Collaborative work like questioning and answering, how its even possible in an exam oriented environment in India?

While going through the article http://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2016/7/7-1,  Learn How to Study Using... Elaboration, it made me think of my past education or even present schooling system in India from my siblings.

It's like turning the education system upside down, just changing everything, from teacher centric to student-centric. But how it will be possible?

Here the reasons that don't allow it to happen because:

1) Exam oriented environment
Exam oriented environment in India, marks means everything, no matter how you secure it, through copying, through cramming, memorizing or any method you like. You are judged through your marks. Even to tackle it CCE was brought. But it has become even a greater failure because of our smart teachers who could circumvent the effort, by distributing marks for free, showing good scores to parents and everyone. The end result is negligible learning due to CCE.

2) Lack of time
Leave about a lazy teacher for a while, what about teachers who genuinely want their students to learn something. To describe a single topic, it requires a scrupulous amount of work and time in the classroom which means lagging behind the syllabus. The question also comes to mind why a teacher will try it if at end students are tested by an hour exam which they have to reproduce what's already written in books. It's just transferring the information from books to answer script, and you are awarded no matter which method you apply to achieve it.

 The exams don't test collaboration or questioning skills, it doesn't test the ability to imagine something novel or out of the box thinking.

Even these skills can't be tested through the one-hour exam. It can only be done through projects, a project that requires time, which student don't find because they have to clear entrances and exams.

Some students can say that they are given lots of projects. Yes, they are given, but without purpose or details.

Take the project of collecting medicinal plant photos. Project description ended with a single line. No description of what's the purpose of doing it, why they are doing it. If you ask the student, they will say that they are doing it for the sake of project i.e. because they are asked to do so. The end result is collecting randomly some medicinal plant photos (only photos) from Wikipedia, and then rebuking the teacher in mind for giving the task, as they don't find time to study their syllabus. And finally submitting the printout of photos, which are again thrown to trash after some days.

Here is how the same project could have been interesting, by giving specific details of the project.

1) Collect medicinal plant that you find interesting, about 20
2) Mention why did you thought it as interesting, what is the purpose/use of the medicinal plant you have chosen
3) Choose 3 plants out of it, and discuss that plant in the classroom with as much detail you can, where teacher and other students will assist in inquiry by asking probing questions
4) Note down the asked questions that you did not know, and probe the internet to find answers
5) Next day discuss the newly discovered answers with the classmates and teachers.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Critical Analysis on NEET Biology Questions, comparison with Campbell Biology Questions

Image
All entrance exams only test rote memorization of abstract concepts without testing critical thinking and in-depth knowledge. Questions don't let you think, just requires a recall of abstract data that you have memorized. Today I will review few questions of NEET and compare those questions with Campbell book Look at the question, it's very descriptive, and promotes critical thinking, just reading the question itself makes you think even if you don't know the answer But what NEET will ask The equivalent of a structural gene is: 1) Operon 2) Recon 3) Muton 4) Cistron Believe me, students would have just memorized or linked structural gene with cistron by attempting previous years questions. The questions simply don't make you think. Do the questions address the answer to the question why Cistron is called a structural gene? From the internet: A structural gene is a gene that codes for any RNA or protein product other than a regulatory fact
Read more

All books that don't meet the learning criteria must be taken off

Image
Learning About Learning Resources https://github.com/amiyatulu/teacher_resources Textbook must cover six fundamental instructional strategies while presenting the information, defined by rigorous research. 1) Pairing graphics with words 2) Linking abstract concepts with concrete representations Why we face difficulty to remember abstract concepts? http://technoperiod.blogspot.in/2017/03/why-we-face-difficulty-to-remember-non.html 3)  Posing probing questions "What Makes a Great Question?" rubric Why, how, what if, how do you know, what are the evidences What if and why not helps you to find alternatives to a solution 4) Repeatedly alternating problems with their solutions provided and problems that students must solve. Interleaving  and Component Practice  can be used for better transfer of learning with appropriate cognitive load. 5) Distributing practice 6) Assessing to boost retention Detailed explanation of the strategies is gi
Read more

The Competitive Collaboration Algorithm

Image
Competitive Collaboration Algorithm: It's a decentralized network where you compete to collaborate. Edge weight represents difficulty to get connected. Difficulty depends on factors such as distance, location, quality, price. We need to choose subgraph containing all the required nodes (e.g. nodes containing a,b,c,d ) that has a minimum weight or optimal weight. a,b,c,d can represent different services, whereas a1, a2 represents the same services from a different service provider. For example, 'a' can represent a student, 'b' can represent a teacher, 'c' can represent content provider such as a biology textbook and 'd' can represent a classroom or building. Similarly  'b1' represents teacher1, 'b2' represents teacher2, etc. So, For student1 (a1), the optimum subgraph or subgraph with minimum weight containing all the required services are a1,b1,c2, d2 with weight 0.5+2.3+4.2 . Usefulness of the model: 1) Predictio
Read more

Personalized learning goals: New information is built over reusing of previous information

