploaded on the Google Classroom. Soon afterwards, 25 students from a class of 45 complained of inability to register into the Classroom, and/or download or hand-in the assignment. The reasons given were varied, from residing in a remote area with no internet availability, or not having a computer, to being unable to navigate through the software and access the materials. This is the ‘digital divide’ where everyone does not have equal access to the digital technology.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the shutting down of schools and colleges with no clear reopening date have necessitated education to be conducted remotely. This has brought into prominence the concerns of digital divide that had always existed, but not so much acknowledged, for education was not chiefly digital until this time. The gravity of its impact on the students, and education at large, could be felt when a 14-year-old girl, daughter of a daily-wage worker, committed suicide after missing an online class, or when a class 10 student in Kolkata ended her life, apparently because she could not join online classes as she did not have a smartphone. Unfortunate situations like these compel us to consider digital education not as an isolated sector, but intricately intertwined with the socio-economic status of the stakeholders.

This article delves into the ‘blockers’ that are hindering the acquisition of equitable digital education. It also discusses some measures – the ‘enablers’ – that have been or can be undertaken to address these issues.

Blockers

The prerequisites to digital education are uninterrupted supply of electricity and good internet connectivity. Despite government dashboards indicating that 99.9% of households in India have power supply (Saubhagya), the number of hours of power availability per day is highly varied and thus poses an impediment to the dissemination of quality digital education. Around 16% of the rural households receive only 1-8 hours of electricity daily, 33% receive for 9-12 hours, and only 47% receive electricity for more than 12 hours a day (Mission Antyodaya 2017-18).

Further, internet connectivity imposes limitations. To ensure smooth online education, an internet connection not only needs to be accessible, but also uninterrupted and high speed, and complimented by suitable gadgets. However, due to socio-economic limitations, weaker sections are neither able to subscribe to high-speed broadband internet, nor buy smartphones or laptops. According to the National Sample Survey 75^th Round report, only about 15% of the rural and 42% of the urban households in the country have internet facility. Only 11% of the households (rural and urban combined) have some form of computer (desktop, laptop and tablet etc. excluding smartphones). Smartphone penetration in India increased by 15% from 2018, according to a report by the market research firm, TechArc. However, the numbers are still low, adding to the inequity in digital education.

Sometimes, slow internet is not due to technical or economical limitations, but due to political reasons. In Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, network connectivity is restricted to 2G, making it difficult for students to download or upload material or attend live classes via video conferencing. Regional disparity in internet connectivity has a pronounced impact as students in Universities come from various parts of the country.

Besides accessibility, the lack of technical know-how of digital technology also widens the gulf. From creating/curating online content to sharing, accessing and evaluating it, non-familiarity of the students as well as teachers with the digital tools puts the focus on learning the tool than on the learning objectives of the lesson. This perturbs the engagement between students and teachers, which is challenging in itself in a virtual environment.

Enablers

To advance equitable digital education as a right, all the stakeholders must attempt to bridge the gap of ‘digital divide’ by addressing the challenges discussed above. Government of India (GoI), in a joint initiative with State Governments called 24 X 7 - Power For All, aimed to provide 24 X 7 electricity to all households by 2019. However, it could not be achieved due to the debt burden on the power distribution companies. To counter this, GoI announced that it is devising a consumer-centric electricity distribution plan to ensure round-the-clock power for all. The availability of uninterrupted electricity, when achieved, could facilitate equity in digital education. Additionally, exploring off-grid energy such as solar technology for powering households and internet will be very useful particularly in rural communities.

Internet growth in India is associated with the mobile phone penetration. Declining data rates and availability of cheap handsets made the growth story mobile-first. However, 3G/4G LTE connections are not sufficient for applications such as videoconferencing that require high-speed and low-latency connectivity. GoI launched BharatNet project, which is the world’s largest rural broadband connectivity program. It offers subsidized high-speed internet connectivity in rural areas and helps people access essential online services including education. The project timeline has been pushed to August 2021, and once complete, it aims to provide access to bandwidth in a non-discriminatory manner to all eligible service providers to enable them to provide services in rural areas.

The government should take cues from countries like UK and deploy 4G Wi-Fi routers for students in disadvantaged communities. Further, additional funds should be allocated to public educational institutions, public libraries, Common Service Centres and post offices towards purchasing Wi-Fi routers and internet-connected devices. These measures will allow greater coverage of free or subsidized internet connectivity to otherwise under-connected areas.

Providing digital devices such as, laptops, smartphones etc. at subsidized rates to the students constitute another step towards lessening the inequity in digital education. A link can be generated between corporates and educational institutes. Periodically, corporate companies have to upgrade their digital devices. Rather than just dumping the old ones and adding onto the e-waste, they can be refurbished and used for educational purposes. DonateYourPc.in or Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) are running such initiatives, and accept personal donations too. The World Bank is actively working with education ministries of many countries to support their efforts to provide equitable remote learning opportunities for students through various approaches.

For productive adoption of digital technology in education, digital literacy also needs attention. Many Teaching Learning Centres (TLCs) under Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya National Mission on Teachers and Teaching (PMMMNMTT) conduct faculty development programs covering digital pedagogy that combines digital skills with core principles of teaching-learning process. Such programs can produce a ripple-effect and the trained teachers can then train their fellow colleagues. Students should also be nurtured through such programs to develop a positive attitude towards digital technology, acquire basic proficiency to engage with digital tools, display safe online behaviors, and follow cyber-security protocols.

Digital education is here to stay. Thus, it is imperative to understand and be sensitive towards the digital disparity. Careful planning measures will have to be adopted to address these inequities. Closing the gap appears difficult due to its multi-faceted nature, but each step we take will bring us closer to attaining equitable digital education for all.

If you are teaching in higher education, I have a question for you—how much of your teaching is guided by research on how to teach? While most of the approaches used in research in any field are based on previous research, teaching decisions that most college teachers make are not quite based on science education research and considered greatly subjective. This has given rise to a multitude of misconceptions about how to teach effectively. In this article, I will share some research-based teaching decisions that will help achieve the goals we have for our students.

A large proportion of college science teaching remains ineffective-often leading to cascading impacts on the national research output. The problem with most of our teaching today actually is our approach, and not goals. Most professors are clearly not inclined to ruin the learning experience for their students. They, in fact, want students to think critically, understand the subject content, develop analytical skills, communicate well, and be better citizens. Teachers are met with several barriers and concerns when they try to meet these goals. Here are three common concerns, which can be overcome using research-based approaches.

