Ways of Teaching

Im currently sitting in a class trying hard to understand Splay Trees.I tried so hard to make sense out of whatever is being taught and when it exceeded my tolerance limit,I just gave up.Im looking at different faces out in the classroom.The first benchers forced to listen to whatever is being told to them and scribble some "so called" notes.The second benchers a few dozing and a few coding for the upcoming assignment  and a few learning for a class test tomorrow and the various activities list just goes on.

All this forced me to think how can splay trees be taught in a better way or rather teaching can be made interesting.First of all,the objective of learning has to be specified.And the worst part even is when teacher of subject 1 presumes that it is already done in the subject 2 and the teacher of the subject 2 presumes more details will be covered in subject 1 and thus forcing us hang around in between just having a vague idea.Im not a teacher to actually specify the various ways of teaching how the topics have to be taught but I can only think of ways to make it more interesting.At this moment,I can think of Aamir Khan's dialogue in 3 Idiots "Kya kisine socha ki aaj kuch naya seekhne ko milega????"

I still remember my English teacher teaching us how to remember words with their roots.Mal- being bad.Hence mal-nutrition,mal-practice,mal-ice.Her name was Mrs.Malathi Narayan.I still remember her saying "Anything starting with Mal is bad except Malathi Narayan" :) I shall never forget few words taught by her.I also remember how she taught words like quiver,ode,cryptology,aura(Too little a space to elaborate)  all with simple examples of movies.And she would ask us to put the words which mean the same in the same group.Also the meanings between theist and its derivatives with the help of a flow chart(What an amazing class that was!!).And the differences between empathy,sympathy and apathy.

Another way of teaching can be showing it visually.I still vividly remember the digestive system of a cockroach because I had done it myself.Visual things have a better impact.The other day I remember a Professor struggling to teach Red-Black tree.He could have shown a simple animation.Life would have been simpler.

Also at this new place I appreciate the way few people teach us things in their KSMs and show us practically whats happening.Another way to make the class interesting.I remember someone trying to shut down my computer remotely just to teach me some amount of patience :)

Now I wonder how to end this.But I can just conclude that in my opinion a teacher is one who induces you to think not what he is thinking but encourages you to ponder over it.Finally quoting EDUCATION IS NOT JUST TRANSFER OF SOMETHING FROM THE TEACHER'S BOOK TO THE STUDENT'S,WITHOUT BEING UNDERSTOOD BY BOTH :) :)

Oh!!!The class is finally over *sigh*