Dr. Rajeswari Seshadri, Reader, Department of Mathematics, Ramanujan School of Mathematical Sciences, Pondicherry University

What has influenced your decision to take up teaching?

I was fortunate to undergo a rare kind of undergraduate course B.Sc.Ed. (A four year integrated course of B.Sc. and B.Ed.) at Regional College of Education, Mysore offered by NCERT only in four colleges (at Bhopal, Bhuvaneshwar, Ajmeer and Mysore) all over India. As a partial fulfillment of the course curriculum, I had to undergo an 3 months internship training in teaching. I think, I found a teacher in myself that time itself. After that I completed my M.Sc.Ed. in Mathematics from the same college and consequently a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and have entered into teaching profession.

So, rather than being influenced, I prepared myself towards the profession of teaching.

What kind of teaching methods do you use to keep students interested in your classes?

Generally, my teaching practice is mostly questioning and trying to get answers from the students. I always stress (in every class) that the concept that is going to be developed in that class is very easy to understand if perceived and understood correctly. I advice them to keep their mind open to listen to me to try and understand. During the first five minutes I recall what was done earlier or introduce the background to the new topic to be done. Last five minutes is always was summarizing what was done during the 50 min. I believe in developing any concept in terms of a set of questions and elucidating answers to those from the students. Most of the time, I have had satisfactory lecture sessions.

What are the challenges you face from students and how do you overcome them or turn them around?

Even now, the challenge that I face is to get the attention of every student in the class. There are always 5 to 10% of the students who do not want to be there in the classroom. I have tried several times to make them come to the first row benches; make them do something in the board, make them come in front of the class and explain who had he understood so far. Sometimes, it has helped and made those students more studious and occasionally some stopped coming to my class too.

As a teacher, we cannot afford to be negligent towards those 5 to 10% of the students.

Do you do any industrial consultancy? if yes, do you involve your UG students in such work? How do they respond?

I have not involved my UG students for my industrial consultancy projects. But, I have had several opportunities to work with UG students on projects. In fact, they were more enthusiastic and coming forward to learn and do things but the time of delivery is short and it is difficult to educate them to the specialised topic and get output earliest, hence not involved them so far.

Do you think our students and teachers are working in a professional style? What needs to be done immediately in Indian colleges?

Teachers may be working in a professional way as far as teaching is concerned. But how do they evaluate their students in questionable.

With regard to learning Mathematics, I strongly feel that students are not at all working in a professional style, especially the present undergraduate be it engineering or science students. They carry the so-called maths book which contains hundreds of solved problems in various topics of mathematics and read it like a novel. Present day students forget that Maths is a subject to be worked with pen and paper and not with mere reading.

Unless the question pattern changes wherein the importance is concept based rather than problem based it is difficult to bring a change in the attitude of students towards learning mathematics.

More descriptive type of questioning such as giving an example or a counter example of a certain concept; why a result is true and not true for certain cases; what is the geometrical significance of certain concepts etc will arouse the students to think rather than mugging the formulas; reproducing worked out sums.

The irony is that most of the university examinations in India ask only solved problems from the prescribed and/or reference text books without even changing the numbers. The students have special techniques in terms of permutation and combination to know which question is likely to come this time using last ten sets of question papers of that university.

SO EVALUATION PATTERN in UG and PG HAS TO TAKE A COMPLETE U turn in order to bring out knowledge-oriented students from the university system.

What are your future plans?

I would very much want to explore new avenues in mathematics and if I can get new insights into solution methods of certain mathematical problems unsolved, I will be very happy. I will experiment this idea with many Ph.D. students.

I am also working towards contributing something to society in terms of popularising Mathematics, to arouse interest in Mathematics among school kids. The first few responses from the school kids are very encouraging.

Any memorable moments as a teacher?

LOTs. When I walk on a road or a super market, someone runs and comes to me to tell that he/she was my student during such and such year and such and such place and I have taught him/her. When you see the happiness in their face, it really fills me with joy. I am sure every good teacher might have experienced and this legacy will continue forever especially for TEACHERS.

Moments of frustration?

When you put in your heart and soul to teach a new/novel course and a second person sets the question paper and a third person evaluates and the outcome is less than 40% pass percentage in that course.

This is very frustrating. This happens mostly to M.Phil courses and elective courses in VII/VIII semester engineering courses wherein very few specialized subject teachers are available.

This has happened to me once and I had to do a 'one day' research to prepare a blue print to prove to the university authorities that more than 65% of the questions are out of syllabus and a re-evaluation was called for.

You have been part of premier research institutes like IISc and JNC and labs in UK. How did it affect your working style in a college? Now you're back in a university. What is your overall feeling about this journey between different institutes?

My Ph.D. days at IISc Bangalore and my post-doc periods at JNCASR, Bangalore; Queen Mary, University of London; St. Andrews University in Scotland; Mittag-Leffler Institute in Stockholm, Sweden all have given me great learnings.

Of course working in a private college was a bit difficult to adjust to in terms of allocating time mainly due to heavy teaching load and less time available to do research and of course least internet access/browsing and library facilities. So, I found it hard to concentrate on research. Now back to University system, I find the facilities as good as in IISc, and this ambience and environment should help me to do constructive research.

After getting Ph.D. and now at Pondicherry University since 2010, I have spent almost 20 years at various academic institutions. This overall journey (both National and International) was very exciting in terms of gaining knowledge and experience, getting to know more people of academic and research interests in my area, knowing others' way of working style etc. etc.

I only feel (sometimes) that I have lost out half of my age touring around without settling at a good institution at an earlier stage. I am happy for what I am now and will do to the best of my ability to bring name and fame to my institution.
Dr. Rajeswari Seshadri's Profile