How do I get my students to respond and interact?

By behaving with them differently! Here are two among many ways in which you can do that.

1) Watch your questions: Let's say you are teaching the concept of ecological succession. The first thing you may instinctively ask (assuming you ask questions at all) is either ‘Have you heard about succession?’ or ‘What do you know about succession?’ In the first case, you would get some indistinct nods. In the second, usually, you would be met with silence, which is bound to make you wonder why this happens. The first question requires binary thinking (a yes/no answer), whereas, by asking the second, you are mistakenly assuming that students already know about the succession concept. Now, if you are planning to pose questions requiring an extended answer later, don't use these binary questions as ladders- they simply provide no material to build on. Instead, go for the ‘why’/‘how’ questions right at the start. For example, you can frame the same question as ‘How do you think might an abandoned agricultural field look like after 10, 50 and 100 years?’ Education research shows that a great way to explain concepts is by using a series of well-crafted extended answer questions and building on student ideas. For example, in this case, asking students ‘why’ questions for the responses to the first question, and then discussing these mechanisms is an effective way to explain the concept.

2) Silence matters: If you are asking questions, all the right ones, and your students are still not speaking up, it probably means you need to stop talking! Pausing enough after you ask questions leads to miracles. Not only will you get more students to talk, you will also usually get the shy ones to interact. Waiting shows that you actually care for an answer. How much should you wait? Research shows most teachers pause for less than a second after asking a question, and pausing for at least 3-5 seconds is recommended. So try pausing after you ask a question, and also after a student completes their reply to your question (this is way harder).

A wonderful tool to understand how effective our verbal behaviour is, is to record any 15-minute section of your teaching and SATIC-code it (Figure 1). You would be surprised to know how much you overestimate your wait time! Comparing our verbal patterns with research-based ideal patterns helps to evaluate if we are getting better at promoting our goals.

How well do students learn through ‘self-learning’?

Turns out, not quite well. If that were the case, we simply wouldn’t have taken centuries to figure out that the earth wasn’t flat! Over the years we have understood quite a lot about how people learn. One of the most effective ways is by addressing students’ prior misconceptions about the subject and constructing meaningful activities that help them change their prior ideas. As an aside, simply engaging in ‘hands-on’ teaching does not guarantee that students learn well.

In my lectures, I have explained the idea that grasslands are ancient and slow to recover once destroyed, in the following way. First, working in groups, I ask my students to give me a value in years they think it would take for a tropical forest to recover completely once destroyed (showing an image of a forest). I calculate the class average, put it up on the board, jotting down their reasons. Then, I repeat the same steps, but with an image of a grassland instead of a forest. Typically, students think forests take centuries and grasslands hardly a few decades to recover. I then present evidence that directly contradicts these misconceptions to show that grasslands too take centuries to assemble.

How can we identify an effective teacher?

Effective teaching can only be identified if you see your decisions (behaviour, strategies and activities) promoting the goals you have for your students (some listed in the second paragraph), and if these decisions are guided by what we know about how people learn.

How do we currently identify effective teaching? First, we recruit professors on the basis of subject tests (NET) and/or a PhD. Neither of these indicates how well the candidate can teach something that a professor is primarily hired to do. Then, we assess professors based on years/courses taught: how long one teaches has no correlation with how effectively one teaches. Lastly, we also use student evaluations as a metric. To promote their goals, an effective teacher tries to change students’ deep-seated prior misconceptions, which can be a stressful and uncomfortable experience for students. Contrast this with a teacher who simply lectures and doesn’t do any of that. Students typically love the latter and hate the former. Now you can predict how the evaluations for these two teachers would look, and appreciate how faulty a metric this is. For assessing teaching efficiency, we must, therefore, use a research-based framework (which also includes metrics derived from the SATIC coding) that evaluates how closely our teaching decisions align with our goals.

Agreeably, the present system we have is not the best. But, it’s important to understand the ideal way you would like to teach, and then try to follow that as much as you can. Instead of trying out different unscientific ‘recipes’ for teaching, science education research will provide you with an ideal direction. You would never try out random recipes for your research, so why do that for your teaching? Implementing this is surely not an easy task, but if one has a strong motivation to teach effectively, there are quite a few tricks of the trade available.

Online education and on-demand education are the need of the hour and the future of higher education. E-teaching is a technology-based virtual pedagogy with a potent role in transforming higher education. A very famous quote of Alvin Toffler, an American writer and futurist who discussed the digital and the communication revolution and their effects on cultures worldwide, is now universally accepted in the field of education- “The literate of the 21st Century will not be those who can read and write but those who can learn, unlearn and relearn.” Teachers need to unlearn the old teaching pedagogy and relearn the more creative digital teaching method for the holistic development of our students to make them better citizens.

Online teaching is unbiased and fits with the time and pace of all the students. Not only in the current COVID-19 pandemic scenario but for the betterment of higher education, more hands-on teachers’ training programs on information and communication technology (ICT) and Massive Open Online Course (MOOCs) are required. Equally important is the participation of teachers in such programs.

Here, I am sharing my views on the role of ICT and MOOCS in transforming higher education with specific emphasis on the modular object-oriented dynamic learning environment (MOODLE) platform.

Need for Online Education and Govt. of India Initiatives

ICT competency is important for both teachers and students for better communication, learning, and assessment processes. In the current scenario as well as in the future, the process of teaching needs to be “blended” with video lectures and online study materials to make it more interactive for the students.

ICT competency can help in including blended and flipped learning methods in both online and offline classrooms. Blended learning can be both offline and online with additional study materials complementing the regular classroom teaching. It can help in achieving face-to-face classroom interactions based on available or self-generated online materials.

In the flipped learning pedagogical approach, the students can access the online educational resources beforehand, transforming the classroom learning into a more dynamic, creative, and interactive environment. ICT competency will also improve the ability to search open educational resources (OERs) (freely available to the public, or under Creative Commons licence) like good videos, good audio, images, etc., and bring these e-contents to the classroom. This will also encourage the teacher to become an educator as well as a counsellor.

