Will boundaries of universities whither away?

This is an extract that I recently wrote to a friend who is always excited about finding new ways to teach.

Hi ****,

Universities have started offering online courses. Last semester quite a few students were doing an online course from Harvard ! I think the idea of students registering for such online courses is going to increase rapidly. They get the best faculty to learn from. Perhaps one can also envisage a future where students taking admissions into a single university loses meaning. A student can sit and home and  take individual online courses from any university of their choice. It may be the future in some sense atleast. It sounds good since you aren't restricted by boundaries of universities, countries anymore. It may even be cheaper. Well, there may still be some bounds - infinite number of students surely cannot register for a single course - bandwidth constraints, evaluations and administrative issues (which can be resolved to some extent by technology again). However, number of students who can register for a given course at a given university will certainly increase many folds.

It does sound good. However, a university is also a place where students, faculty meet each other. They talk to each other on variety of topics, just have fun and make merry, build bonds, friendships. A University is not just a place where people learn engineering, science or humanity. It is also a place where people build bonds and live a life. If a brick-mortar university were to get replaced with an online university I will certainly mourn it.

Regards,

Gaurav....

Classrooms & factories

A recent article in NYT had this extract from the book "Now you see it"

The contemporary American classroom, with its grades and deference to the clock, is an inheritance from the late 19^th century. During that period of titanic change, machines suddenly needed to run on time. Individual workers needed to willingly perform discrete operations as opposed to whole jobs. The industrial-era classroom, as a training ground for future factory workers, was retooled to teach tasks, obedience, hierarchy and schedules.

I like the above analysis. Schools & colleges indeed teach in a manner that will help them fit into professional-life. Like in India now-a-days soft skills and ability to communicate is getting talked about in our campuses for last 15 years. India has a large IT service industry and these qualities  have become very important.

By above, it appears that the child is usually not the center of our education system. The future of the child in the economic landscape of the time is its center.

Technology in classroom - Midas touch psyche.

In TOI, I just came across a description of what are known as "smart classes" in many of our new schools.

"Class notes are now emailed to students, there are graphic calculators and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. Homework assignments are posted online. All of this is designed to make teaching more interactive with videoconferencing and live broadcasting. As for chalks and dusters, forget it".

The word "smart", "technology enabled" has such a mesmerizing & hypnotic effect on our minds now-a-days that under its spell we are left with no choice but to regard as "revolutionary" anything prefixed with these labels.

We all want to be smart. That is a hard problem. So, lets get our teaching tools to be "smart". That is an easier problems. "smart" teaching tools can just be bought off the shelf. This solution does something wonderful. It gives us the impression that we have solved the earlier 'hard' problem - "we all want to be smart". Just because we operate "smart" devices somehow its meant to make us smart goes the belief. Its like the touch of Midas. Anything touched by 'smart' technology becomes 'smart' too.

Schools do not adopt these technologies because of any pedagogic merit. They do it in order to distinguish their schools from other schools. They do it to attract clinetele. The clientele believes in the Midas touch.

Really I do not understand how video conferencing can make classes more interactive. My own sense & experience tells me that it in fact makes it less so. How can an attempt to replicate 'face-to-face' teaching be more effective than 'face-to-face' teaching itself. In any case, isn't it the teacher who has to make a class interactive. How can the delivery medium make it so?

Using emails, spread-sheets, graphic calculators, online assignments is all fine but to pretend that they are in some ways a route forward to great teaching is to get entrapped by the Midas touch.

Web casting is a great replacement for students who cannot attend live lectures. Distance learning never had a more potent tool in its arsenal. Its a great tool also for non-formal learning. It may also be a great tool to access experts for lectures. However, we should not mistake it as a tool for classroom teaching.

Technology is a tool. Like any tool it has to be used where required.

MIT's TEAL Method

An article on MIT's TEAL method, worth recording here for future reference. 


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/us/13physics.html


The article speaks highly of the method. It is followed by several comments that are worth reading for their observations & critique of the method

Foreign universities in India - A pipe dream ?

Read a statement in Times of India by some Indian-entrepreneur, very excited about US universities opening campuses in India.

"They will probably end up doing some of their research in India also for the same reasons that major corporations are doing R&D in India - it is much cheaper and brings them closer to growth markets."

Statement appears absolutely laughable. This Indian-entrepreneur obviously has no idea about academic research. 

First of all, I cant see why universities will be interested in being close to growth markets. Universities aren't building products. They are working on science & technology which "may" be used as the nuts & bolts which  products sometime in future.  Most of the research is driven by government funding agencies everywhere in the work. To best of my knowledge it is not driven by Industry. 

"Cheap research" he says is the reason why universities will flock to India. Obviously, this guy doesn't know anything about the challenges and ways of academic research. 

Academic research is collaborative. All researchers collaborate by publishing their research work. Each researcher has access to the entire work of all other researchers. A researcher's work simply wont get published if they choose toyb hide some of their results or techniques. One, it is considered unethical. Second, the research work should be reproducible which it can't be unless all details about it are reported in the research paper. Academic research is not about a researcher wanting to get his research done for "cheap" at some other research lab. 

