FOSTERING INNOVATIVE TEACHING - LEARNING PRACTICES IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Indian higher education landscape is changing rapidly. Demographic bulge, expanding school education and rising aspirations has put considerable pressure for expansion of Higher Education. There are greater expectations from Higher Education due to the country’s rapid economic growth, rising incomes, outward orientation and growing optimism. The rapid developments in science and technology and the challenges of globalization are also posing additional challenges to the education system in the country. In this era of digitalization the infusion of technology into teaching and learning has a remarkable influence on the instructional strategies of the educational institutions Keeping this in view a study is undertaken with the following objectives:
- To elicit the various innovative teaching pedagogy in higher education.
- To examine the opinion of students about the innovative teaching methods that they perceive as the most interesting and best teaching method.
- To suggest the way forward in which technology can facilitate a student-centered classroom.

A survey was conducted to find the perception of students with regards to the core components of Higher Education such as Curriculum revision, teaching pedagogy, Activity based learning and Evaluation pattern along with opinions on Innovative teaching methodologies and their level of satisfaction with respect to innovative and ICT integrated teaching with the help of a structured questionnaire. A stratified random sampling technique was adopted for selecting 250 respondents (students) pursuing their Under Graduation in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) situated in Hyderabad. It is found that the success of any method basically depends on availability of adequate trained personnel, proper planning of the teacher, understanding the level of competencies of learner, ensuring the availability and proper use of technology, integrating academics with ethics. This enables the learner to inculcate the quest for knowledge, ensures a learner to be a lifelong learner in pursuit of excellence.