To accomplish this, various Government institutes in India, with funding from MHRD, have initiated several digital programs. Such initiatives include the National Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT) by IIT Bombay, the National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) by seven IITs (Bombay, Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras, Guwahati, and Roorkee) and IISc, Bangalore, ePathshala by NCERT, Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM)- a (MOOC) platform, Swayam Prabha (a group of 32 DTH channels devoted to telecasting of high-quality educational programs 24X7 basis using the GSAT-15 satellite) , National digital library of India (developed by IIT Kharagpur), National Academic Depository and Spoken Tutorial (developed at IIT Bombay).

MOOCs are very structured courses providing high-quality education, open for all: anytime, anyone, anywhere, with mass enrollment and open access using the IT system. MOOCs offered across the world consist of platforms that are free as open-source or paid closed platforms. The Indian government is promoting the use of freely available open-source MOOCs platforms. Anyone can learn free of cost without registration, but to get a certificate the student needs to be registered under the course. A large number of MOOC platforms exist across the world. Some of the most popular MOOC platforms are edX, Coursera, Khan Academy, Udemy, Canvas, FutureLearn, Udacity, The Open University and our indigenous digital initiative SWAYAM. However Moodle is one of the best MOOC platforms for blended learning.

MOODLE - A Perfect MOOC platform for Online Teaching for Higher Education

Moodle is an open-source and community-driven platform with over 150,000 implementations around the world, and over 200 million learners using it (as of 15^th June, 2020) . Moodle is the preferred platform for our technologically skillful post-graduate students due to its feature set, flexibility, intuitive and supportive environment, and its customisable nature. It has few limitations and endless possibilities. It is equally good for the slow and fast learners as they can learn at their own time and pace. Utilizing solutions such as virtual classrooms, gamification, and other methods can help create more dynamic courses and positively impact the engagement and overall success of your learners.

Moodle has several plug-ins and modules to increase student’s engagement and success in higher education.

Instant messaging and message alerts provide faster and efficient ways to get in touch with peers and teachers. Moodle portal of the teacher can be used for enrolling students, make attendance lists, create courses, deliver learning materials, give quizzes, send feedback, and much more.

Moodle blog is one of the activity modules that can be used for discussions anytime. A post along with commenting parameters can be set up by the teacher, which allows the students to comment at their own time within the set limit. Besides, Moodle encourages collaborative teamwork through discussions, forums, and messaging, allowing students to work together, share ideas, and ask/answer questions, which ultimately fine-tunes their work with the help of their peers. On the other hand, the lesson module in Moodle provides a method of adaptive and independent learning wherein the presentation as well as the questions can be customized for each student.

In Moodle, the learning materials and supplementary resources in the form of OERs, an essential component of higher education, can easily be uploaded and shared to complete the coursework and assignments, which can be accessed by the students as and when allowed by the teachers. Every student consistently receives access to all types of content and can also give feedback using comprehensive tools in Moodle. Further, the assignment can be submitted by the students and graded at any designated time by the teacher based on the pre-established criteria, whenever it is convenient and suits their busy schedules.

Moodle accommodates flexible learning as it is compatible with most devices, including smartphones, tablets, and laptops. The most important advantage of Moodle in higher education is that it can be integrated with existing systems and the institution can effectively keep all administrative and instructional activities more streamlined and organized.

On-demand education is the future of education. A student from any institution should have the opportunity to get registered for an online course from any other University, and also get credit for it. This will enable the students to develop themselves without the need for extra financial burden of coaching centers. A teacher can never be replaced. So rather than considering it as a threat, Universities need to be transformed to provide an online collaborative education system to empower educators to raise the standards of higher education in India.

MOOCs are an efficient mode of higher education providing creative learning, free education, increased participation, and open access for anyone, anytime. Besides, it is also believed that with the decreased cost of IT services, MOOCs will positively affect our economy by reducing the costs of teaching. It is quite possible that, in the future, faculties are also assessed and rated based on the student’s feedback using any MOOCs platform. Thus, in a democratic and developing country like India, MOOCs would certainly pave the way forward for higher education.

I was recently reminiscing about the year 2015- the year when I became aware of the importance of digital tools in teaching. An advanced week-long course in digital literacy at Edinburgh College, Scotland introduced me to a variety of digital tools that could be used in pedagogy. Thanks to the course, my digital toolkit was no longer limited to just PowerPoint presentations. I strongly felt the power of “anywhere, anytime” learning. On my return from Edinburgh, I quickly organized “Digital Literacy Teacher Training” at Ramjas College, University of Delhi. I wanted not only to disseminate the acquired knowledge to my colleagues but also to infuse new energy into the customary pedagogy. To my disappointment, few matched my enthusiasm. Many of the participants found digital literacy intimidating as it appeared to threaten their professional existence.

Even now, 5 years later, the employment of digital aids in pedagogy is very limited and faces many challenges. Apart from the not-so-receptive-to-change mindset of the stakeholders, inclusion and the spread of digital tools in pedagogy are hindered by ‘digital drought’- the scarcity of infrastructure and resources for digital dissemination of knowledge. Joined with it is the low digital literacy of both the students as well as teachers. Though they may be well accustomed to technology, they have limited to no knowledge of how to use it in learning. For some teachers, not being very tech-savvy adds another layer of complexity.

Today, however, we find ourselves in midst of a crisis - the global outbreak of COVID-19, and a nationwide lockdown to contain its spread. This has necessitated the teaching-learning process to run remotely. The only way for teachers and students to interact is through digital platforms. The medium that was once considered just an aid and accessory has suddenly become the only option available. It’s a time of ‘digital awakening’ in education.

Here, I list some free (with restrictive usage) and open-source digital platforms and tools (most of them are tried and tested) that can help during these challenging times to keep us connected with our students and ensure uninterrupted bidirectional teaching and learning.

Learning Management Systems (LMS) - Many schools, colleges and institutions have LMS in place. It is basically a virtual ecosystem of academic staff, students, management, as well as the institution’s IT department that supports the development, delivery, assessment, and management of courses. For the ones who do not have LMS platforms, Moodle or Canvas can be employed. Teachers can set up “Courses” – workspaces where they can add learning resources, enroll students, disseminate information, assess learning (grading), communicate, interact and co-create content. Activities such as populating a wiki, generating a glossary, developing information databases, and discussion forums allow students to attain higher-order thinking skills in analyzing, evaluating and creating information.

Online Classroom - For simpler, day-to-day class activities, Google Classroom comes in very handy. The platform can be used for making announcements, sharing resources, collecting assignments and grading. One can sign in with a non-institutional google account, create a classroom, share the classroom code with students who then join the class, and that’s it. You are good to go.