Additionally, that research lab with "cheap human resources" quite likely wont even have the "expensive equipment" required to carry out the research work.

There is ofcourse an additional point best stated by the new VC of cambridge. On being asked whether cambridge will be interested in setting up a campus in India, he remarked - "Universities are much more complex than hamburgers". Can one simply transplant a Harvard or a cambridge in India like one can transplant a factory or a call center? I dont think so. But, I can not put forward any convincing reasons for it. Have not thought much about it as yet.

In short, I really think all this talk of the top universities setting up full-fledged campuses in India is pure pipe dream. A handful of them may at best set up some strategic research centers & academic programmes. 

In days to come I will continue to write more on this with an intention to understand what makes for a "vibrant university"?

Learning by "Questioning"

I have learnt one thing as I have learnt "Physics" and "Other things". If you want to learn you must pose questions.

If you want to learn something and you dont know it then you jolly well realize that "you dont understand it". It helps to pose questions to zoom in to the specific issue (within a larger set of concepts) that is the cause of "lack of understanding" . However, if you are unaware of your lack of understanding (or hide this fact from yourself), then you are in soup. Learning requires a bit of humbleness and acceptance that "I do not understand this". 

The act of trying to posing a question is a useful learning device. However, it is one that we rarely use as teachers. Raghu insists that a student ask a clear question if they want an answer. Not a bad device. If a student can pose a clear question, she is already on her way towards an answer. I have not been using such a device. However, one must use it frequently.

The quality of questions are also an indication of a student's intellectual ability. Likewise, helping students to probe deeper and ask hidden (less obvious questions) can help improve their intellectual ability.

These are methods, which I think, we should use in our classrooms and in our interaction with students. I also believe that it will instill greater excitement in the students.

Learning by doing - some thoughts

Read an article on "How we teach undergraduate computer science is wrong". Article was forwarded to me by the ever-enthu teacher - Ashish. The crux of the article is this - "learning by doing & discovering" doesn't always work. The ideas appealed to me because it was demolishing a dogma without creating a new one. Often "dogmas" are fairly useless things. However, I dont mind so long as they are used as a checklist and perhaps even as some sort of a guide.


I have nothing against "Learning by doing & discovering". I only think it is not like a cure-all. It will have its place and its limits. I learnt cooking by doing. My mother stood next to me and gave me instruction while I faithfully put in all the ingredients to make a dish that was as good as my mothers. That was learning by doing. I couldn't have learnt to cook half as easily had I only read about all the recipes and never physically cut the vegetables and done all the other stuff. But to be a good cook it is important to know the concepts -  the effect of ingredients on the taste of a dish ; the effect of a cocktail of ingredients on the taste, etc. Concepts are important. In cooking these concepts are gained from one's own experience and also that of others (all passionate cooks share notes about their dishes!). Learning by doing is a great way to learn cooking .


How about learning physics the same way. Lets teach a person how to measure & calculate speed. A child understands the "idea of speed" just like he understands "good taste". But he must now measure & calculate speed.


Measuring is simple. Hand over a ruler and a clock and the child can measure the distance and the time taken to move that distance. Simple. Is it? The child has yet to calculate "speed". That is simple too. Just divide distance by time and you get the speed. It looks simple but it really isn't. If you ask the child to divide distance by time she can carry out the division flawlessly. The child can get the answer but how does she know that the answer gives the speed?  To my mind the child will not learn the meaning of "distance by time" during this "doing" exercise. This meaning has to be taught earlier (in a "non-doing" setting). It has to be taught through the "idea" of division. 


Division is a practical exercise. Divide a piece of cake into 4 parts each person gets 1/4th of the cake. Divide distance of 100 m into 10 parts, each part is 10 m long. Divide 60 minutes into 10 parts you get 6 parts. Thus to teach division is it  good idea to bring a cake or a clock to the class and show how it works? I think that would be a disaster. A clock is not just an object that tells us the time. It is an object with a design, and so many parts - dull or attractive, etc. It has too many elements that will distract from the concept of "division using a clock". It just makes more sense to draw a clock on the board and go ahead from there. There is another stumbling block to trying to get too close to reality. It takes one away from the "concept". A "concept" pervades examples and is not localized within that example alone. So, why make a song and dance about "learning by doing". The important thing is the "thinking". You cant learn the concept without thinking. Certainly, examples must be given and concepts will get planted in the brain only after studying variety of examples. That is just the traditional way. But the concept will take much longer to get implanted by insisting on "Learning by doing" (as i said there will be too many distracting elements competing for attention and the concept of division is likely to find it hard to survive this competition).


This is all for today. I think I have more things to say on the matter but that's for later. But, i dont want to be misunderstood so let me add here. I am not a critic of "learning by doing". However, I wont hold it as a dogma. It has to be used and has to be used at the right opportunity. That may be a subject matter of one of the later posts.