'Modern Researchers' say that the self-reported average amount of concentration during lectures was a mere 10 minutes, as per a report in the Science & Tech. column of the Hindu dtd 27/02/2014. Apart from educating us about the ineffectiveness of lectures (Robin Sharma, Sean Smith !!???) ,the researcher's point out towards an interesting insight, which were already known to Indians for ages . Quote "Another insight from neuroscience research is the surprising finding that learning is a highly individualised process — after hearing the same set of facts, every student creates his /her own meaning and a unique set of memories, based on his/her own beliefs and experiences. In other words, information cannot simply be transmitted passively from one mind to another, like say we can with a music file. "
That means for each one of us , there is a very private world (lokam), a fortress which none can penetrate and invade. This knowledge was commonplace with Indians and majority carried themselves around accordingly. Through the following two statements of Gandhiji coupled with the 'above modern research finding', superstitious Indians stand vindicated on this Shivrathri day !!!!!
(1) There are some things which are known only to oneself and one's Maker. These are clearly incommunicable.(Gandhiji's own introduction to his autobiography dtd 26 Nov. 1925, para 4)
(2) In reality there are as many religions as there are individuals. (Hind Swaraj, Chapter X, para 3)
From many quarters, scorn had been poured over the poly-theism of Indians !! But it can be easily discerned that , from the 'modern research findings' and as per Gandhiji's statement, when the population of India was 33 crores and odd, we had as many GODS and now that figure will be approx 120 crores !!!! That is the total population of India including Muslims and Christians. X's Jesus & Heavenly Father will not exactly match Y's Jesus & Heavenly father. Similarly A's Allah & Prop. Muhammed with B's.
CONCLUSION :That means there exists only POLYTHEISM in this world !!!!!!
Link http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-sci-tech-and-agri/revamping-education-why-we-dont-learn-from-lectures/article5731066.ece
Revamping
education: why we don’t learn from lectures
In a recent poll of 1,000 students, the
self-reported average amount of concentration during lectures was a mere ten
minutes
Breaking tradition:Active or experiential
learning — that requires students to reflect and apply ideas in solving
problems is an alternative to conventional lectures.— Photo: n. rajesh
“Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers
talk while other people sleep”. Albert Camus
The lecture — a one-two-hour-long, one-size
fits all, largely passive, transfer of information — remains the most widely
used method of education at schools and colleges worldwide. It is a ritual that
has been repeated for hundreds (if not thousands) of years. Students, parents,
and educators assume the lectures have been very helpful (especially if the
lecturer is famous or a great orator).
However, beginning in the 1960s, research
in cognitive neuroscience and psychology turned these assumptions upside down.
Thirty five years ago Johnstone and Percival observed students in over 90
lectures, given by 12 different lecturers. They noted the longest attention
span in a lecture was about 18 minutes and that during a lecture there were
many periods of inattention such that by the end of the lecture, attention had
dropped to 4 minutes. Hartley and Davies, in a 1986 paper, noted that after a
lecture, student’s recall of facts from the first 10 minutes of the lecture was
more than three-fold higher than from the last 10 minutes. These studies
suggest that how good or bad a given lecturer is has only a small bearing on
how much information students retained after a 60 minute lecture — much of it
is determined by how our brains are wired to process information.
Another insight from neuroscience research
is the surprising finding that learning is a highly individualised process —
after hearing the same set of facts, every student creates his /her own meaning
and a unique set of memories, based on his/her own beliefs and experiences. In
other words, information cannot simply be transmitted passively from one mind
to another, like say we can with a music file. Research also shows that passive
teacher centric instruction does little to develop problem solving skills — a
reason why companies increasingly find that today’s graduates are not prepared
for the work force and end up having to retrain them.
Clearly there are many factors that affect
learning, and as with any field there are disagreements about some of the
research findings. But in today’s hyperconnected environment with an abundance
of distractions, the attention span of a student is likely to be compromised
even further than it was several decades ago. In a recent poll of 1,000
students, the self-reported average amount of concentration during lectures was
a mere ten minutes!
If students zone out for significant
portions of most lectures and if what was learned in the first part is erased
during the second half of the lecture, then clearly long lectures are not the
most effective tool. Why then is the 60 minute lecture so prevalent?
Before printed books were widely available,
note taking during lectures, with or without understanding the material, was a
means of gathering information. Lectures became widespread in the 1700s when
the Kingdom of Prussia launched an 8-year basic primary education programme to
prepare the masses for a growing industrial workforce. Subsequently this model
of education spread throughout the world for both school and college education,
and remains largely intact today due to habit, resistance to change, and
ignorance of the alternatives.
What’s the alternative? Active or
experiential learning — a form of learning that requires students to reflect
and apply ideas in solving problems. It is more student centric and often
involves collaborative (peer) learning. How good is the evidence that active
learning is better?
One of the most impressive demonstrations
is from a 1998 study that compared 2084 students taking 14 traditional science
courses versus 4458 students taking 48 “interactive” active learning courses.
The study found that measures of conceptual understanding were vastly superior
in the active learning group — by a margin of 2 standard deviations! Many other
studies, across multiple fields, show that active learning outperforms passive
teaching.
Change is coming and many leading
institutions are beginning to de-emphasise passive learning. For example, at
Duke-NUS medical school in Singapore, unlike traditional medical schools,
students learn before coming to class (through online materials and lectures),
take a test when they come into class to ensure they do the pre-reading, sit
through a short 15 minute lecture and then retake a test. They then apply the
knowledge to solve case problems in small teams.
An active peer learning model is also now
being adopted by high schools — at the Spectra Secondary School in Singapore,
several weeks of class lectures are made available online so students can
progress at their own pace and even ahead of the class. Quick learners of
mathematics can help their fellow student slower learners individually.
By reducing time spent in passive lectures,
colleges can free up time with more active problem solving and team based
learning strategies. The return on investment from tuition and education would
then be greater to both the student and society. To empower the next generation
of students, we would do well to heed the observation by Sophocles that, “ one must learn by doing the thing, for though you think
you know it, you have no certainty until you try”.
DR. P. MURALI DORAISWAMY, DR. MOHAN
CHILUKURI, DR. K. RANGA KRISHNAN
(Murali Doraiswamy is a Professor at Duke
University;
Mohan Chilukuri is a physician and educator
with the University of North Carolina;
Ranga Krishnan is the Dean of the Duke-NUS
Graduate Medical School, Singapore)
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