Live Class - Nothing can beat the face-to-face live interaction of a classroom. This can be achieved virtually by video conferencing, for which platforms such as Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom are available.

G Suite for Education and Office 365 run Google Meet and Microsoft Teams, respectively, for free for schools/colleges through the institution’s administration. In case one wants to run a virtual class personally, Zoom comes in handy which offers to host a meeting of up to 100 participants with 40 min limit on group meetings (for the time being, the 40 min time limit for educational institutes has been lifted due to the COVID-19 crisis). During the live class, features supported by these platforms such as “Share Screen” for making the slides visible to the students, as well as “In-meeting Chat” for students to type in their questions/doubts can be used.

While Google Meet and Microsoft Teams are safer to use when run by institutions, there have been security issues with Zoom meetings. The Cyber Coordination Centre (CyCord), under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), has issued an advisory on the secure use of the Zoom Meeting Platform by private individuals, which should be followed.

Pre-recorded Video Lectures – If it’s not feasible to run live classes, lectures can be pre-recorded and shared with students. High-quality lecture videos are recorded in recording studios where proper lighting, good microphones, better cameras, and technical experts are present. After recording, the videos are edited and then made available on YouTube. Video lectures can also be recorded personally with a mobile or camcorder (choosing a quiet place, neat background, microphone close to the mouth and blocking off all natural light). They can be edited using video editing tools (the simplest being the Windows Movie Maker) and uploaded on personal YouTube channels, which can then be integrated into LMS, or shared on Google Classroom. Indeed, one doesn’t have to record lectures but can also use/share pre-recorded lectures available online under the Creative Commons(CC) copyright licenses.

Online Courses/Live Lectures/Online Learning Resources - Major enforcement of digitalization in the Indian education sector came in the year 2017 when the Government of India launched SWAYAM, SWAYAM Prabha and National Academic Depository (NAD). Subsequently, the National Digital Library of India (NDLI), which hosts 47,917,213 learning resources (as of 21 April 2020), was launched in the year 2018. The resources include books, theses, audio and video lectures, etc.

SWAYAM is a Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) initiative. Nine national coordinators have been appointed to produce and deliver the courses. I have been associated for the past 5 years with one of the Centers, Consortium for Educational Communication (CEC), for undergraduate education. In addition to the SWAYAM courses, CEC makes content for the Vyas Higher Education Channel and manages 10 SWAYAM Prabha DTH channels for 24X7 learning. The live lectures broadcasted on the Vyas channel are uploaded on YouTube for “anytime, anywhere” learning. Their nationwide appeal can be estimated by the acknowledgement I got for one of my lectures on YouTube (recorded in Delhi) from a student in Bhubaneshwar when I went there to attend a conference.

According to a 2017 study by Google and KPMG, India – one of the leading providers of financial and business advisory among its various other roles – online education in India is expected to grow from 0.25 billion USD (2016) to 1.96 billion USD by 2021, with a 52% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR). The growth drivers of online education are its cost-effectiveness, availability of quality education to potential students, increased internet penetration, and growing smartphone user base, to mention a few. Digital literacy thus becomes an important skill to be acquired to harness the potential of online education fully.

The list of tools described here is not exhaustive and there is a plethora of such platforms/tools that can be utilized in education. I shall write about more digital tools in my next article. May we consider these challenging times as an opportunity to digitally update pedagogy so that when we are re-installed after the crisis is over, we come forth as technology-enabled, improved versions of ourselves – Charu Dogra Rawat 2.0.

Please tell us a bit about your journey so far in academia.

I taught Botany at Miranda House (University of Delhi) for a short while after completing my Masters in Botany from the University of Delhi. During this time, I wrote the Agricultural Research Service exam (ARS), got selected and then spent around 11 years in Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) doing mariculture and environmental monitoring. Although I learnt a great deal about the system there, somehow, it was not working for me. So, I started applying to universities abroad for PhD.

I got admission to the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department at the University of Arizona, where I did my PhD on monocot phylogenetics and evolution. After my PhD, I got a Katherine Esau Postdoctoral Fellowship to do research in Evolutionary Developmental Biology at the University of California, Davis.

In 1997, I was offered a job at Stony Brook University where I taught general biology and plant diversity to undergraduates, and phylogenetics and related subjects to post-graduate students. After spending around 12 years in Stony Brook, I shifted to my alma mater- Department of Botany, University of Delhi in 2009. I taught evolutionary biology and phylogenetic biology to post-graduate students here as well.

What prompted you to shift to your Alma mater (University of Delhi) from Stony Brook University?

It was more that I had never intended to stay that long in the US. After I finished my PhD and during my post-doc, I looked for jobs both in India and the US, but there were few openings here. So, when I got good offers in the US, I stayed there. Overall, it was an exciting 20 years and I grew a lot as a scientist and a teacher. However, then I found that research money was drying up in general, and shifting towards “Big Science” i.e. large collaborative projects, something I did not find comfortable. I seriously started thinking about coming back to India. I informed my friends of my intention and visited India several times in those years. So, when my good friend Shanti Balakrishnan told me about the job at the University of Delhi, I jumped at it (not without misgivings), and never regretted the decision.

Based on your experience, what pedagogical tools do you think work best in classrooms? Do you find any differences in pedagogical tools used by teachers in India and the US?

I think it has to be a mixture of lectures, reading, discussion, practicals, and projects.

The Botany Department has a strong tradition of laboratory component in every course, and I must have internalized this approach. At Stony Brook, I crafted an undergraduate course on Plant Diversity and consciously devised different activities to entice students into the study of plants. I required students to do two short plant projects. The first was one where students would grow a plant, look after it, monitor it and then write a report on it. The second was on secondary metabolites where they would research in the library and on the internet, make posters and present their findings. Students researched about morphine, marijuana, etc., because they are attracted to things like that! I had to then reorient them to thinking about why it was important for the plants to produce them and not how we use these metabolites. The attempt was to make them think in a broader biological context.

I had post-graduate students do similar projects in the Botany Department at the University of Delhi. I saw that students found those activities exciting. However, I think that everything cannot be taught through engagement or what is called active learning, it definitely has to be combined with the classical lecture mode. This is because different students have different ways of learning.

