REENGINEERING EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMS FOR MAXIMIZING LEARNING

Education 2047 #Blog 11 (17 DEC 2022)

This blog builds up a case for liquidating dropout/ detention/ failing of students from our education system; it’s outrightly anachronistic when knowledge is getting democratized and virtual learning is mainstreaming. After 12 years of formal education and competing to get a seat (investing years and parental earnings), each youth entering higher education should be facilitated to realize the full potential and contribute as an active member of the workforce, even with impairments. Failing to pass examinations and missing a degree amounts to losing a graduate, in the absence of choices that can be offered in higher education; it is a huge loss that we tend to ignore. Fortunately, this can change with features like Credit Frameworks, Academic Bank of Credits (ABC), National Academic Depository (NAD), Digital University coming in the wake of National Educational Policy (NEP 2020), but embedding them in the system of the past will not deliver results. Zero loss in throughput from higher education, or for that matter education, must be what we should aim at, in our Amrit Kaal (time span till 2047, the centenary of India’s Independence).

The new features can best deliver for the country, if the learners have choices to move effortlessly and pick any combination of subjects that align with their tastes, ability and competence, riding on Virtual Learning. Youth in the productive age group should not get detained only because their choices are not offered by an institution; it’s a national waste. Let me, however, start by dwelling briefly on the ingress into the higher education system, before coming to how some systems should change, mindful of the future that stares at us.

The highest level in the 5+3+3+4 pattern proposed in the NEP for the school system corresponds with the secondary education, which is currently heavily prescriptive and is guided by what a school within the reach of a learner offers. This is the stage to prepare the learner to get ready for a professional course and thus, the best time-span to discover what he/she needs to pursue. The students must be given the option to pick up any subjects, skills, competencies or languages that appeals to them in the merged 4 years, and this must be facilitated by the schools and not dictated. There should be profuse use of technology to help them identify what they can excel in through assessments (and not examinations). Today a smartphone riding on Artificial Intelligence tells us not just what interests a student, but also suggests what can be the next best thing to do. It is here that we must facilitate the students to get imaginative and creative; and also pick up skills to become a lifelong learner.

The schools/ boards must issue certificates identifying what they are or can ace in (and not what they are lagging in). Having figured out what they can excel in, the students must be tested for aptitude, for admitting them into higher education. It is an exercise in futility to test their knowledge in subjects which they have anyway studied and are prepared to advance their knowledge- by learning either in closed classroom or from open platforms; by experiencing either from practicals or from real world. This approach should conserve the time (of students) and money (of parents) which goes into coaching, that neither imparts skills nor values for the youth stepping into higher learning. 

With learners now having free access to knowledge, it will be experience (experiential learning) that will take over knowledge as currency in academics, in the times ahead. It is the quest for experience that connects the learner with the real world, assesses the real abilities of a person, and prepares a confident person for society. This is also needed for a creative and innovative society where thinking is privileged over memorizing in our academic institutions. It will, therefore, be incumbent upon colleges/ universities to not just teach for enhancing knowledge and examine learners on it but also on experience that packs knowledge, abilities and skills together. Examinations as we have them currently, are not befitting the emerging systems, as our memory functions get outsourced; we need to be Moving towards Education without Examinations.

Higher education institutions have existed to impart knowledge to its seekers and acknowledge its acquisition. During the industrial age, the seekers were grouped by institutions keeping in view resources (including knowledge) available with them and maximizing the output, guided and conditioned by the industrial considerations. The grouping by an institution naturally should have been based on prior knowledge level of learners, but was based on age instead, as ascertaining the level of knowledge was loaded with uncertainties and thus, classes (and classrooms) were created, for the ease of institutions not learners! This has persisted due to demand of similarly skilled employees in batches from the industry and even education institutions. Is class (or batch) the best way to maximize learning? Certainly not when we know that each learner has a different pace and style of proceeding. Let’s not forget, it is differences that enrich our experiences, their absence impoverishes us. Shouldn't then classes (smacking of conformism) be dismantled, and let the learners be left to organize themselves in groups under the guidance of mentors?

