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13  Resources for Teaching

Keywords

IITB teaching resources, Moodle IITB, lecture capture, teaching assistants, pedagogy

Teaching is considered to be an important component of faculty activities. That said, most new faculty come in with strong research experience, but modest teaching experience, if any. It helps that most new faculty are given about a semester off from teaching in the beginning - this is often academic unit’s policy; in some cases, there may not be a choice if the faculty member joins after a semester has started. Here are a few tips to help with teaching, and preparing for it.

  1. When you are assigned a course to teach, you can look at the Academic section of the ASC website (https://asc.iitb.ac.in/acadmenu/index.jsp) for course details such as syllabus and textbooks, as well as timing and venue. In general, it is mandatory to adhere to the specified syllabus, especially for core courses. However, instructors can enhance their course offerings with additional topics and learning content.

  2. You may talk to the Head and ask for details of the previous instructors (this information is also available on ASC). That is assuming this is an existing course, not a new one you are starting; the procedure for starting a new course is described in the form for proposing a new academic course. Senior faculty members who have taught the course may be able to help you with teaching material such as slides, homework problems, recommendations for textbooks, capable teaching assistants (TAs) and so forth.

  3. An alumni supported initiative, called the Parimal and Pramod Chaudhari Centre for Learning and Teaching (PPCCLT), now provides a plethora of resources for teaching, drawing on internal and external expertise and experience. These include:

    1. (Annual) Faculty Development Workshops
    2. TLC Café - featuring training sessions for faculty on effective teaching
    3. Community of Practice (CoP) platform for sharing best teaching practices
    4. Active learning classroom (under construction at the time of writing). Please check out the PPCCLT website for more details.They welcome and need faculty involvement to be effective, so please consider it.

  4. There are several resources available to you to prepare video lectures (getting your regular lectures recorded, or, recording in a studio), and put them online if you desire. These include:

    1. Centre for Distance Engineering Education Programme (CDEEP) – which helps to prepare video lectures. Details are available on their website. Please look in the Related Projects section, for information on pedagogy-related projects, usually MoE-supported, like TEQIP, GIAN and NMEICT.

    2. National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) - a nationwide program supported by MoE for high-quality content development in science/technology and dissemination through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), with facility for testing and certification.

  5. IIT Bombay is one of the few institutes in the country to have an academic program in Education Technology. Faculty here pursue research in technology-enhanced learning, pedagogical tools and strategies. If you are interested in exploring new technologies/methodologies in your class, they might be happy to collaborate with you. Details about this Inter-Disciplinary Programme is available here. Some of these are outlined below:

    1. Online Teaching (popularly known as OTeach). This was developed by ET faculty and PhD research scholars during the Covid-19 lockdown. It is constructed as a self-paced course for instructors to move towards teaching online.

    2. Activity constructors and templates for using active learning strategies, and videos on pedagogy and teaching strategies in specific topics.

    3. The collaborative learning classroom at PPCCLT is active and functioning. Several institute courses as well as workshops are held every semester. Faculty who are interested can get more details here.

The preferred mode for posting materials, assignments, grades and other information regarding a course is the internally hosted Moodle learning platform. More guidance on using Moodle effectively is available here.

Some instructors use external platforms alongside or instead of Moodle:

We also encourage you to see the PwD awareness website to get some insight on how you can make the learning experience more suited for students who face certain disabilities.

13.1 Conducting examinations

The suggestions below are for faculty who set or invigilate a mid-semester or end-semester exam.

Two weeks before the exam

  1. Fill in the Academic Office form that is circulated before each exam. It asks whether the exam is closed book, open book or SAFE-based, which decides the venue, and how many answer books you need: 12-page books for the mid-semester exam and 16-page books for the end-semester exam.
  2. Brief your TA invigilators. They must arrive 30 minutes early with their original ID card. They may not bring bags, phones, earphones, papers, reading material or laptops. They report any suspected malpractice to you quietly.
  3. Remind students of the rules. They should reach the venue half an hour early and be in their seats ten minutes before the start. Entry closes 30 minutes after the exam starts, and no student is admitted without an original ID card. Students may bring only their ID card, the stationery the exam needs and a water bottle, plus the authorised material for an open-book exam. Phones, smartwatches, laptops, earphones and other devices are not allowed anywhere in the exam building, so students should leave them in their hostel rooms.

On the day of the exam

  1. Arrive half an hour before the start. Stay until every answer book has been collected, counted and packed.
  2. Collect the answer books from the staff yourself. Academic Office staff supply them for common courses, and department staff supply them for all other courses. Staff hand answer books only to the faculty invigilator, never to TAs or project staff. You get one main answer book for each registered student, a small packet of spares, and two 4-page supplementary sheets for each student.
  3. Write the rules on the board, adjusted for the type of exam: no phones, smartwatches or other electronic devices; no books, notes, formula sheets or chits; taking an answer sheet out of the hall counts as an unauthorised practice; and unauthorised practices may lead to disciplinary action.
  4. Do not bring reading material or a laptop into the hall. You may carry a phone, but do not join virtual meetings or calls during the exam.

During the exam

  1. Make sure the TA or staff invigilators take attendance and check each student’s ID card. If a student has no ID card, check their photo on ASC. If that does not settle it, photograph the student at the desk and note this on the attendance sheet.
  2. Sign and date each supplementary sheet before you hand it to a student.
  3. Let only one student out of the hall at a time for a bio-break.
  4. Exam halls are monitored centrally through CCTV. If the monitoring picks up any unauthorised activity, you will be told, and you should follow the procedure under Academic malpractice.

