Day 2

Day 2 (30th December)

With just 2 days left in the year, it is a good time for some introspection.

Taught 2 full fledged courses this year, in 2 different colleges for one semester each. Not my first teaching experience, but doing a full course with responsibilities of assessment was new. Some lectures were 2 hours long and holding the attention of students was a challenge. I didn't use PowerPoint much, relying on chalk and board more often. About 70 hours of lectures in the year. My rough estimate is 8 hours of preparation for every hour of lecture. I had to learn what I taught. This was both enjoyable and stressful. I taught by telling stories and using analogies. I didn't rely as much on standard text books as on the Internet and my own experience. There were some troubling moments when I felt like throwing in the towel. I always put ethics before knowledge and minced no words about it. For 2019, I have already backed out from one of the courses and remain undecided about the other. One of the courses have given me a book idea, which I intend to pursue in 2019. 

I also mentored half a dozen students this year. 4 of them were PhD students doing a diploma in technology management. Guiding them on mock entrepreneurship projects was a very satisfying experience, as results of my inputs and intervention were very evident.