Unfortunately, my wife had
a bond with the University
of Peradeniya. There was
no way of releasing that
bond. So, I came back here.
On the other hand, looking
back, I think if I had applied
originally to Peradeniya, I
wouldn't have been taken
in as I had a second lower
class. University had high
requirements about classes
when selecting academic
staff.
9. You’ve come a long way
since you first joined the
faculty staff. Tell us about
your journey as a member
of the academic staff.
When I first joined the
department as a staff
member, my office was
located at the drawing office.
Mr.Osman was on leave so
I was occupying his office.
And being away from the
department I had plenty of
time to carry out my research
freely. But one day professor
Sivasegaram came to my
office and said, “Hey what
are you doing here? This
is not good, you are away
from the department and as
a result, you are not getting
involved in the department
stuff. I am retired now and
my office is very big. I don't
need such a big office so you
must take it.” Now I had no
choice. He came and spoke
with the department head
and immediately vacated the
room and within a week, I
had to move into his room.
Until then, I was happily
doing my work. Since then I
have been heavily involved
in other work and have been
spending these seven years
at the faculty pursuing mostly
wild goose chases.
10. What are the more
promising
educational
innovations that you are
aware of, why is it valuable,
and what, if anything, have
you done to adopt it?
There is a lot of debate about
what learning and teaching
is about. Over these years
I have found out, through
experience, that each and
every person learns in a
unique way. In a class of
about 400 students and
one teacher, only a very few
numbers of students will
match up with the teacher’s
style. Therefore, the best
we can do, I believe, is to
motivate students to learn
by themselves by creating
opportunities for them to
do so. There are two types
of learning requirements;
one is learning concepts
such as mathematics and the
other is learning discipline
specific factual content. For
example, if only a particular
way of designing a gearbox
is being learnt by someone,
then if for instance gearboxes
become obsolete, that will
instantly make that particular
part of factual knowledge
obsolete. It is said that in
Computer Engineering, half-
life of discipline specific
factual knowledge is 2 to
3 years. What this implies
is that half the discipline
specific content learnt during
your undergraduate years
will become obsolete by the
time you graduate. For Civil
Engineering, this is about 7
years, while for other fields it
is between 4 to 5 years. This
implies that content driven
knowledge is not what is
significant, but it is the ability
to learn that is of greater
importance. Therefore, as
an institution, we should
focus on providing the
opportunity and motivation
for the students to learn by
themselves.
The second thing I have
noticed is peer learning. A
person will learn best by
teaching because it makes
him/her realize the particular
concepts that he/she has
not grasped completely. In
order to convince someone
else about a concept, one
has to imagine all different
scenarios of interpretations,
this allows a person to learn
more. Most of the people
might feel uncomfortable
to ask a question from the
lecturer, but it is easy to do
so among peers where a
question might even create
new ideas. When I was an
undergraduate, I felt very
dumb, as amazingly most
others kept on nodding their
heads during the lecture. I
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