Teaching Assistant ship Program

Venue: DoS in Biochemistry, Pooja Bhagavat Memorial Mahajana Post Graduate Education Centre, PG Wing of SBRR Mahajana First Grade College(A), Mysuru.

The department organizing the event in collaboration with institution:

DoS in Biochemistry, Pooja Bhagavat Memorial Mahajana Post Graduate Education Centre, PG Wing of SBRR Mahajana First Grade College(A), Mysuru.

Purpose and Scope of the event:

A teaching assistantship is a position where a student, usually a graduate student, helps a professor with instructional responsibilities. Teaching assistants (TAs) can help with a variety of tasks, including: Creating and delivering learning materials; Leading discussion sections
Tutoring junior students (M.Sc. I semester), preparing reagents and standardization of the laboratory protocols, helping the junior students in record writing and assignments. TAs can also work with individual students and small groups, watch and record student progress, and look after students who are slow learners. The faculty mentoring and supervision will be ther throughout the program. The TA program gives an excellent opportunity for the 2nd year students to improve their communication and leadership skills. The program is basically to inspire students so that they get rid of the basic inhibition in the communication as they are contemporaries.

Details of the talk/event/activity

A multiple-choice questions-based quiz was conducted for the students of II-year (III semester) M.Sc. Biochemistry and 5 of them were finalized for TA program. Those five students were trained for one week by faculty mentors Ms. Rayana Lavitha D’Silva and Dr. Girish Chandran. These students were assigned a group of 7 students each (from M.Sc. I semester). The Teaching Assistants monitored the progress of the junior students in both theory and practical classes. They helped them in understanding the laboratory techniques and molar concentrations which are essential for a biochemist. The TAs also helped the juniors with practical record writing and assignments.

A brief profile of the Resource persons

Ms. Rayana Lavitha D Silva

Assistant Professor, DoS in Biochemistry, Pooja Bhagavat Memorial Mahajana Post Graduate Education Centre, PG Wing of SBRR Mahajana First Grade College(A), Mysuru.
Qualification: M.Sc.,(K-SET)
Areas of Interest: Neurodegenerative disorders, Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular diseases and Analytical techniques.

Dr. Girish Chandran

Assistant Professor, Coordinator DoS in Biochemistry, Pooja Bhagavat Memorial Mahajana Post Graduate Education Centre, PG Wing of SBRR Mahajana First Grade College(A), Mysuru.
Qualification: M.Sc., (CSIR-JRF-NET), Ph.D. (Univ. of Mysore), Post Doc (USA)
Areas of Specialization: Drug development, small molecules, peptides, Nutritional interventions, Diet Therapy, quality foods, Neurodegenerative disorders, Pain, Behavioural aspects in Drosophila and Mice, Enzymology, Plant Biochemistry, Diabetes, Migraine, cancer, cross interactions drugs, comorbidity and therapy.
Current Areas of Interest: Diabetes, Migraine, cancer, cross interactions drugs, comorbidity and therapy.

Target audience and number of participants/ beneficiaries

Target audience was 2nd year students of M.Sc. Biochemistry, DoS in Biochemistry, Pooja Bhagavat Memorial Mahajana Post Graduate Education Centre, PG Wing of SBRR Mahajana First Grade College(A), Mysuru. There were 33 participants in the qualifying round, while 5 of them got finalized for the TA program.