2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Training Faculty on Mentoring Students in Higher Education in Post-Pandemic World

Presented at Faculty Development Division (FDD) Technical Session 9

This "Lessons Learned" category paper details the training provided to Engineering teachers on Mentoring students in the post pandemic scenario. During the Covid 19 global pandemic, 1.5 billion students and youth were engaged in remote/online learning according to an UNESCO documentation. One can imagine the volume of educators went online. The whole gamut of Education scenario changed worldwide and the worst affected is the teachers and students who are expected to be technology Savvy overnight. A new resilient pedagogy was needed. The pandemic created disturbances in all spheres of human life -Physical, Cognitive, Emotional and Social domains. The engineering faculty has reported various problems of students in the four domains and maintaining the balance in all the domains of a student personality was the need of the hour. Engineering faculty are not equipped to tackle post pandemic issues in students. And the national policies of all nations speak on training of faculty in Higher education on mentoring.
Mentoring has been there since the beginning of the human race. And the history of any nation speaks volumes about mentors and mentees. Right from Greek Prince Telemachus to the current stalwarts of science and technology, had mentors to care for them and develop them into great human beings.
In the Indian subcontinent, Mentoring in Higher education has been existing there for quire sometime with a minimal help provided to the students as mentors themselves are not equipped with the demands of the current Gen Z generation and VUCA world.
This paper discusses the various challenges faced by teachers for guiding and mentoring the students and the paper also details the various tools, techniques and strategies applied to empowering higher education faculty, especially engineering education faculty on “Mentoring” focussing on Physical, Cognitive, Emotional, Social and Professional development of students in higher education.
In the process of training faculty on mentoring, the paper also focusses on how teachers themselves empowered through the programme to become good mentors to their wards by upgrading their own personality dimensions as well.
This paper will be presented by traditional lecture method.

Authors

Prof. Renukadevi Selvaraj The National Institute of Technical Teachers Training and Research (NITTTR) Chennai, India [biography]

Dr.S.Renukadevi, is the Professor of Education and Head of Centre for Academic Studies and Research at the renowned NITTTR, Chennai. She has 32 year of teaching Experience, of which 27 years at NITTTR, Chennai. She holds a Master’s Degree in Computer Applications and Doctorate in Computer Applications - Engineering Education with a PG Diploma in Guidance and Counselling.

Her areas of Expertise include Engineering Pedagogy and Psychology, Training Technology, Instruction Design, Soft Skills, Gender Studies, Student Guidance and Counselling, Mentoring, Emotional Intelligence, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Yoga, Mudras and Healing techniques. She has Coordinated more than 250 short term and overseas programmes. She Coordinated the M.Tech(HRD) programme of the Institute. She has trained more than 300 international teachers and administrators. She is Offering a course on MHRD SWAYAM Platform, covering 19,500 learners in 4 batches.

She has Completed 5 doctoral Dissertations in Engineering Education. She has guided M.Tech (HRD), MCA and Overseas Trainees’ Projects. She has published around 30 papers in Journals and presented several papers in conferences. She has also Contributed chapters in Books. She got Best paper awards, Best teacher Award and Psychometric Educational Services Award. She holds membership of International School Psychology Association (ISPA), Indian Academy of Applied Psychology and ISTE.

She has visited Germany (Georgia Augusta University, Gottingen), UK (University of Newcastle at North Umbria), Ireland (Dublin university, Dublin), Malta (University of Malta), Scotland (Edinburgh), and Switzerland (University of Basel) on Academic and conference visits. She was trained in at University of North Umbria at Newcastle, UK for a period of 8 weeks under the World Bank Assisted Project.

She Organized an International Conference of ISPA, US In India. She has organized Symposiums, Seminars and Conference. She was the Coordinator of the NITTTRc Golden Jubilee Celebrations. She served as Asst. Academic Editor of the Journal of Technical and Vocational Education, Newsletter Editor of IAAP, Editorial Board of Social Engineer, Asst. Editor of JIAAP, and Member of Staff Selection Committees of Govt. Institutions.

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