ARE WE OVERDOING FOR THE NEXT GEN?

With lot of innovation happening in the education sector.  Every institution is looking forward to be unique in providing better learning opportunities for their students.  In the process or enthusiasm of upliftment of their student community, institutions are running assessments of different types like a day to day affair.  With too much of tests and exams, students feel schooling as a burden.

How much is too much?

Look at the type of assessments provided in schools to analyse the learning process.  Whether the actual learning happens or not, is another question. 

What is actually happening in schools?

The exam pressure has not reduced.  Day after day the name of the test changes but the same question and answer method is emphasized in each of the above exams.  This results in a lot of working pressure among the student community.  Though each assessment emphasis on building specific skills, the pattern does not change as a result the student feels boredom and shows lack of interest in learning.

What are parents doing to their children?

Overdo or underdo: Enthusiastic parents, with their over concern about the number in their child’s performance, schedule all the more.  The child is not provided with sufficient breathing space to think and work on their own.  This leads to monotony and freedom-less journey towards their parents’ goal.  Uninterested are another case, where the child is provided total freedom without guidance to the right and wrong. Proper balance in handling children is an essential part of Parenting.

How much of scheduling is going on with children?

Creativity is the product of thinking.  Right thinking develops with space and time.  Time is lacking among todays’ children.  They are rushed through a variety of activities after school.  In the name of tuitions, sports coaching, robotics or memory development.  From the time the get up to the time they go to sleep the total time of the day is scheduled towards performance in various areas with or without their interest. 

How much of testing is conducted?

From the day the child enters the school it is all about tests and exams. More often it is about ‘showing off’ the student’s talent for both school and parent.  Let us look at the school schedule to understand this in more detail. Not to forget the Olympiad craze that is catching up along with the below schedule.

 Midterms, Quarterly, Half yearly and Annual are at a stretch exam.  However, class tests are depending on the teacher, it can be on any day of the week.   Thus, every day becomes a test day.  The smart and quick learner can cope up but the leaner ones stay behind in this rat race of exams.

How much of freedom they actually have?

The above picture gives a rough idea about the actual freedom children have.  Let us not neglect the ‘Homework’, ‘Project’ and ‘Holiday Assignments’.  Insert them to the above schedule and you can understand the free time student actually has for himself.  It is astonishing that we are talking of 21^st century skills to be developed without giving prominence to the base structure of freedom. This ultimately destroys the much-focussed skill development.

What actually develops?

With all the above said, what actually develops is not a creative, critically thinking problem solver but a scheduler who is mechanized to shift from one routine to another without actual thinking. Finally, it becomes more of a factory line worker production in school rather than a unique creative individual.

Schools and curriculum designers need to focus their priority on aspects which need to be incorporated into schools.  Regulation is also needed about the conduct of external competitions.  Clear cut guidelines on its conduct and participation is essential.  Otherwise, schooling will become all about testing without actual learning.

BEHAVIORS AND THINKING STYLES

Info-graphics on classroom process

WHY TECHNOLOGY FAILS IN SCHOOLS?

It is a race out there to use technology.  It confuses the hell out of its users.  Each part of technology claims to be superior to another. 

•   Which one to prefer which one to avoid?
•   What to select?
•    Which is apt for this school?

Each technical app claims that they are the best.  Most of the apps do not give the overall approach of the technology and the background support it requires.  Recently, I had a company coming forward with ‘Robotics’ into the curriculum.  They claim to replace our traditional labs of Science and Maths.  However, after the demonstration, which included explanation of levers to class I, I had come to the conclusion that they have no idea of what they want to sell.  They had talked about sensors for class VI and said that this could replace Physics lab experiments.  The major dilemma was that in class VI the board syllabus introduces them to magnets, electricity (simple circuits) while in mathematics they start the concept of algebra.  It was then understood that the company personnel were not aware of what is the actual curriculum as prescribed by the board.

Now, the question, what to select and what to go ahead and do in our schools.  Some specifics that I have observed are the following.

