Teaching Philosophy

The following quotes reflect my teaching philosophy

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கற்றது கைமண்ணளவு, கல்லாதது உலகளவு 

“What one has learnt is equal to a fistful of sand, what is unknown is the entire earth” – 

– Attributed to Avvaiyar

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“I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no person should witness: gas chambers built by learned engineers. Children poisoned by educated physicians. Infants killed by trained nurses. Women and babies shot by high school and college graduates. So, I am suspicious of education.

My request is:

Help your children become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths or educated Eichmanns. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more human.”

– An excerpt of a letter written by a Holocaust survivor to educators, published in “Teacher and Child” by Dr. Haim Ginott, child psychologist and author.

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“A mechanic from Nebraska knows it is highly unlikely that his son or daughter will ever become an Enron executive, but it is possible. “But there is virtually no chance that his child, no matter how talented, will ever become a human rights lawyer or a drama critic for the New York Times.”

 – David Graeber, Anthropologist

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These are some of the courses I teach regularly

These are courses I have taught in the past but might offer them again based on interest, need or convenience.

As part of my “cognitive neuroscience evangalism”, I teach cognitive science to design students (or whoever will listen to me)

Learning and Memory

This course gives an overview of learning theories (habituation, sensitization, generalization, classical conditioning, reinforcement learning, etc.) and their neural correlates. The second half of the class deals with the organization and process of memory (encoding, consolidation, retrieval, semantic, episodic, skill memories, etc) and their neural correlates. 

Neural Plasticity

Students learn about the fundamental concepts of brain plasticity and read the latest papers to familiarize with the modern theories. We look at topics like critical period, cross-modal plasticity, adult plasticity, training and rehabilitation-based plasticity, the phantom limb phenomenon etc. We try to understand this phenomena from the level of perspective of cellular, circuit, and map-level correlates of the behavioural plasticity.

Writing

This is a compulsory course for all incoming Masters and Ph.D students at IIT Gandhinagar. I was involved with developing the curriculum and also enjoy teaching/tutoring this large class. The pedagogy is a little different from the other courses as one can be free from the technical details and engage in teaching a skill. Also, it is gratifying to see students learn perhaps the most important life skill needed for a fruitful career, any career.  

Science Communication: Theory and Practice

Science communication skills are vital for a society with a good ‘scientific temper’, but most scientists do not engage with this part. The first part of this course introduces the theoretical aspects of communicating science from cognitive science and STS (science technology studies) and the second part has hands-on workshops on producing a science communication project, The students will learn how to investigate the audience, their risk perception, scientific literacy, socio cultural realities,  set a story board, degargon, convey uncertainties and statistics etc. 

Special Topics in Cognitive Neuroscience

This is an advanced-level course, where students read papers and engage in debates and discussions on various current controversies in cognitive science. Some of the topics we chose in the past were 1. mirror neurons, 2. face perception, 3. organization of memory, 4. emotional regulation etc. 

Fundamental Neuroscience

An introductory course in fundamental neuroscience, where basic concepts of cellular and systems level are taught. 

Experimental Aesthetics

This course was a mix of art history and early studies in the psychology of art (Arnheim, Berlyne) and to latest theories in art perception including some neuroaesthetics. 

Cognition, Design and Behavioral Change (NID/ NIFT / IDC)

I teach a 1-week module to MDes students (Strategic Design Management (SDM), Interaction design)at NID Gandhinagar and NIFT Gandhinagar every year. I once offered it to MDes (Interaction Design) students at IDC, IIT Bombay.  This workshop-based course gives a mental framework to look at human behavior critically. In most design education, there is a gap between research methods and generating solutions, which is filled by an intuitive understanding of human behavior. This course helps students develop science-based insights into human behavior to enable designing better products and processes.