MOUSTACHIOED DON'S FIVE MINUTES OF FAME
Tuesday November 7, 2006
'Handsome' prof's light teaching style featured in video clip on Web
Ansley Ng
ansley@mediacorp.com.sg
A NANYANG Technological University (NTU) engineering professor has shot to cyberspace stardom after a video of his lecture was posted onto video sharing website YouTube.com.
In the five-minute clip, Professor Lalit Goel, who heads NTU's power engineering division, flashed a series of slides containing funny comments that students wrote about him on an overhead projector.
The comments, some of which described the 46-year-old as "sexy", "handsome" and "erotic", were written anonymously by students on feedback forms that were filled to grade lecturers after the students finished a module.
To guffaws and applause, Prof Goel revealed more than 10 slides of mischievous and witty comments written about him by students over the years - mostly poking fun at his bald pate and thick moustache.
"Is your moustache the source of your knowledge?" wrote one cheeky student. "Please don't set so difficult questions because most of us don't have moustaches."
"You make me horny, baby. Give exam tips?" wrote another.
One of his favourite remarks, Prof Goel told the class, was a two-line poem praising him: "No grass on the busy road. No hair on the clever head."
The video has since received about 175,000 views and earned a four-star rating - out of five - among Netizens, with 1,700 people making it their favourite video on YouTube.com.
"I wanted to show my students what their predecessors used to write, writing things in jest and have a bit of fun outside the academic environment," Prof Goel told Today. "It is a way to help them de-stress since the exams are not far away."
He learnt about the video from a former student, but still does not know who posted the video or what was used to record it.
Prof Goel - who has won 15 teaching awards since joining NTU in 1991 - has been showing such feedback to students since 1996. He clarified that out of 700 feedback forms he receives every year, only "five or six" contained funny remarks.
When asked how the university administration viewed the posting, an NTU spokesperson applauded the "fun and light-hearted" approach to help the students relieve stress.
"The students clearly enjoyed the session, and many NTU students, including students from other universities, responded positively to his witty and lively style," he said.
But while university lecturers who saw the video lauded his method of teaching, some said the popularity of video sharing sites could pose issues when students take what goes on in classrooms into cyberspace.
The classroom can become a "threatening" environment, especially if recording devices were used to ridicule, said Singapore Management University's Assistant Professor Eugene Tan. "It is important that the classroom does not become a 'hostile environment' where students and instructors are fearful of recording devices."
Associate-Professor Ho Yew Kee of the National University of Singapore, who "volunteers" to put videos of all his lectures on the web to help students revise, said it won't necessarily stifle teaching.
"You have to use your discretion and wisdom. We don't say anything seditious or talk about race or religion."
Prof Ho added: "Sometimes, you have to say something controversial to cause students to think. It is always a delicate line we have to draw and it is wisdom we will have to use."
From
http://www.todayonline.com/articles/153043.asp
