Fierce Educator: Dr. Krishna Pakala

Fierce Education is recognizing those administrators, faculty, instructors, professors, and other higher education influencers who are boldly embracing innovative ways of teaching, technologies and methods to engage and reach students during these challenging times. They are the “Fierce Educators” who are rethinking higher education in this new blended learning world and we will be highlighting their successes and accomplishments.

Fierce Educator:

Dr. Krishna Pakala

Affiliation:

Assistant Professor, Mechanical & Biomedical Engineering, Boise State University

Being Fierce:

As the world shut down in March 2020, Dr. Krishna Pakala became the "Professor of the Pandemic", utilized the far-reaching capabilities of digital technology to continue his students’ learning seamlessly. He used the functionalities provided by commonly used social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook to reach out and maintain human connections. The broader goal was to embrace digital togetherness to bridge the gaps caused by social distancing.

Dr. Pakala realized it was important for him to reach out to not just students in his engineering Heat Transfer course, but to also train students to reach out to each other and to their instructors in other courses. He trained colleagues at his department and college on how to use digital means to connect with students and the community. Dr. Pakala offered several opportunities for training on technology to aid in learning and teaching for students and faculty. His virtual face-to-face “Teaching and Learning Online” training sessions were attended by several of his colleagues at the college of engineering. He also taught digital teaching and learning training sessions for the campus community.

Further, students who lived in the engineering Living Learning Community (LLC) had to leave campus in order to maintain social distancing. So that students didn’t miss out on the living on campus experiences, Dr. Pakala hosted digital social and academic digital check-ins with his students using Zoom. Students participated virtually, in pre-scheduled LLC social gatherings like guest speaker event nights, the annual banquet, and other fun team building events.

Dr. Devshikha Bose, also of Boise State, even wrote this article about Dr. Pakala’s work.

Dr. Pakala was named the 2020 Golden Apple award for the College of Engineering. This award is presented by the Associated Students of Boise State University, and one award is given per college, per year.

For more Fierce Educators, see:

Fierce Educator: Dr. Joanna Bauer, Claremont Lincoln University

Fierce Educator: Dr. Scott McNabb, Emory University

Fierce Educator: Dr. Palma Catravas, Montgomery College

Fierce Educator: Dr. Leslie Haas, Buena Vista University