On the difference between the methodology used by teachers in the US and India, one cannot generalize things. There are some teachers in the US who would try to make their lectures more fun and engaging and you find such teachers in India as well. It also depends on the number of students in a class. If there are around 200 or more students in the class, it is difficult to teach in activity mode whereas if the number is low, a teacher can more easily resort to such tools.

Our knowledge in the field of biology is increasing at a rapid pace. Which courses do you think one can add to our curriculum to make biological programs more exciting and relevant?

That must be a loaded question! Evolutionary biology, of course! It is the most neglected area. Well, I'm not suggesting a full program, although that's not a bad idea either. What I would want is introducing evolutionary biology as a unit or course at the undergraduate level in botany and zoology.

At the undergraduate level, evolutionary biology is limited to a few topics such as Darwinism, Lamarckism, genetic drift and Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, which students are unable to connect. The main reason I feel that evolutionary biology should be taught to everyone and in a proper manner is that, literally, things make no sense "except in the light of evolution”. With the present explosion of genomic data, students are doing large genome comparisons and will do a better job of interpreting results if they have knowledge of evolutionary principles underlying this variation.

Do you think networking is important in teaching as it is in research? How can one benefit from such networking?

I think that “good” teachers independently come to the same or similar approaches as those promoted by researchers of pedagogy; several of us definitely benefit from learning about these techniques from other teachers. A faculty often has to teach multiple subjects in which they do not specialize. In such cases, teacher networking groups where teachers can exchange ideas can be beneficial. I think we should have some starting conferences which can then expand into discussion groups.

A group of science enthusiasts based in Chennai are changing the way biology is taught in schools. Cambrionics Life Science – an educational enterprise founded by five 20-somethings – has reached over 3000 students since its inception in 2018. At the core of their operation is Teaching Alternate Biological Science (T.A.B.S), a research-based learning programme in biology. T.A.B.S mainly targets upper-primary and high school students, and to some extent, undergraduate students, to spark their curiosity for biology.

“I remember how I studied biology back in my school. We only had theory classes, where we were taught things from the textbook,” says Raghul Jaganathan, Chief Administrative Officer, Cambrionics. “I visited my school some years later and saw that it was still taught in the same way.” The founders of Cambrionics wanted to change this traditional format of teaching biology. The laboratory courses and the projects they pursued in their undergraduate studies made them wonder why such research-based learning models should not be introduced in schools. “I started working with the zebrafish model in my second year of B. Tech and was fascinated by it. Around the same time, I also came across BIOEYES – a European outreach group that teaches biology using zebrafish. This really inspired the concept of T.A.B.S,” Sudharshan V, Chief Executive Officer, Cambrionics, says. “We then improvised by adding other model organisms in the subsequent modules,” he adds.

T.A.B.S nurtures the role of a student in learning. The program encourages students to ask questions, experiment and seek answers to their questions by themselves. All the sessions are held on weekends and cover themes like microbiology, cell biology, genetics, astrobiology, forensic biology, toxicology, neurobiology, developmental biology, hydroponics, aquaponics and farming. Participants learn through hands-on experiments using different model systems including zebrafish, Drosophila, microbes, and plants. They also learn through activities like field trips, games, theatre, and puppetry.

The T.A.B.S programmes include weekend workshops, summer and winter camps, and a year-long research programme that is broken down into beginner, intermediate and advanced-level modules. While the beginner level intends to inspire students and ignite a passion for biology, the intermediate level aims to develop critical thinking, and the advanced level exposes them to career opportunities in biology and encourages them to develop scientific solutions to a given problem.

With a catchy colloquial title, one of the weekend workshop modules, Vanakkam Biology (Hello Biology) seems to be the crowd puller. This module, which has now reached 1300 kids in Tamil Nadu and 50 kids in Germany, gives the participants a glimpse of the world of biology. They are taught a bunch of things:to build a microscope using household amenities, to culture microbes on a dish containing a nutrient medium, to isolate DNA from fruits and vegetables, and the concept of regeneration using the zebrafish model. Forensic biology is another module that attracts a lot of students. Some of the modules of T.A.B.S cover concepts from the NCERT syllabus for high school biology. And some experiments, like the isolation of DNA are also present in undergraduate-level biology.

The participants of T.A.B.S. workshops seem to love the hands-on learning experience. “I can never forget the day I saw the heart of a zebrafish beat. This was the best session I ever had in my school days and I love biology more than ever,” says Janane N, Grade 12 student, SRM Nightingale School, Chennai, who attended a T.A.B.S workshop.

Parents and teachers also seem to be inclined to send their wards to these programmes. Many have also noted that their wards’ interest in studying biology and science, in general, had improved after a workshop. “I must say this is a very innovative camp. My daughter discusses whatever she learns in the workshop very elaborately and she has developed a keen interest in biology. I think this activity-based learning is very effective for children,” says Jasmine Mary, whose daughter attended a T.A.B.S. weekend workshop.

Impressed by the T.A.B.S pedagogy, some schools in Chennai have partnered with Cambrionics to conduct the year-long T.A.B.S research programme in their schools. The partner schools include Pupil Saveetha Eco School, RMK Residential School, SRM Nightingale school, The Little Kingdom Senior School and Ebenezer Higher Secondary Matriculation School. “T.A.B.S. workshop was indeed a comprehensive hands-on experience for our students. My students enjoyed the real-life connect that the mentors offered,” Sujatha Kannan, Principal, The Little Kingdom Senior School, says.

The workshops are facilitated by volunteers who are trained by the core team of Cambrionics. The volunteers are mostly undergraduate or postgraduate students in biology and allied subjects with a flair for science outreach. T.A.B.S. mentors help students perform experiments and learn from them. “My experience as a T.A.B.S. mentor has so many incredible moments. The programme has enhanced me as a student and a mentor and has transformed me into a person who believes that ‘as you teach, you will learn’. Being a T.A.B.S. mentor has also helped me academically as it has strengthened my basics in the subject,” says Aswini Sai Balaji, a T.A.B.S. mentor.

Cambrionics also conducts hands-on learning workshops for undergraduate students, mostly as sessions in technical fests. The Investigate Forensics workshop conducted at the IIT Madras Biofest was one such workshop in which 160 college students from across Tamil Nadu participated.

In its one and a half years of operation, Cambrionics has set the stage for a new pedagogy for teaching biology. The model shows great results in school kids and undergraduate students. T.A.B.S. model serves well to maximize learning with minimal infrastructure. This model could be an excellent tool for undergraduate educators in biology to get their point across in a tangible way.

