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Active learning improves results

10 September 2008

Dr Rajendran Parthiban

Monash lecturer Dr Rajendran Parthiban believes his success as a teacher is the result of him actively engaging his students in class and moulding his teaching to their specific needs.

Dr Parthiban, from the School of Engineering at the Sunway campus in Malaysia, was one of seven Monash academics recently awarded an Australian Learning and Teaching Council Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning.

He received his citation for adopting a new teaching approach that has significantly improved the pass rate for the engineering subject of electromagnetics, which involves complex mathematics and physics.

Dr Parthiban said a key aspect of his approach to teaching was observing how students learned and what interested them most.

"I try to adopt teaching techniques that suit their learning styles, I believe this is the key to my success," he said.

"Previously, tutorials in this unit were highly didactic: tutors solved the problems in front of the students who, in general, became passive listeners.

"I took a different approach and introduced a problem-based approach in tutorials to engage students. With this approach, students discuss among themselves on how to solve the problems in tutorials. Then, they explain to the class how they reached their solution.

"I also allocated enough time for consultation so that students can clear their doubts on solving the problem both before and after tutorials."

Dr Parthiban, who joined Monash at the start of 2006, said he enjoyed seeing the positive results of his teaching methods.

"The really satisfying part is seeing the students we supervise or teach succeed not just in the assessments and exams, but also in their career and life," he said.

Dr Parthiban said the challenges ahead in his current role included sustaining the performance he had achieved in teaching and learning.

"I also should strive to make similar achievements in research," he said.