BEING AN EXCEPTIONAL TEACHER

Most engineering programmes hope to achieve what Jayashri Ravishankar does. Ravishankar, who teaches at Australia’s University of New South Wales, has found a way to keep a very large and diverse student body engaged by developing “research-led and professionally relevant” strategies that have now been adopted elsewhere. An electrical engineer with a special interest in renewable energy and micro-grids, Ravishankar earlier taught at Anna University, Tamil Nadu for a decade. In 2019, she received a citation from the Australian Awards for University Teaching for ‘Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning’. It acknowledges her as one of “Australia’s most exceptional university teachers”. She spoke to Careers360 about how engineering must be taught so that students are engaged and come out job-ready.

- Pritha Roy Choudhury

Q. You completed your graduate, postgraduate and doctoral studies from India. But you also went for another postgraduate programme at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. How did that happen?

A. I migrated to Australia with my husband in 1992, after completing my postgraduate degree at College of Engineering Guindy, Anna University. I received a scholarship from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, or RMIT University, and commenced my work in renewable energy integration. Although RMIT insisted that I complete my Ph.D. studies there, I chose master’s by research as I had a growing family with two kids of whom one was a newborn. In 1998 we returned to India and I continued working here till 2009. During this period, I was sponsored to undertake a part-time Ph.D. at Anna University. I completed my Ph.D. there in 2008.

Q. One of the comments in the citation describes you as a “tireless innovator”. What did you do differently?

A. When I joined UNSW in 2010, I faced different challenges compared to those in India. I was now teaching large advanced courses with a diverse mix of 150-250 local and international students. Delivering abstract engineering concepts through traditional face-to-face lectures in large theatres while also trying to cater to the diversity of students with a mix of cultural backgrounds and assumed knowledge meant students quickly became disengaged and had little interaction with their peers. This, I believe, prevented them from undertaking deeper learning, which in turn affected their employability.