Teaching is a passion for Jaipuria Institute of Management, Indore’s Assistant Professor, Pooja S. Kushwaha.

“I have selected this career not by chance – I love teaching,” she says, and that love of teaching translates into active classroom sessions. “My teaching philosophy emphasises active student participation in learning through the support and development of significant and innovative thinking skills. Students are encouraged to be actively involved in my class, discussing concepts, exercises and problems. It is essential, especially in IT, for students to construct their own knowledge and build upon prior information by actively questioning previous knowledge and developing new concepts.”

Prof. Kushwaha says, “To accomplish classroom participation from students in my class, I utilise a variety of teaching strategies to facilitate learning for different types of students. I introduce more real-life applications that increase the students’ interest and specifically address why the material is relevant.”

She carries her passion for teaching beyond the classroom walls, organising many student seminars on various IT-related topics like working efficiently on MS Excel, role of database management software for business and SAS.

“These seminars helped a number of students at the time of final and summer placements,” she said. “These basic IT skills make them more employable.”

Above and beyond her classroom duties, Prof. Kushwaha works for Jaipuria Institute of Management’s admissions department and carries out institutional collaboration for different MBA examination bodies such as CAT, MAT, XAT, ATMA, and CMAT. She also serves as the Information Technology Area Chair and takes care of the girls’ hostel and mess.

She has behind her nine years of teaching experience in academics and research in the area of business intelligence, knowledge management, database management systems and enterprise resource planning.

Prof. Kushwaha is also a published author, with a number of magazine articles, web articles and research papers published and presented in various national and international conferences to her credit.

Even her spare time is devoted to her career. “I love to Google search on different topics related to the latest happenings in information technology,” she says. “I love reading books and I am also devoting my time to research.”

As for her experience at Jaipuria Institute of Management, Indore, she says the institute’s polices are very favorable to employees. “As a faculty member, Jaipuria gives me lots of opportunities to grow as an academician as well as a researcher. I am very thankful to Jaipuria.”