Garden City University, Bangalore conducted Faculty Development Program on June 22, 2018. Faculty Development Programs (FDPs) have proven to be successful for improving teaching skills in higher education. It has been long believed that the most important resource that any institution of higher education has is its faculty who impart knowledge and skills to the students. Faculty members need to be apprised enough to deal with the rapid changes and shifting paradigms in the industry today. Without such training, teaching is often reduced to instructors presenting their understanding of the subject by one-way lecturing. At Garden City University, Faculty Development/Faculty Enrichment Programme are conducted regularly to help the faculty members to gain insights into recent trends in the industry.

GCU invite eminent professionals and industry experts to train their faculty members in innovative pedagogy, teaching and learning methods, student psychology, motivation and counselling, recent trends and work practices adopted by renowned industries etc. Hence, in this regard, there will be a Faculty Development Programme to enlighten the faculty members on the importance of Teaching, Curriculum Design and Development, New Pedagogy in academics and use effective tools in the classroom sessions.

Faculty Development Program in GCU

The speakers for the event were: Mr. Muralidhar Koteshwar and Dr Manmohan Joshi. Dr Manmohan Joshi talked about ‘Communicative English for Teaching’. While at it Dr Joshi also sensitized the faculty about gender, culture and language as an important artefact of language. English is an important medium also called the Language across Content as it addresses a global audience, which is very pertinent for GCU as it has students from across 80 countries. The Vice-Chancellor Dr VB Coutinho talked about Academic leadership and the Principal talked about Academic Advisors, ownership of counselling students and going

beyond classroom teaching. This ties in very well with the idea of academic ownership. The Registrar with his usual panache started his session with a video that showcased the notion of ‘action versus words’. Until teachers possess qualities such as friendliness albeit friends with a student, a good personality, understand students and deep knowledge of the subject so that students can emulate Dr Sarit’s emphasis on the synchronizing the heart and a mind that can be termed as EQ-Emotional Quotient.

Dr Sarit and Prof Pradeep conducted a workshop to sensitize faculty about optimal ego-state with the help of Transactional Analysis. This innovative workshop utilized the audio-visual tools to showcase various ego-states and to reinforce that teachers must not trivialize the inquisitiveness of students and a more cohesive teaching process.

Faculty members participated wholeheartedly in this Faculty Development Programme to share the learning with students and to make them aware of the requirements of the industry. Today’s students are tomorrow’s professionals and need a heads up on the importance of life skills and leadership qualities for leading a successful career in their respective fields.