#instution

Traditional higher education institutions and structures are failing. We see more and more reports and studies highlighting the fact that most students coming out of professional colleges are unemployable. But perhaps more importantly, the idea of teaching-learning process is being reduced to a mere “transaction”, that too an unsatisfying transaction to all parties involved. Students don’t feel happy in class, teachers are perpetually stressed, and parents suffer from anxiety.  However, things are not “traditional” at RKU. We don’t stick to old methods of teaching and assessing. We are spearheading a revolution in learning experience of students at RKU, be it formal learning or informal learning. Our teachers are being equipped with the most modern and scientifically proven adult learning strategies. Learning at RKU is fun, satisfying and enriching to the students as well as teachers. We are constantly learning from top institutions and researchers in the world to update and change our curriculum, our teaching methods and assessment systems. Placements and professional success later in life are a natural outcome of the robust educational processes employed at RKU. Over the past year, we have made incredible leap forward in the changing the entire system of teaching and learning at RKU. The initiatives that we have taken are truly revolutionary and rarely seen before in Indian education system. In some cases we are rethinking the most fundamental prejudices attached to the learning process while in come other cases we are ushering in new pedagogical approaches and tools. We spend incredible amount of time and energy in designing learning interventions for students and faculties. Some of the initiatives that have already been undertaken are:   1. Learning Experience Design: A 6 week program for faculties that provides participants with a collaborative, immersive and hands-on environment in which to explore ideas about learning and formulate their own philosophy and approach to designing learning experiences.   2. Lesson Planning Project: A 3 day program which introduces participants to practical skills necessary to create effective lesson plans. Participants are assigned individual mentors who guide them in designing lesson plans after the program.   3. University Bridge Program: A 4 week bridge program that can be delivered to students across the university. This program prepares new students to have a successful transition from 12th grade to university education emphasising active learning, self learning, group learning and addressing any knowledge gaps that may exist.   4. New Faculty Orientation: A 3 day program that introduces new and early career faculties to contemporary educational practices and seminal learning theories in an immersive and collaborative environment. Faculties are guided to prepare a teaching philosophy statement that drives their teaching approach in class.

There are other programs under development currently. Program effectiveness research on the already conducted interventions is already underway.

All the above mentioned programs have been successful beyond my expectations. But the learning doesn’t stop at these programs. Many participants have created informal and formal learning groups that meet and discuss on issues introduced in programs like LED. Not only that, many groups have also begun to learn and reflect on advanced topics. This is a clear sign of self learning that will ultimately lead to “Institutional transformation” at RKU. 

In the next of the “Institutional Change” series I will talk about Outcomes Based Education being implemented at RKU. 

If you have been, thanks for reading.

Basically I cannot go to an institution to be taught at, I need to go to a place where I can read and then just show up in the offices of my professors and chew the cud a bit, then sleep for 3 days and watch television, and then read a bit, and then ride my bike, then just finish the text, and then start again from that one part where i stopped paying attention, and then go visit a professor, and maybe run into some peers and mull a bit with them, then go eat a grapefruit because i like the idea that a grape alone isn't good enough to be the fruit called grapefruit and instead a large citrus fruit is called grapefruit, which was always a bit misleading because then your like "so is a grapefruit the fruit of a grape?" and then what the fuck is a fruit again? then wikipedia, then you remember you wanted to watch that documentry about what you were studying and such....what was i saying, meh, it will come back around again later.

either way i can't work in a rapid structure, it would take me many years to get some kind of accrediation that I am well versed in a subject that someone else might be able to get in a few years because they became accustom to "learning", to me you just became proficient at becoming proficient quickly.

no one should have sent me to college, i was inevitabbly gonna break it and then get really annoyed that even though i don't give a fuck if i finish or not, i probably should, just to keep quite a few dozen folks off my balls (yeah i'd never say something that pointlessly vulgar unless i really felt that fucking annoyed about the idea of being hassled for quitting at something that conflicts with my ideology at a very real level).