Technology is galloping at an exponential rate whereas humans will continue to race at a linear pace. This will create wider gaps in knowledge which will continue to be widening. It will be impossible for a person to keep pace with complete knowledge in his or her field, especially the teachers. The effective teaching spans will come down and this will happen faster; and, we will need multiple teachers which will be impossible to be available in one institution, a gap to be plugged by virtual learning. Teaching basics will no longer be a classroom thing and the teachers will have to repurpose and reboot themselves for higher levels. Essentially, the teachers will have to give up their role as transmitter of information (Adhyapak) and that of knowledge (Upadhyay) and instead  elevate themselves as Acharya (one who imparts skills), Pandit (facilitating deep insight into a subject), Dhrishta (having visionary view on a subject and teaching learner to think in that manner) or Guru (awaken the wisdom in the learner). The existence of these terms in Sanskrit/ Hindi/ other Indian languages is a pointer to the education system that we have had in the past and its reconstruction should not be difficult.

As far as institutions are concerned, in the times ahead, the fittest will be those who gear-up and remodel themselves to transact in experience (experiential learning and not information/ knowledge). For staying relevant, they will have to train their teachers to support, promote and enhance learning instead of knowledge which stands universalized (and needs aggressive push to be made accessible to everyone on this planet). Likewise, curricula shall have to be replaced by problems/ challenges, even as societal benefits take over academic achievements, ethics over accomplishments and reputation over degree.

We are a few decades now being wrapped in the world-wide-web and in this span, teacher-centric education has flipped to emerge as learner-centric. Obviously the systems and structures cannot remain same for the topsy-turvy and should be re-engineered. With ever rising demand for education, for maximizing learners for learning and learning of learners, the recipe would be to- rejig education, re-mandate institutions, reorient teachers, restructure classrooms, recraft curricula, redevelop books, replace examinations; and, all this for zero academic loss, in and for an Atma Nirbhar Bharat!

***

 

 

Author is an Adviser with All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) on deputation from Technology Information, Forecasting & Assessment Council (TIFAC).

 

Views are personal.

 

Feedback appreciated in the comment box below. 👍

Previous blogs

'Rubricating' Education for Better Learning Outcomes

Indiscipline in Disciplines for Multidisciplinary Education!

Re'class'ification of Learning for the New Normal

Reconfiguring Education as 'APP' Learning

Rejigging Universities with a COVID moment

Reimagining Engineering Education for 'Techcelerating' Times

Uprighting STEM Education with 7x24 Labs 

Dismantling Macaulay's Schools with 'Online' Support

Moving Towards Education Without Examinations

Disruptive Technologies in Education and Challenges in its Governance

'RUBRICATING' EDUCATION FOR BETTER LEARNING OUTCOMES

Education 2047 #Blog 10 (14 JUL 2022)

 

Our education system has an overdose of examinations- we want to examine the learners at the beginning of a course (conduct an admission test), have an examination at the end of the course (to acknowledge the 'degree' of learning acquired) and pepper the entire course with examinations (or tests). After the exit examination, a person still has to appear in a test (for selection of few and rejection of more) for recruitment or admission into courses for higher education, where they look for competence (knowledge + skills + aptitude) but end up testing knowledge only!

For academic courses, does it really make sense to have test or examinations- both at the beginning and at the end? If we admit a student, based on a test, then it should be the responsibility of admitting institution to provide all support even remedial measures in completion of the course; after all admission tests also cost time and money that is expended but not invested in learning. The pre-requisite of certain subjects at entry level also is meaningless if an aspirant is admitted after clearing an entrance test, whose level is often high- to select less and reject more!

I have already argued at length in favour of 'moving towards education without examinations'. What we need, during the course taken by a student, is a series of assessments that may or may not touch all points in the syllabus, to enhance the learning as well. There has to be, a 4- Quadrant approach (or what is popularly known as 360 degree) starting with self-assessment itself. A person being prepared for certain level of education must be able to look inwards and be competent to assess self (the first Quadrant). It is not just in academics that we need to be capable of assessments but also in all walks of life. Therefore, the education institutions must among other things also train graduates for making good assessment of the situations, and this is a life-skill by itself.

Assessment by peers and teachers in the classroom (second and third Quadrants) can be very important element in the course of the course due to their transactional and engaging nature. Currently such type of assessment is discouraged because we conduct our classes/ courses conditioned for competition where hiding one’s knowledge in the class and showing it in answer sheets- to score over others is encouraged. In the absence of this in-class assessment which is critical for learning by collaboration and by exchange of knowledge (information/ opinion/ wisdom), we send out graduates who love to compete at the work places that demand collaboration; in short, impoverished in soft skills.

