Structural Frameworks for Multi-modal Teaching Methods

Effective teaching is essential to developing and transforming students into qualified professionals. The employability of graduating students remains a core challenge in universities worldwide. Multi-modal teaching is one of the effective methods to impart quality education, enhance the employability of graduates, and enable research-oriented teaching. Multimodal teaching utilizes multiple teaching modalities to impart broader or deeper learning based on the teaching objectives. Two structural frameworks for multi-modal teaching methods are discussed and compared in this paper: (i) Integrated multimodal teaching (IMT) and (ii) Multi-Track Modular Teaching (MT2). IMT utilizes multiple teaching modalities within a course or lecture, respectively, in a coarsely or tightly integrated manner. On the other hand, MT2 utilizes parallel activity tracks to impart deeper learning on the topic. A study on the effectiveness of multimodal teaching also has been presented. A qualitative comparison among them is also provided. Methods to practice the two multimodal teaching methods for the engineering curriculum have also been discussed in this paper.