Introduction:

The Teaching Innovations Programme (TIPE) for college teachers economics seeks to improve undergraduate education in economics in Kerala by offering the instructors an opportunity to expand their teaching skills and participate in the scholarship of teaching and learning in Economics. The programme will introduce the participants to some of the recent advances in economic theory and pedagogical techniques as well.

The first version of the TIPE programme was offered in July-August 2006 This version was supported by the Ratan Tata Trust and about 15 lecturers from various colleges across the state participated in it. A second version of the programme was offered in June-July 2007 with participation by 20 lecturers. The fourth version of the programme will be offered during November 8 through 25 2010. The application for this version is now closed.  

Programme objectives:

After attending this programme the participants are (i) to be sensitized to the recent developments in micro, macro, statistics and Indian economy topics; (ii) to make the teachings of these topics more interesting and relevant to actual life situations; (iii) to adapt teaching strategies presented in the programme for use in their own courses.

Programme content:

The Programme has four modules of five working days each. The modules range from topics in economic theory to quantitative techniques to selected issues in Indian economy. The four modules are:

Module 1: Microeconomics;
Module 2: Macroeconomics;
Module 3: Econometrics; and
Module 4: Selected topics on Indian economy

The participants can choose between various combinations of at least two modules. For instance a participant may opt for all the four modules or she may choose various combinations of the modules, say for instance Modules 1 and 2 or Modules 1 and 3 or Modules 1 and 4 and so on. Under each of the modules lectures are conducted in an interactive mode during the morning session. The afternoon session, on the contrary, will be devoted to the examination of various concepts and issues in a workshop mode. All the modules will also focus on using new technologies such as computer based exercises and the Internet to make the topics livelier and up-to-date. In fact introducing the participants to a whole host of web-based teaching and research resources is an important feature of this programme. Module 1 dealing with selected issues in Indian economy will introduce the participants to the database of Indian economy and also to techniques in data analysis.