The fourth Quadrant of assessment should have experts (from academics or the industry or any other agency) working in that domain of knowledge. This assessment would be critical in nature and thus, closest to the real world. This should hone the learning and in a way impart edge to the graduate, to be a confident participant in the workforce. Institutions should not, keeping pace with the changing educational landscape, shy away from use of external spaces or even social media, for such type of assessments.  Instead of conducting examinations inside four-walls (and with cameras!), we should use assessments as tool integrated in teaching-learning and make both more effective.

Thus, there will be three spaces/ places where the assessment of a student can happen instead of the classroom alone. Self-assessment can be done anywhere and anytime; peer assessment and that by the teacher can be in the classrooms/ campuses that could be virtual also; the final layer of assessment can involve experts (even virtually) which will be most effective and that could even eliminate the need for tests by employers. With this type of arrangement, only an entrance test is required and no exit test (for employment or by the recruiter); and this may do away the unwieldy approach of series of examinations both at entry and exit, and also in between. Having batted for assessment, let me take turn to bowl for a tool for the same- Rubrics!

Rubrics are versatile assessment tools, usually in the form of a matrix or grid, hardly used in Indian education system. Also known as "grading schemes", "criteria sheets", or "scoring guides", they are used to measure a students’ performance and learning, across a set of criteria and objectives. There are three components within rubrics namely (a) criteria/ performance indicator: the aspects of performance that will be assessed, (b) descriptors: characteristics that are associated with each dimension, and (c) scale/level of performance: a rating scale that defines students’ level of mastery within each criterion. 

  

An example of rubric (Source: https://www.sadlier.com/)

Rubrics can be used for assessing learning at all levels- and encompassing open-ended experiments in laboratories; project-based learning modules; online courses; mini/ minor projects; capstone projects; articles; books; internship experiences; co-curricular experiences etc. They thus, comprehensively elevate the level of assessment and also that of learning, to higher orbits  through TASK (Testing of Abilities, Skills & Knowledge) and by junking EXAM (Examining Xeroxing Ability of Mind)! 

In an examination/ test, the student is penalized for failing short of reproducing standard answers; the rubrics however, incentivize a learner by telling what was deficient by way of feedback, that too from plural assessors at one go. Encouraging peer interaction as they are, rubrics are constructive in design and flavour when compared with examinations/ tests. As a whole, rubrics bring in the benefit of clarity, objectivity, transparency, consistency and celerity in assessment and also, reduced complaints from learners.  

In the education system that has evolved responding to the need of industrial society, the universities and its teachers have over-burdened themselves with examinations, unnecessarily reducing themselves to machines who have to compare the answer with the text in the books and grade the reproducibility (not the learning!). It is high time, we adopted more meaningful tools of assessment like rubrics now– especially when learners have moved to the new turf as digital natives, navigate virtual spaces effortlessly, are experienced in the art of searching, choose their source of learning independently, and have even stopped writing or taking notes.

The questions to test the memory, as we are stuck obsessed with, can be built into the online material, embedded into apps, gamified or left to classroom interactions. The teachers must be trained to construct rubrics to assess higher order skills and generously use it in pedagogy, instead of questions which are copied from book with no thinking required. If the copying in the answer-sheets is bad, why copying of questions (asked in last 5 years) is not bad? Let’s come out (of examinations) and ‘rubric’ate education, for better learning outcomes!

***

 

 

Author is an Adviser with All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) on deputation from Technology Information, Forecasting & Assessment Council (TIFAC).

Views are personal.

Feedback will be appreciated in the comment box below. 👍

Previous blogs

Indiscipline in Disciplines for Multidisciplinary Education!

Re'class'ification for Learning in the New Normal

Reconfiguring Education as 'APP' Learning

Rejigging Universities with a COVID moment

Reimagining Engineering Education for 'Techcelerating' Times

Uprighting STEM Education with 7x24 Labs 

Dismantling Macaulay's Schools with 'Online' Support

Moving Towards Education Without Examinations

Disruptive Technologies in Education and Challenges in its Governance

Synallagmatic Industry-Academia Linkages

 

 

 

RE'CLASS'IFICATION FOR LEARNING IN THE NEW NORMAL

Education 2047 #Blog 08 (17 JAN 2022)

The COVID pandemic has hit the world like a tsunami leaving behind the systems gasping for oxygen; academic institutions left entangled completely in the world-wide-web of uncertainty and tottering on their course to normalcy. The biggest assault of the pandemic in academics- is not on the universities or colleges, not on the learners or teachers, not on the syllabus or examinations but the classrooms. Yes, the classrooms have gone on a toss! But this is not a sudden development as classrooms have progressively been laid redundant since the arrival of smartphones; the virus only catalyzed the process. And what has been attempted to fill the gap during pandemic is imitation or recreation of classrooms on the web, which is not so appealing to the digital learners and is only helping in completion of courses.