1.     Socioeconomic condition:  The school should take into account the local conditions and the average economic condition of its parents and the statistics of the parents’ profession.  Acceptance happens only when the stakeholders are aware and acknowledge the benefits of any technology added into the school level.  Remember, computers as a subject is not their concern, it is the implementation of technology into the basic subjects is what we are looking into.
2.     Speed and Connectivity: The city, town or village where technology introduced when requires internet the provision for bulk load, speed and connectivity at that place needs to be ensured.  This becomes essential because frequent breaks or disconnection will lead to the loss of flavour into the designed curriculum.
3.    All at a time approach: Introducing technology into a technically unaware environment should be a step-by-step process.  It should not be a ‘at a time’ approach.  When introduced at a time, the learner – whoever it may, teacher, student or parent may find it confusing, misleading and stressful.
4.     Troubleshooting:  Introduction of technology shows readiness for change.  Any change is set to have initial problems.  Solving or addressing the issues should take priority while introducing technology.  If not done, this process can lead to the ultimate failure of any change that is introduced.
5.    Teach everything-train nothing:  Hyperactivity and enthusiasm among trainers lead to them explaining everything to the teacher, parent and student, instead of what is required.  A teacher need not be aware of all the intricacies of the technology adapted.  They will learn some technical aspects in the process of its implementation.  However, trainers neglect this very fact and start dictating all the details of the implemented program which also leads to its implementation failure.
6.    Smooth story narration: All the above said and done is one aspect while the actual fact is that the teacher who is to adapt in the class is able to use the technology smoothly in the class leads to its success.  More often, managements train teachers on using technology in classroom, however, they do not feel comfortable about using them, hence it becomes a decorative piece of the classroom.

Technology is vast and has the scope of turning to a boon or a bane. It is essentially in the hands of its implementers' which include – Parents, Management, Teachers and Students to decide or throw back on what is introduced. The four corners of its implementation, when not merged properly leads to ultimate failure of technology in schools.

REFLECTION METHODS USING TECHNOLOGY

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Chinese proverb says…..

                                            Tell me, I forget,

                                            Show me, I remember,                                                                         Involve me, I understand.

Learning is passive until the students are engaged. 

Involvement revolves around understanding.  Understanding develops only when curiosity is present and curiosity builds on questioning.  Questioning is one of the many ways of reflection the learned.

Technology provides us with multiple options in this area.  What to choose when is a big question.  IT giants like Microsoft, Google and Apple have made multitude of investment in this area.  Other than them the Learning management software’s from Moodle’s, Pearson, and Blackboard etc., are also competitive enough in the field of reflection process.  The option of choosing the right type of thought process of reflection lies in the hands of the academicians.  Some tips for such process can be as follows

•          Immediate reflection:  Hard core, confusing, process and procedure based requires immediate reflection.  This can be handled by classroom response systems.  They give an immediate understanding about the learners learning level.

•  Understand and reflect: Picture based, life processes and graphical basis can be emphasized using this method.  Learning management systems will help in inserting this aspect towards learning.

• Delayed Reflection:  Learning management systems also provide option for learners to read and attempt the questions.  The learner reading is tracked through the pages they have visited to allow answering and re-attempts for ESL based comprehensions or listening activities

•  Reflect and Comment: Socio-economic or political cartoons or data reviews need keen eye.  Developing such critical skills can be done using platforms like Moodles, google classrooms etc., 
• Brainstorm:  The clash of ideas to evolve new thinking or to create a win-win situation is a must 21^st century skill.  The research involved to submit arguments with valid proof is what technology is all about for brainstorming.
• Collaborate: Discussions are key part of learning.  Online learning platforms like Edx and Future learn provide lot of scope for discussions in the learning platforms.  International school collaborations through Skype, Duo, Whatsapp video call are all some of the platforms which can be used for collaboration with technology.
• Research: ‘Do not know the meaning? – Google it!’  The tag line for finding the unknown has shifted from dictionaries and encyclopedias to Google.  Google has become an important part of learning.  Information is vast and authenticity for such information is provided under another branch of Google – Google Scholar.
• Social media reflection: Social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest are some sites which allow learners to share information and reflect on their learning.  Portfolios and blogs when attached to social media provides good learning opportunity for the viewers as well as themselves.
• Extensions: Learning is not a one-time opportunity but it is a life time opportunity.  Learning does not stop with the graduation or certification, it continues.  Enabling this feature are the technologies innovations like Webinars, and Video conferences.  The panel discussions or virtual conferences and presentations each carry multitude of information and learning opportunity for the viewers. 