After the exam

  1. On the attendance sheet, record how many main and supplementary sheets were issued, used and left unused.
  2. Hand the unused sheets back to the staff yourself, not through a TA.

Steps 5, 9, 12 and 13 do not apply when students write their answers on the question paper itself.

Instructions during conduct of exams to be followed by STUDENTS

  1. Students are not permitted to enter the examination building during examination hours, if they are not appearing for the examination.
  2. Students are advised to reach the examination venue half an hour before the start of the examination to allow for entry procedures, and occupy their respective seat at least ten minutes before the start of the examination. Entry will be closed after half an hour of the start of the examination.
  3. Students need to bring their original ID card and essential stationery ONLY (including pen, pencil, scale etc. as per the requirement of the exam) and a water bottle (if required).
  4. No bags, notes, papers, books will be allowed inside the examination building. In case of an open books/notes examination, the authorised material can be carried inside the examination building.
  5. No mobiles, smartwatches, laptops, earphones, headphones or any other electronic gadgets will be allowed inside the examination building. If brought, these items will be kept outside the examination building at your own risk. It is directed to leave all the above-mentioned items at the hostel room itself.
  6. Possession of answer sheets outside the examination hall will be considered as an unauthorized act.
  7. Students may be checked for possession of unauthorized materials.
  8. Disciplinary actions corresponding to unauthorized practices are available at the following link: https://acad.iitb.ac.in/academicMalpractices

Instructions during conduct of exams to be followed by invigilating student TAs

  1. Invigilation to be taken very seriously. Report the cases of suspected unauthorized acts promptly to the faculty invigilator with minimal disturbance to the class.
  2. Invigilating TAs are required to reach the examination hall 30 minutes before the start of the exam.
  3. All invigilating student TAs need to bring ORIGINAL ID cards.
  4. Invigilating student TAs are not allowed to bring bags, mobiles, headphones, earphones, papers, manuscripts, any reading material, laptop etc. to the examination hall.
  5. TAs may start taking attendance of the students, in consultation with the faculty invigilator. While taking attendance, check the ID card of the students appearing for the examination and confirm their identity.
  6. TAs should hand over unused answer sheets to the faculty invigilator ONLY.
  7. TAs should allow only one student at a time from the exam hall for bio-break.

For details regarding the exam conduct rules, procedures and penalties, please visit : https://acad.iitb.ac.in/academicMalpractices

Sources: Report of the committee to revisit Examination Conduct Rules and Process.

13.2 Academic malpractice

If you catch a student copying in an exam or plagiarising an assignment, follow the Institute’s standard operating procedure rather than deciding the penalty on your own. The Academic Office lists the procedure on its Academic Malpractices page. The penalties for each kind of offence are in the Senate-approved list of punishments.

If you see unfair means during an exam. Your job in the hall is only to stop the act, collect the material and record what happened. The Disciplinary Action Committee (DAC) handles the rest later. The report includes two forms: Form 01, which the invigilator fills in, and Form 02, an optional statement form for the student.

During the exam

  1. Quietly collect the unauthorised material: chits, phone or other device, answer papers. Say as little as possible to the student and avoid disturbing the others.
  2. If the item has to be given back, such as a phone, photograph it. If you are not sure who the student is, photograph them at the desk.
  3. Take the student’s original answer book and give them a fresh one. They carry on writing until the end of the exam.

After the exam

  1. Fill in and sign Form 01.
  2. Give the student a chance to record their version of events on Form 02, at a designated venue with additional staff present. The student does not have to fill in Form 02, unless a phone was taken.
  3. Return any phone you took. The student signs for it on Form 02.
  4. Submit Form 01 to the Head of the Department conducting the course. Attach the collected material, the original answer book and Form 02, if the student filled it in. Digital material can be sent by email.
  5. When the student leaves the exam hall, alert the Wellness Response Team by phone at +91 8356 810252 and by email at wellness@iitb.ac.in. Give the course code, the student’s name and roll number, and the exam venue.

Penalties

The penalties approved by the 270th Senate are on hold until a revised disciplinary framework is agreed. Until then, disciplinary action follows the document the Senate approved in April 2015. Once the D-ADAC’s recommendations are approved, instructors apply any penalty on marks. Instructors must not apply grade penalties when awarding grades, because the Academic Office applies those. Cases are summarised on the D-ADAC summary sheet.

Sources: Report of the committee to revisit Examination Conduct Rules and Process (includes Forms 01 and 02); minutes of the Heads’ meeting, 30 September 2026.

13.3 Student wellness

You may be the first to notice a student who is struggling, from missed classes or a sudden drop in grades. Talk to the student, and point them to the people below.

  • The Wellness Response Team (WRT) supports students in crisis at any hour. It has counsellors and plain-clothes security staff, with a psychiatrist on call. Reach it by phone or WhatsApp at +91 8356 810252 (call in an emergency) or by email at wellness@iitb.ac.in.
  • Student Wellness Centre (SWC) offers free, confidential counselling to students.
  • Flourishing IITB is an initiative on student well-being at IIT Bombay.
  • Saathi is the LGBTQ+ resource group of IIT Bombay.
  • The Gender Cell handles complaints of sexual harassment and works on gender sensitisation (see the chapter on Ethics and Code of Conduct).
  • The SC/ST Students Cell handles the concerns and grievances of SC/ST students, including caste-based discrimination.