Today the learning material can be accessed by the learners anywhere, anytime. A learner can choose from text, audio, video- the best s/he is comfortable with, and can even choose the teacher to learn from. Despite an interface for assured learning possible at click of a button, the classrooms are surviving because of compulsory attendance; remove it for a semester and you will find students still passing to the next semester. That's because what has been a preserve of classrooms is not so any more, learning is happening in a democratized manner outside also; practicals conducted in the lab are already on a low pedestal as most jobs get automated or outsourced to machines. A close look suggests that classrooms, their design and operational hours are teacher-centered and operated for delivery of service rather than learning, and this gets accentuated even as teacher-learner equation tilts in favour of learners.


The conventional layout of classroom places a teacher or an instructor at the focus. There is a delivery of knowledge/ instructions- through speech, writing on the board or demonstration- 'staged' in front of students. The students are expected to listen, take down notes, ask question in case of lack of clarity, respond to questions etc. To check that knowledge has been transferred and grabbed, there are tests. These are the things that happen in a typical classroom and to ensure that all these take place, there is attendance. The classes are (only) on the subjects/ topics in which there are teachers available. Doesn't then the term 'class' itself, sound suggestive of differentiation?

It's a group of learners organized as per the convenience of the academic institution that fills a classroom. The setup doesn't help a learner in pursuing her/his calling, choose subjects, skills, competencies and to excel therein. It also does not support sizeable introverts in each class, not to mention all those who have no liking for that subject/ teacher and those with learning disabilities. Neither does it allow collaborative learning nor is laid out for it. The classrooms may be useful to initiate learning but do not assure its completion. In such settings, it is not possible for an instructor to create a personalized environment for each student. Aren't the classrooms then, as we have them, redundant? Aren't they actually designed to encourage study and pass solo, stay silent and suppress curiosity, ensure education but be unsure of learning?


Classrooms no longer excite the digital learners and will continue to be pushed to the margins. Ever thought when, during the day, are the learners most alert and receptive to instructions? Difficult to pinpoint, right? Most certainly it's not the first half of the forenoon; but that ironically is the time, teaching is at the peak in all academic institutions- alike offices and factories. Schools and colleges operate as service providers, operations at best when the time suits the teachers (and management) and not the learners. Are we having the right timings for our academic systems that really maximize learning? Have you ever noted that technology is shifting the hours of study since your days as students; will the classrooms remain same then? Possibly get transformed to support new age learning, instead of pushing industrial-age education.

With spatio-temporal-linguistic barriers getting liquidated by emerging technologies, the classrooms of future will support- interactions and discussions between learners who would teach each other. Also, share the common space- to learn from volumetric screens and holographic images, which will give whopping immersive experience. These systems will be smart enough to capture the interaction with learners, update themselves and give enriching experience to the learners thereafter. Touchscreens (user interface), fabric-embedded screens (mobile projection), holographic images (near real simulation) along with other technologies will possibly convert classroom into an immersive walkthrough- with right-sized images and their projection on demand. This will offer the learners, options to create new scenarios with available information/ knowledge or fetch an existing content from anywhere in the digital repositories- to support and enhance learning. Advancements in use-interface technologies combined with Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Augmented/ Virtual Reality, Brain-Computer Interface etc will enliven the classrooms to power- adaptive, personalized and purposed (APP) learning instead of peddling- corrective, prescriptive and restrictive (CPR) education, and that will truly be, a 'class' apart!

 * * *

 

 

Author is an Adviser with All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) on deputation from Technology Information, Forecasting & Assessment Council (TIFAC).

Views are personal.

Feedback can be given in the comment box below. Thanks!

Previous blogs

Reconfiguring Education as 'APP' Learning

Rejigging Universities with a COVID moment

Reimagining Engineering Education for 'Techcelerating' Times

Uprighting STEM Education with 7x24 Labs 

Dismantling Macaulay's Schools with 'Online' Support

Moving Towards Education Without Examinations

Disruptive Technologies in Education and Challenges in its Governance

Synallagmatic Industry-Academia Linkages