Vinita Gowda, an Associate Professor at the Department of Biological Sciences-Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Bhopal, loves to do this exercise with her audience only to be disheartened by the response she gets. She puts up a photograph of Jurassic age (like the one above) and asks them what they see. “Dinosaur!” says the audience in unison. This is when Gowda breaks to them that they totally ignored the plants in the photograph and that they are suffering from a commonly occurring, but less commonly known disorder- “Plant Blindness”- the inability to appreciate the beauty and importance of plants in one’s surroundings.

A recently published research article in Nature Ecology & Evolution showed that a whopping number of plant species (~600) have gone extinct in the last 250 years, with India among the countries where the rate of extinction is high. Plants form the basis of every ecosystem and apathy towards plant life means that we will have fewer and fewer voices to speak for their conservation-a key to the sustainability of our planet. Educators like Gowda, and a few other organizations are pushing to put an end to this ignorance. Through public engagement and showcasing the beauty of plants, they are endeavoring to bring the green hue from the background into focus.

Some of the common reasons that people give for their disinterest towards plants are their stationary nature and a lack of colour variation (in non-flowering plants). Cognitive scientists say that people tend to overlook things that they see daily. There is more to the story though. “One other reason for the disconnect between plants and humans is rapid urbanization,” says Gowda, who observes that her students from rural backgrounds generally have more knowledge about plants than their urban classmates. She reasons that in villages, where the agricultural fields are nearby and the economy is dependent on agriculture, children tend to be closer to plants, whereas urban kids lack that connection. Media as well, she says, highlights the animals more than plants. A drop in the number of lions, elephants or tigers makes headlines, but not a decline in the number of plant species. One does not have an equivalent of “Animal Planet” for plants.

All these factors have contributed to the lack of enthusiasm towards plants, a clear indication of which is the declining rate of admissions to undergraduate Botany courses in the Western countries; a trend that may soon follow in the East.

Certainly, the problem of plant blindness exists. What can we do about it is the next question. In this regard, Gowda believes that recognizing the problem is the first step. If one can be shown that they are plant blind, then they may start observing and paying attention to the plants more often. She also emphasizes the need to create excitement around plants by showcasing their adaptive features, patterns, evolution, etc., as she does in her classes using peculiar photographs of plants.

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A curriculum that teaches about plants not only in the classroom but also engages students in interactions with plants can be a further step to cure plant blindness. One such endeavour is SeasonWatch, an India-wide citizen-science project in which enthusiasts study the flowering, fruiting and leaf-flush pattern of common trees. The project aims to fill the gaps in our understanding of how trees change with seasons and how climate change might be affecting them while encouraging people to bond with nature, says Geetha Ramaswami, Programme Manager of SeasonWatch. She says that the situation isn’t too bad in India, as kids do know about trees like Neem, Peepal, and Banyan due to their cultural importance. Even for other trees, it is a matter of pointing out and the students connect, says she. Currently, over 600+ schools and other 900+ curious individuals are registered with the project.

School-University connects where kids are taken to herbariums and allowed to interact with botanists can also help in this regard. To reach a larger audience, universities can organize shows, like the annual flower show arranged by the University of Delhi for the last sixty-two years. The exhibit is occasionally clubbed with other activities such as flower photography competition and other educational exhibits related to plant conservation, biodiversity, etc. so that people experience the beauty of plants and learn more about them. In higher education too, stress on plant ecology and evolutionary biology are needed. Gowda notes that plant research currently is limited to crop species and medicinal plants and further restricted to the investigation of a handful of traits that are deemed important to us. She believes that the studies on plant ecology, extinction of certain species and discovery of new plant species can only help achieve the objective of plant conservation.

Although the statistics on plant extinction in India are worrisome, slowly, people in urban areas are realizing the importance of plant diversity and are raising their voice against deforestation activities. The latest example is the public protest in Mumbai against cutting trees in the Aarey forest in 2019. Though similar to past environmental movements, such as the Bishnoi movement, Chipko Andolan, Save silent valley movement, Jungle Bachao Andolan and Appiko movement; the metropolitan location of this contemporary movement affirms the growing concern for plants and environment in the urban populace. It is high time that we understand that there is no visible future if we remain plant blind. The need of the hour, therefore, is to frequently provide ourselves and our children with doses of plant interaction, a vaccination for plant blindness!

She sat in a corner all blue and green

She was well behaved is all she could think

I wonder why no one asks me to sing

I know how to whistle and I know how to sting

They love the crickets, the ants and bees

The mighty tiger and flamingo wings

I wonder why I am so ignored…

(Some lines from the poem Chlorophyllous blues by Vinita Gowda)

PS: The author diagnosed herself with plant blindness while writing this article and is trying self-medication by observing, photographing and using google lens to identify plants in her vicinity.

For university educators, one of the goals is to develop disciplinary literacy - the ability to read, write and communicate ideas in the discipline - in our students. Students develop disciplinary literacy during in-class activities (especially active learning activities as described here) complemented by out-of-class activities including assigned readings.

Traditionally, educators in the sciences have assigned readings from textbooks or research articles whose primary purpose is to communicate information or ideas. However, these sources have been described as challenging for readers unfamiliar with the technical language (‘jargon’) and writing structure (such as the IMRAD structure of research papers) and are often written in the passive voice.

In comparison, popular science writing presents less technical writing in an active voice, and places greater emphasis on the relevant actors and their thoughts and actions. Popular non-fiction literature with complementary learning activities have been used for assignments in undergraduate courses on general biology, microbiology (here and here), genetics, neurobiology, sensation and perception, the biology of cancer, biochemistry, biotechnology, organic chemistry, and the nature of science.

In addition, one published study investigated the use of popular literature in a course on conservation biology wherein students read the book ‘Tigerland and other Unintended Destinations’ by Eric Dinerstein (Island Press, 2005). The authors found that students made connections between the reading and conservation concepts and practices discussed in class and regarded the characters as role models.

Interested to see how reading popular literature could facilitate student learning in my own courses but hesitant to assign a single book because of students’ varied interests, I planned a different approach.

I provided final year students studying the course ‘Conservation Biology’ during their Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies with a list of suitable books (ensuring close to equal proportions of male and female and national and international authors) available in the University library. However, they could also read a book from their personal collection.

