October 5-11, 2017

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA

As part of SRM University, AP – Amaravati’s engagement with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, a design camp for SRM’s faculty was conducted to help prepare them to teach MIT’s courses. The design camp, conducted in MIT, emphasized on active and collaborative learning principles and practice, and gave faculty the necessary exposure to build on interactive, hands-on, technology-enabled experiences, and blended/hybrid delivery modes that combine online and face-to-face learning

The participants of the design camp were provided guidance on integration of MITx courses and OpenCourseWare material within relevant local contexts. The design camp also trained them on identifying learning outcomes, and alignment of curriculum design, course content, learning activities, and assessment with selected degree objectives of SRM University, Andhra Pradesh.

August 25, 2017, New Delhi

Two students from SRM University, Andhra Pradesh namely Rishabh Minocha and Shubham Rao attended an annual hackathon HACKIIITD, organized by IIIT-Delhi on the 25th of August. They emerged as the winners (1st Position) of the hackathon out of the 800 teams who had applied.

The teams were provided a set of themes out of which they could choose any to work on. Team Bash, which included Rishabh Minocha and Shubham Rao chose to work on “Reliability of Media”. Using the concept of Blockchain, a decentralized peer to peer anonymous network, the team worked on the theme by creating an application where users could vote on a particular article. Based on the consensus amongst the users, a piece of news would then be classified as reliable or not. If the news reaches the consensus, the users who up-voted the particular news would get a small amount of cryptocurrency (Ex. Bitcoin) for their research on that news.

The point of using the concept of Blockchain was so that if a particular news reaches the consensus, it could not be modified in any matter and hence the public would get the original piece of news.

Dr. Nicholas Dirks, Emeritus Chancellor of University of California, Berkeley has been appointed as the Honorary Pro Chancellor of SRM University, Andhra Pradesh.

He was earlier named the 10th chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley in 2012, and served in that role between June 1, 2013 and July 1, 2017. An internationally renowned historian and anthropologist, he is a leader in higher education and well-known for his commitment to, and advocacy for accessible, high-quality undergraduate education, to the globalization of the university, and to innovation and collaboration across the disciplines and between universities and outside partners.

September 11-13 2017

Venue: Class Room No: 4, Academic Block, SRM AP, Amaravati
By: Dr. Peter Looker, Head – Teaching, Learning and Pedagogy Division, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

A workshop was conducted for faculty of SRM Andhra Pradesh, by Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore in order to help them develop practical skills and to increase student learning, teaching skills, assessment, course and curriculum design as well as communication. The lectures were delivered by Dr. Peter Looker from 11-13th September 2017 at SRM-Andhra Pradesh. The current pedagogical thinking based on student learning in higher education was presented to the faculty in six three hour modules. The participating faculty were trained in collaborative learning, technology-enabled learning and the flipped classroom.

Also discussed were wide variety of teaching approaches based on reflective and analytical methods. Various contemporary theories of learning and teaching strategies appropriate to a blended and student-centred orientation were debated and discussed. The faculty were encouraged to design courses with explicit outcomes aligned to assess learning activities. Effective student communication skills (both face to face and online) were studied. Further, assessment strategies based on student learning were presented to the faculty and outlined in detail. Last but not least, the prevailing strategies to increase student’s progress and performance were examined.