I believe that the most important role of a teacher is to engage, motivate, and inspire the students for self-learning and discovery.

 

The students of today are changing. Apart from the information overload, there could be distractions that can take their attention during the lecture time. It could happen that internet connectivity through smartphones, tablets, and notebook computers, could have a negative effect in the classroom as these can easily tempt students to tune out.

 

Thus, I think that the challenge is to engage the students starting from the very first minute of meeting them and to be consistently mindful that this engagement should not be lost during the rest of the semester

 

How then can one engage students? Depending on the course, I implement in-class demonstrations, case studies, multimedia presentations, and end-of-semester student conference, in addition to class lectures and one-on-one consultations.