Technology is widening its scope into the education sector 

with the introduction of –Online games, 3D printing and ‘AI’.  Our schools widely need to focus on building a very broad and open minded, culturally aware citizen.  The ‘art of right thinking’ can be highlighted only through reflection.  Developing the thought process on the lines of positive outcome is what reflection is all about.  With limited time, schools and teachers need to sort the best method of reflecting the learnt.  Ultimately, it is not the ‘what’ that is important, it is the how’s and the why’s of learning that is tested with time.

AUDIT ON LEARNING

Learning audits help build better response systems

Guaranteed learning:

Education helps develop systematic capacity towards achieving learning.  Formal stations where Education meets learning are none other than our classrooms.  But, do we ensure our classrooms as guaranteed learning centres?

Classrooms as learning audit centres:

Flipped classrooms are order of the day.  But does learning happen?  Learning audits help establish key responsibility systems to develop learning habits.  Any audits format possesses key characteristics to measure and analyze.  The key characteristics of the classroom audit can be categorized as the classroom process and the curriculum design. Let us considers the former first for our discussion, this is the internal part which defines learning.

Key elements of classroom process

●      Objective

○        What to expect?

○        What to learn?

○        What to relate?

○        What is the outcome?

The latter part is the actual classroom process or the external aspect of learning.  This is the coating or the covering provided to the process

Curriculum design starts with the

●      Pedagogy

○        Age appropriate content

○        Methodologies of learning

○        Values and environmental significance

The content for its implementation in classrooms depend on the flow, connectivity and interlinking to parallel concepts of same subject or other subjects.  The content also considers the type of formatives and challenges that can be presented to make the learning interesting.  Audit considers the most appropriate methods of its classroom process that develops application of the learnt.

The process of learning also becomes more important as the core content which includes the modes of best learning which can be incorporated into classrooms.  Some modes ensure repetition for better understanding.  These ensure not only time management but also 21^st century skills.

Developing values are also the focus of today’s main stream education, in the ‘information era’, understanding learner types, their learning and empathizing with socio-economic backgrounds of learners and their capacity to cope up with the challenges presented by the learning opportunities should also be a part of learning audits for its successful validation.  Ethical and moral responsibility also takes part in the evaluation during developing audit systems.

Though, all external factors considered, are the core aspect of ‘representation of the learnt as expressions’, expressions are the forms of writing, talking or technical presentations, are collected as work evidences for validating learning among its learners.  

The path towards achieving learning are many, however the outcome is more focused on Knowledge, Values, Skills and Attitudes which should not be missed out during the entire audit process.

The audit process commences with the various ‘proofs’ of the above said

1. Curriculum design
2. Classroom process and
3.  Proof of learning

However, the learning process is not complete till the direct evidence is collected from the learner.   The audit carried out by organisations need to cater to all the above ideologies of learning within the stipulated time for which the audit is carried out.

Design of audit tracks and collection of procedures is what is generally done throughout the process of audit.  Matching with the outcomes and analysis of the process is done at leisure.  Generally audits does not mean an immediate response but it is a complete and thorough study of

•  What is happening?
• How it is happening?
• Where it is happening?
• How to improve?

Classroom audits not only provide us an insight into the learning process but also help us set achievable targets for further improvement.  It is not unless we test ourselves, change towards betterment will just be an utopian dream.