Modern teaching sir as it will help in visualizing the theory and when they join a company they can start their work immediately instead of searching for where that particular part is.Using projectors and videos we can point them what will be the problem and its consequences if a fault occurs and how to identify that particular problem. Youtube plays a very active role in interactive teaching.

Now a days students are not interested or not paying attention when we try to explain theory. There may be 2 reasons for that first its hard for an average student to grasp what we say and explain in a single dimension diagram alternatively if we try to project some pictures and videos in front of their eye at least they visualize what we say.Creating interest among students will increase the experience of learning.

In my opinion i think its not bad to use technology when its available for use.

Thank you

I believe it depends on the content of the subject being taught. I know there is this trend that the teaching needs to be modified in order to suit the learning style of the undergraduate students (Generation Y), but it makes me wonder whether our professors (when we were undergrads back then) did the same thing for us. I doubt many of them did so it became a case of us (as students) adapting and conforming to their teaching style, and this has the added benefit that we are more amenable and flexible when in industry, compared with Generation Y students who expect it to be formatted and seasoned for their tastes.

Anyway, I think a combination of modern and traditional teaching is best, with the proportions of each dependent on the content. Some subjects which contain abstract and vague concepts do require modern visual aids to help students understand better, but this should not lead to a reduction in the academic rigour of the teaching.

I have found many resort to detail as they lack the practical engineering application experience and vision to relate to the higher level concepts. Much like junior lecturers when they start out. If one considers that most of the fundamental discoveries such as EM theory etc were done without PC, internet and so on the power of conceptual thinking is very powerful and does not require detail but rather it is the latter which evolves from the former. Taking such concepts and linking to applied real world engineering using visualisation tools is very powerful as stated above if done correctly.

In this way one can utilise what I term top down teaching where one can start with higher level concepts and then drill down into the more detailed technical, scientific and mathematical details. However to do so requires both theoretical and practical real world engineering exprience and the ability to relate the one to other in a very seamless and coherrent fashion.

This is much like learning to drive a car, one does not require much detail or technical and scientific knowledge to do so. However, if one wishes to drive faster and get better and higher performance etc one has to enage and understand the technical and scientific detail to so. However, the higher level aim is to be the fastest and come first!

Many students today want or seek answers rather than take time to undertsand the higher level concepts and apply them across the curicculum. To see how it all fits together; in fact many lecturers do not do this and lack an integrated approach to the curriculum and other engineering disciplines and tend to teach their subject/s in isolation to all the others whereas in the real world it does not work like that.

I fully agree that one can and wiil always forget the detail but with a thorough and integrated understanding of the higher level concepts the detail can always be regained. Detail can be loosely related to the analogy about a dog chasing a car in that what does it do with it when it catches it?

Thanks for your authentic responses. If anybody practically applied these methods, please mention your feedbacks and experiences.

I think like others are saying finding a balance between the two especially depending on the topic being taught is important. Mostly it should be student based learning and focussed on the current trends.