My recommendations included the species-centric ‘From Soup to Superstar: The Story of Sea Turtle Conservation Along the Indian Coast’ by Kartik Shanker (HarperLitmus, 2015) and more species-diverse ‘The Vanishing: India’s Wildlife Crisis’ by Prerna Singh Bindra (Viking, 2017). Other books were place-based; ‘Nature in the City: Bengaluru in the Past, Present, and Future’ by Harini Nagendra (Oxford University Press, 2016) and ‘Islands in Flux: The Andaman and Nicobar Story’ by Pankaj Sekhasaria (HarperCollins Publishers India, 2017) encouraged students to consider familiar locations through a conservation lens.

Exploration of conservation experiences was possible through memoirs, such as ‘Running Away from Elephants: The Adventures of a Wildlife Biologist’ by Rauf Ali (Speaking Tiger Books, 2018), or fictional works, including ‘The Hungry Tide’ by Amitav Ghosh (HarperCollins Publishers, 2004). Books examining conservation practice, such as ‘The Big Conservation Lie: The Untold Story of Wildlife Conservation in Kenya’ by John Mbaria and Mordecai Ogada (Lens & Pens Press, 2016) and ‘Conservation from the Margins’ by Umesh Srinivasan and Nandini Velho (The Orient Blackswan, 2018) had the potential to inspire lively, but thoughtful, conversation and debate.

Students read at least one chapter a week and shared a 350-500 word reflection about how the content related to Conservation Biology course topics (including threats, population declines, and conservation actions) in an online class forum for everyone to read. Student reflections also contributed to their final grade for the course.

At mid-semester, students provided feedback on the activity using an anonymous survey and gave their consent for me to share the following responses. On a scale of ‘Very limited’ to ‘Excellent’, most students described their learning gains in building knowledge about concepts and applications in the discipline of conservation biology as ‘Strong’, and in relating course content to actual situations and making connections between conservation biology and other disciplines as ‘Excellent’. Students' self-assessed learning gains in these areas were greater than what they reported after other course assignments during which they read and summarised primary research literature.

However, the most valuable outcome of reading popular literature was beyond that of building knowledge about concepts and issues in conservation biology. Most students reported ‘Excellent’ learning gains in developing a personal understanding of challenges in the discipline, understanding the experiences of people working in conservation biology, and identifying skills such as photography which aid conservationists in their work. Of similar value to them was the development of a regular reading practice, albeit one that was hard to maintain at times when assessment was due for multiple courses.

In response to this feedback, I reduced the reading reflection requirement from weekly to fortnightly so as to maintain the sense of anticipation, interest, motivation, and engagement they described as the aspect of the activity they found the most rewarding. I did not want such positive emotions to be overwhelmed if the reading reflection became just another task to complete each week.

The students’ feedback indicated reading popular literature contributed to the development of both disciplinary literacy in conservation biology (as discussed here, here and here) and a community of learners as students referred each other to chapters they believed would be of interest to their peers or linked to topics and assessment for other courses. I plan to continue the reading and reflections (which contribute to their final grade) in future years and strongly encourage educators in other science courses and disciplines to consider how it might benefit their students.

Across the country, there is a growing momentum to transform the undergraduate research ecosystem to introduce undergraduate students to scientific enquiry, engage them in discovery-based science, and provide them with a comprehensive understanding of research opportunities. These changes include highlighting the need for course-based undergraduate research experiences, developing concrete and practical initiatives to bolster research at the college level, and introducing scientific writing and literature review as part of classroom teaching. So, where does the scientific and medical undergraduate research ecosystem in India stand today? What have been the tangible changes and gains? What should we identify as future priority areas?

In this article, four generations of scientists in India sit down for a round-table discussion and attempt to answer these questions and offer perspectives for the future. They come from varied educational backgrounds and have pursued (or are pursuing) their undergraduate degrees at different time periods with varied focus areas across basic science, medicine and biotechnology.

Smita S Zinjarde (SSZ), PhD, is Director, Institute of Bioinformatics and Biotechnology (IBB) and Head, Department of Microbiology, Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) (Formerly University of Pune). She did her BSc followed by a Masters’ in microbiology. A microbial biotechnologist with a career that has spanned over thirty years of research and teaching, she currently directs an Integrated Masters’ program at IBB.

Karishma S Kaushik (KSK) is a physician-scientist who, after her MBBS and MD, earned a PhD in a basic science research group. She currently leads an interdisciplinary research group at IBB, SPPU which studies infection microenvironments, and engages undergraduate students with independent research projects.

Snehal Kadam (SK) has a dual five-year BS-MS from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune. She currently works as a research assistant with Karishma S Kaushik. As part of her work, she actively guides undergraduate students in the group with their research projects.

Rupanwita Majumdar (RM) is a second-year student in the five-year Integrated Masters’ program at IBB, SPPU. She is looking forward to an undergraduate research experience to understand what science in the laboratory is like.

The Conversation

SSZ: I did my undergraduate degree in microbiology back in the late eighties. At the time, as much as we would have liked, we did not have a research project at the bachelor’s level in the curriculum, although we did have one at the Masters’ level. What was the research ecosystem like during your undergraduate studies?

SK: In my BS-MS dual degree program from 2013-2018, the curriculum in the advanced years (3rd and 4th years) did allow students to formally take up research projects in areas of interest. These projects could also be credited and in biology, were evaluated in part, by a poster presentation. This approach allowed me to participate actively in departmental research and honed my research presentation skills.

During this period, I was given a substantial amount of freedom to work in the laboratory, design experiments and execute them. I consider this opportunity to have played a major role in helping me understand what original, scientific research in the laboratory is like. The institute encouraged undergraduate participation in various scientific competitions, conferences and internships over the world. This led me to an internship in my 3rd year at the National University of Singapore, where I eventually did my master’s thesis.

However, given that I was at a predominantly research-focused institute, I wonder what the undergraduate research ecosystem is like at public universities and teaching institutes. Maybe Rupanwita can shed more light.

RM: Being a second-year student, I have not been a part of any research project so far. While I have been seeking opportunities for hands-on research internships, these opportunities require a commitment of at least two months, which often is not possible due to overlaps with the coursework. At IBB, SPPU, I will get this opportunity during the third-year project that is a part of the curriculum. This will be a one-year in-house research experience with regular evaluations, a final presentation and thesis submission. This is something I am looking forward to. Moreover, I am also excited about the final semester research project, for which I have the flexibility to work in a research laboratory of my choice in India or abroad.