Image
Some students perform better, while others not. What are the main reasons? 1) Study material provided and learning strategies used by teachers. It simply doesn't meet the learning criteria. https://github.com/amiyatulu/teacher_resources Students are feed with so much of abstract stuff as a result only those students excel who have a better memory retention capacity of abstract information and those who work too hard for it. But such a hard work is meaningless, as you will forget such information after exams are over. 2) Not teaching kids from where they are.  I will explain it with a concrete example. While teaching chemistry, one of my students was so fast in holding information and doing the problems, while other was slow. The reason for her/his slowness is not that he/she is less intelligent, it's because (s)he is taking more time for processing due to lack of previous foundational information.  When (s)he does the processing, (s)he has to take the account of
Read more

Explaining true experiment to a 13-year-old

Image
Let's start with a Twitter Joke: Conversation over breakfast. ME: Whoa, you lost another tooth? A: Yes! ME: Why didn't you tell me? A: I'm conducting an experiment. If I lose a tooth and don't tell anyone, will the tooth fairy still come? If not, then I know the tooth fairy isn't real. ME: ... HUSBAND: 😮 A small introduction to true experiments True experiments involve changing one variable and then measuring another. A variable is any factor, trait, or condition that can exist in differing amounts or types. The two main variables in an experiment are the independent and dependent variable. An independent variable is a variable that is changed or controlled in a scientific experiment to test the effects on the dependent variable. A dependent variable is a variable being tested and measured in a scientific experiment. Independent variable: Cause Dependent variable: Effect The researcher is looking for the possible effect on the dependent vari
Read more

What are the problems with grades?

Image
The problem with grades: 1) Grades are an oversimplification of achievements that say very little about it. They are just numbers which say nothing about what you know or about your working skills. 2) Grades are often biased and are done based upon the context of questions . Sometimes questions are not well made, most often they are just repeats of previous year questions. Because of this they really don't check the critical high order thinking of the children. 3) Malpractice . It is also rampant in our education system. 4) Too much of psychological pressure from parents, teachers to score more, that leads them to depression and sometimes even they take drastic steps like suicide. 5)Grades shift the goal from learning to just marks , which can be achieved by many many means with our inefficient education system. 6) No grades are given for effort , grades are given only for solving hypothetical book problems . I have seen many students struggling in our education syste
Read more

How MOOCs + Open Lab can rescue our education system?

MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are most affordable (even free), but the problem with it is practicals. Can a student earn a degree in subjects like Mechanical Engineering, Aeronautical Engineering, Biotechnology or any other subjects that require expensive practical equipment with doing MOOCs? It's not possible because there is no way to do practical experiments. So along with MOOCs, our education system should provide Open Laboratories What Features Should Open Laboratory have:  First, it can be opened by anyone after getting approval from the government. Open Laboratories can buy cutting-edge equipment based on the technology that is required in different courses. Open Laboratories should have the freedom to buy based on how much they want to spend. They need not have to buy all the equipment, just like colleges. This will cut the expenses of open laboratories. It will also promote entrepreneurship. They should have qualified researchers or teachers who know the worki
Read more

Steps that can be taken to improve education system

1) MOOCs for Teacher: Every body cares about student education, but no body thinks about teachers. They can only transfer knowledge only if they themselves are well educated with the subjects and knows how to teach scientifically so that the teaching is most productive and knowledge reaches to maximum students. Like students, teachers should also be motivated daily. So there should be 1 hour MOOCs for teachers even, where they can listen the lectures and appear exams. 2) Including courses like Learning How to Learn ( Page on coursera.org ) and Becoming a Resilient Person ( edX ) and many other study techniques in the syllabus itself. So that students knows how he should study productively without rote learning the things and also learn to cope up with the stress. 3) MOOCs for Students: In the first phase for about 6 months we should give MOOCs for teachers, than when they are well versed with all the computer technologies, than time for MOOCs for students. But computer (e.g.  cheape
Read more

Why we face difficulty to remember non-concrete information?

Image
What are the functions of a brain? Pattern recognition, interpretation and storing of information that we get from our sense organs I would go with following steps to show that non-concrete information is the type of information that our brain is not trained for. The most requirement to remember abstract information is more recent when mathematics and different languages were invented. The invention of writing that allowed storing information that we can't remember. The human being invented abstract information like more than one language or mathematics which we are evolutionarily unfit to remember. Are we evolutionary unfit to memorize abstract information? To prove it lets look the following experiment. The brain is good at recognizing things in a span of seconds. For example, we change our path if there is a hindrance in front. But if you close your eyes, we will miss details of the hindrance. Let's try to memorize this map in a span of se
Read more

What if we limit the expression of these two important words: Share and Adapt?

Image
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. What happens when you limit the voicing of these two important words? 1) Nescience : (Ignorance is a lack of knowledge) Our eyes and senses are limited by many ways. We are adapted to view the world perfectly only at a particular zooming level . The world becomes blurred when we increase or decrease the zooming level. We can't know what is happening in another country just by our senses. Increasing and decreasing the zooming level requires indirect measurements that are tedious and sophisticated. You need to learn the outcomes of the research, and techniques to make measurements by bringing it down to texts and tools that are compatible with our zooming level. Without sharing these texts, using and adapting it, our knowledge will be limited to our zooming
Read more