HT Correspondent
SIVASAGAR, March 31: A weeklong online faculty development programme with the theme ‘Common Denominators: Reading and Writing Across Disciplines’ was organised by IQAC, Gargaon College in collaboration with Centre for Writing and Pedagogy, Krea University, Andhra Pradesh from March 23 to 28.
Taking into consideration the challenges and stumbling blocks faced in the area of academic research, the faculty development programme (FDP) coordinated by Shyamolima Saikia, assistant professor in English, Gargaon College and Sayantan Datta, faculty associate at the Centre for Writing and Pedagogy, Krea University aimed at encouraging and facilitating teachers, researchers and students across disciplines to gain advance knowledge and skills on academic reading and writing.
In his inaugural address, Dr Sabyasachi Mahanta, principal, Gargaon College underscored the importance of organising such programmes on the threshold of the adoption of the New Education Policy 2020 in the country, which is slated to bring about tremendous change in the role of teachers. He hoped that programmes such as this FDP will definitely benefit the teaching fraternity by enhancing their skills in keeping with the changing educational scenario.
Commenting on the changing scenario, Dr Anannya Dasgupta, director, Centre for Writing and Pedagogy, Krea University expressed hope that these kinds of programmes for working together with people across the country will yield positive results. She said the centre is engaged in developing pedagogic tools and methods where they pay attention to reading and writing not only in one specific area but across different disciplines. She added that workshops of this kind in fact help them in developing their tool kit.
Dr Anannya Dasgupta, Sayantan Datta, Sameer Abraham Thomas and Pritha Chakrabarti from CWP, Krea University deliberated upon some essential skills and practices of reading and writing common to researchers across disciplines of humanities, social sciences and the sciences. Some of the areas covered in the programme were questions that drive research, how writing builds on close reading, importance of evidence to support argument, connecting texts to develop ideas, writing up field-notes, etc.
Dr Surajit Saikia, IQAC coordinator of the college said that programmes of this kind will hugely benefit participants and expressed a wish to collaborate again with Krea University for such initiatives in the future. The vote of thanks was offered by Dr Mrinal Ghosh, assistant professor in Commerce, Gargaon College.
The programme was able to garner response from more than 180 participants from several colleges and eminent institutions of the country.