KSK: This is heartening to see, Snehal and Rupanwita. With my background in the medical sciences, I bring a different angle to this. In my experience, as a medical student from 1999-2005, there were no provisions for research in the medical curriculum. Looking back, this was a huge lacuna in the education system, given the critical role that translational research plays in healthcare.

The primary focus of medical education will always be to train treating physicians. However, for medical advances, the system needs to build a resource of physician-scientists. Given that India has no formal MD-PhD dual degree programs, this complete lack of exposure to the basic sciences and research in medical education is limiting. I gained exposure to scientific research and laboratory skills during my MD in Clinical Microbiology, and that set me on the path to becoming a physician-scientist.

The undergraduate research ecosystem in India has improved since the late eighties, allowing more students to participate in research projects as part of the curriculum. However, medical education is still trailing behind when it comes to providing basic research opportunities to physicians in training.

SSZ: Since we had no formal research project in the Bachelors’ program, laboratory practical sessions were my first exposure to hands-on experiments. Do you think they contributed significantly to your understanding of science?

SK: Practical sessions were my first hands-on experience in the laboratory as well and they taught me to troubleshoot failed experiments. However, practicals often do not recapitulate all aspects of scientific research, get restricted to defined protocols, and could involve large numbers of students. Despite this, in my undergraduate training, some practical sessions were adaptive. I still remember our first biology practical, where we were asked to disassemble a microscope and put it back together again. This simple yet innovative task sparked a curiosity in the class, and maybe we could include more such discovery-based, open-ended experiments for practical classes.

I would think your practicals are also a fun, learning experience, Rupanwita?

RM: Yes, definitely. Till the second year, practical sessions are the only way we can perform hands-on experiments. I think that practicals are essential for students to learn basic experimental techniques and get well-versed in equipment handling. However, I would like to see them provide students with more individual exposure, in addition to group-based learning activities.

KSK: In medical college, laboratory practical sessions were detailed and informative, but often focused on replicating previously known results or experiments. While this was important to understand concepts, they should be extended further to include at least some component of discovery-based research. This would, albeit in a limited way, expose medical students to research tools such as designing experimental protocols, troubleshooting, analysing results and referring to original scientific literature.

Detailed and informative practical sessions are essential for students to learn basic experimental techniques and understand concepts; however, they need to be extended to include discovery-based research components and provide more individual exposure.

SSZ: It seems apparent from our discussion, that integrated courses offer research exposure to students at the undergraduate level, unlike previous conventional courses. In your opinion, what aspects can be further improved to leverage this advantage?

SK: For undergraduates, not only is learning hands-on research skills important, but it is also critical to develop scientific thinking to ask and answer scientific questions. For this, the curriculum could in some way enable undergraduates to follow a process where they play a role in framing a research question, understanding scientific literature related to the question, and finally designing experiments to answer the question. This would give students a more realistic glimpse of the research world. Would you agree, Rupanwita?

RM: I agree with you, Snehal. Based on feedback from my seniors, I feel that we undergraduates do not have an understanding of how research projects really work – for example, the timelines involved and the pros and cons of a certain model system or area of work. This would be very useful in helping us chart our career paths and decide our future research interests.

KSK: Given the complete lack of research exposure in the medical curriculum, we need to start with including a research component. Certain subjects lend themselves well for exposure to basic, applied or translational research, such as microbiology, immunology, pharmacology, pathology, biochemistry, and physiology. Creating a place in the curriculum to include a short-term research project in any of these areas could provide valuable exposure. This would train medical students to understand and probe a biological concept in detail, identify missing links and develop strategies to effectively fill such gaps. Further, doing this in collaboration with a basic research institute or university would provide exposure to original scientific research and enable cross-pollination of ideas.

The undergraduate research ecosystem can be further improved by introducing processes to help students develop scientific thinking in addition to learning hands-on research skills, and allowing medical students to perform short-term research projects in collaboration with basic research institutes or universities to probe biological concepts in detail.

Concluding insights and ways forward

SSZ: It is very encouraging to see this progress in the undergraduate research ecosystem. The recent trend towards integrated and dual degree programs provides the opportunity to integrate research projects at an earlier stage in the curriculum. In our experience at IBB, SPPU, this not only provides students with hands-on laboratory skills and exposure to experimental science, but it has also resulted in several undergraduate students finishing their degree with authorship on an original research publication. This certainly distinguishes them when they are applying for future academic programs and opportunities. While research integration at an early level certainly helps students on the academic career path, do you all think further curriculum changes need to include exposure to non-traditional (non-academic) research opportunities? What are other priority areas going forward?

SK: To support students choosing non-academic research paths, such as in industry and biotech entrepreneurship, undergraduate participation in industry-driven conferences, exposure to biotechnology start-ups and entrepreneurship grants, and possibly even a brief research stint in the industry would be the possible next steps.

RM: I agree that it is important to further leverage the flexibility and time that integrated and dual programs offer to maximize students’ exposure and experience. A practical way forward could be to have active organizations like placement cells that connect students to such projects in their local ecosystems, both in industry and academia, thereby helping create a network across the undergraduate community in India.

KSK: While it may take a while to formally incorporate research opportunities in medicine, I have noticed a change in the mindset of medical students. Since my return to India, several young medical and dental students have approached me seeking research internships, to discuss research career opportunities, and understand the career path of a physician-scientist or physician-researcher. Recognising this, it is an appropriate time to revisit the basic medical education curriculum and proactively create scope for research opportunities via small-scale projects, and internships and stints at research institutes and biotech start-ups.

Integrate research projects at an earlier stage in the curriculum, increase undergraduate exposure to non-academic research paths, create active organizations to connect undergraduate students to the local research ecosystem, and create scope for research opportunities in the basic medical education curriculum.

In conclusion, it is evident that the undergraduate research ecosystem in India has undergone major transformations through the years, and has notably, recognized the importance of incorporating scientific research into teaching practices. However, for these changes to become an integral part of the education system, it would be critical to mandate an original research experience across all undergraduate courses. In traditional three-year courses, this could be done by introducing a short in-house thesis towards the end of the course. For colleges and universities with limited laboratory facilities, a tie-up or collaborative effort at the institute level with other well-equipped universities can help bridge the gap.