As 2021 draws to a close, we thank you for embracing IndiaBioscience as a partner in your professional journey. It is your trust and enthusiasm that encourages us to create (and curate) more interesting and relevant resources for you and your students, year after year.
As you may be aware, our resources on undergraduate biology education include articles (mostly written by practicing biology educators in India), books, a discussion forum,
and curated resources
from across the world. They also include advertisements of the latest jobs, grants, and events for educators. And this year, we added to the pool our very first webinars on the theme of education. These webinars were received well by the participants and we are planning more of them next year. These resources together covered a range of themes around higher education in India.
“All students can learn and succeed… but not on the same day and also not in the same way”, said B.B. Nath, an Emeritus Professor at Savithribai Phule Pune University and the Vice President of the Association of Teachers in Biological Sciences, in an episode of In Conversation with a Mentor podcast series. Indeed, learning can happen in many ways, both inside and outside of a classroom, and through more than one approach. Our articles highlighted some of the unconventional (and fun) means of teaching beyond the traditional classroom, including games
and social media, and the need for transdisciplinary approaches to create and consume knowledge.
While mixing education and pleasure is more than welcome, it is important to be wary of the misconceptions that may mar learning. Our articles of the series Common Misconceptions in Biology unravelled some of them in the topics of energy metabolism, diffusion, species diversity, and habitats. Keep an eye out for more articles in the series next year.
IndiaBioscience engages its audience today in a number of activities, but it originated
as a platform for networking and mentorship, a practice seldom performed in the field of education despite its benefits. “Networking with peers offers new spaces in which one may learn to grow with a diverse set of educators. Educators can help each other for knowledge exchange and share useful pedagogical methods to promote innovative solutions to teaching-learning practices”, said N. Latha, an award-winning educator from Sri Venkateswara College, New Delhi, in her interview with us this year.
To encourage more educators to engage in this endeavour, we held an online panel discussion in June on the Importance of Networking. Our guests – Shakila Shamsu, L. S. Shashidhara and Mayuri Rege – shared some of the key reasons for networking, how they approach it, and how it helped their professional journeys. They also offered solutions to overcome some of the common roadblocks that educators may face in the process.
Shakila Shamsu, a former Officer in Special Duty (NEP), joined us again in November in the wake of several states announcing the Implementation of the National Education Policy 2020. She spoke about the policy, its mandates, and potential roadblocks and solutions to its effective implementation.
We continued the discussion on the policy on our discussion forum, where Shamsu answered some of the questions that could not be addressed during the webinar. While you read her responses, do check out the other topics trending on the forum.
As Shamsu points out during her talk, the NEP 2020 puts a lot of emphasis on inquiry-based learning. As research-based undergraduate courses are picking up in the country, challenges in terms of resources and training students with basic research skills have surfaced.
Our articles showcased some of the creative ways in which teachers have been instilling these skills in their students – from reading a research paper, to writing and publishing one – even if it meant starting an in-house journal from scratch. In a webinar in October, award-winning educator Charu Dogra (Ramjas College, New Delhi) also spoke about the ways in which digital tools can be used for inquiry-based learning.
Speaking of digital tools, the latest entry in our library of curated resources for undergraduate teachers and students is an e-book from Azim Premji University, called iThink Biology.
We hope that we will get to meet you in person next year, but until then enjoy our resources from the safety of your homes. You can contact us anytime by dropping an email to education@indabioscience.org. If you love to communicate science in creative ways, help us showcase your creativity through our FundaySunday initiative. You can also reach us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
IndiaBioscience bows down to all educators for keeping education afloat even as waves of the pandemic lashed at the country.
May the new year bring good health, joy, and new opportunities for you and your students.
