Why Final Year Projects based on Complex Engineering Problem is more effective than years of lecturing

 My experience

How to Design LMS Based Online Examinations in Asynchronous Mode

In medical universities and engineering universities during the 1980s-90s when cheating and copying culture was rampant, faculty members primarily used to rely on viva examinations for awarding final grades. Vivas and presentations even today during on-site classes are preferred for MS thesis, PhD Thesis, capstone projects, final year projects, clinical, lab practicals, and senior design projects at all the universities. For these assessments, viva/presentations are considered to be more effective for grading the students' learning. Students typically submit written reports or progress. For assessors and evaluators, it is more important to understand the extent to which students have digested the contents of the report or their practical experience. The content of assignments and online submissions is only an indicator from which the teacher needs to ascertain what the student actually knows and understands. Vivas and project displays during exhibitions are more effective in determining their depth of understanding. Even in our interviews for admission and employment, we find people with impressive testimonials and CVs. However, their worth and depth is easily revealed in a few minutes of questioning through viva-like interviews.

This post focuses on self-paced, deep learning experience 

Using Rubrics to Manage Anxiety Created by LMS Based Online Assignments

Open ended assignments such as case studies, project reports, real life problems that are open book and are take-home types often lead to a mismatch of expectations of the students with that of the faculty members. This mismatch can make students work on Final Assignments for even 10-15 hours, not knowing whether they have met the expectations or not. This often creates anxiety. The tool for clearly defining your expectations is known as a "Rubric":

"Rubrics are both assessment tools for faculty and learning tools for students that can ease anxiety about the grading process for both parties. Rubrics lay out specific criteria and performance expectations for an assignment.
They help students and instructors stay focused on those expectations and to be more
confident in their work as a result." Creating and Using Rubrics )

How much time does it take to write an Exam in the LMS Based Online Exam Taken in Asynchronous Mode

How much time does it take to write a 3-hour exam in an LMS Based Online Taken in Asynchronous Mode?

My expectation from faculty members is that their question needs to be a 3-hour exam, the "estimated" writing time for the answers should be 3 hours. The exam paper is typically loaded on LMS as an assignment or some other activity. It should be visible to students on the stipulated time and date and with a clear specification of the end time-date. The duration doesn't have to be exactly 3-hours. It needs to be much more as the exam is being offered in an asynchronous mode because of connectivity issues, power breakdowns and technology issues. Depending upon the severity of such issues, the time period can be extended to half a day, full day or even few days as per the university's policy and particular geographical spacing of the students. This is what HEC is grappling with in designing a policy governing big universities whose students hail from poor demographics and far flung areas where there is only 2G or even no internet.

Understanding the Four Critical Stages of LMS Technology Assimilation- A Case Study of a Pakistani University

At IoBM, we crashed into the use of LMS at a breakneck speed. However, our assimilation of LMS (Learning Management System) which is just another technology is following the well known critical stages of assimilation of technology [1]. We had started our implementation in Fall 2019 and by the time the lockdown happened we had around 50 faculty members who were using the LMS. However, the lockdown propelled us into cramping the 2-3 year roll out of the LMS implementation project into a 5 day roller coaster crash implementation. The adoption of technology happened vigorously and soon everyone was using Zoom and LMS. However, the stage of rapid growth appears to be barging into a saturation stage where the initial euphoria of early adopters and vigorous users of technology is transiting into a stage of fatigue and disillusionment. I can see many vigorous early adopters facing this. This post describes these stages in detail, and how to use this in your LMS dissemination strategy.  Individual emergencies and issues that were dealt with in going from 70 sections using LMS to 500 sections using LMS in 15 days, and adding another 430 sections in the next ten days. These will be part of another case study. This post is written for our faculty who are already aware with the happenings of the issues at IoBM, their resolution and the future plan of action.

The assimilation of technology is often described by a technology assimilation curve or the "S-Curve" which is also known as the Sigmoid Curve. See Figure 1 :

Learning S-Curve: Learning going from Growth to Maturity Phase. Adapted from [2]

Faculty Development, Motivation and Retention

Faculty Development and Retention Policy: Role of Faculty in Academic Excellence

Report Date: 26 August 2003

Objectives

To develop the institute as a Center of Excellence in university level education requires that faculty is motivated to contribute to the:

1.      Excellence in teaching standards by actively participating in the development of courses, curriculum and instruction methodology.

2.      Excellence in R&D through research publications in journals and other magazines

3.      Faculty development process that is goal oriented and attracts full-time, highly qualified and industry renowned faculty members, and encourages their continuous development in the system.

4.      Industry-Academia interactions through membership in professional associations, participation in conferences, consultancy, industry projects, etc.

5.      Student-Teacher Interactions through involvement in academic counseling, student projects and student events and activities.

6.      Institutional Development through participation in various committees and their activities and events at the institute.

Examples of How Children Fail

In "How Children Fail", the acclaimed author John Holt describes how children stop using their mind, and fail. It is quite evident from the example pic below that the child was using his mind. Unfortunately, the teacher was grading "mindlessly" from the key that he had. This example is not an isolated case. There are scores of examples in the book and of various subjects where this occurs. With these kinds of wrong answers to wrongly phrased/formatted questions, the child learns that it is dangerous to use his mind. It is much better to be solving the problems "mindlessly" to get good grades, instead of "mindful application" which can often result in wrong answers. There are just too many students' papers to check by the teacher, and too many questions in each paper to give space to the teacher to drill down into the thinking of each child for each answer to see whether the logic in child's mind was correct or not. Too many failures like this and child stops thinking, and starts resorting to mindless application of formulae which also results in random grades. The child realizes that whether I use my mind or not, my grades are random. It is dangerous to use my mind, the child concludes. This is "How Children Fail" and we see so many people around us proudly proclaiming "I hate maths".

Essential Orientation for Teachers and Faculty Members

Essential Orientation for Faculty Members, Teachers and Facilitators embarking on a journey to understand experiential learning and weaning away from the conventional mode of teaching. In my opinion this is the minimum level of understanding required by teachers of schools and universities.To maximally gain from this material, watch the following videos and read the following blog posts. Then write your reflections by connecting the ideas to your experience or observation.

Videos

• Sir Ken Robinson: Changing Education Paradigms
• Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?
• Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution!
• Angela Duckworth: Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
• John Hunter on the World Peace Game
• Diana Laufenberg: How to learn? From mistakes
• Sam Richards - A Radical Experiment in Empathy
• Kiran BirSethi teaches kids to take charge
• SugataMitra's new experiments in self-teaching
• Cameron Herold: Let's raise kids to be entrepreneurs
• Arvind Gupta: Turning trash into toys for learning
• Kathryn Schulz: On being wrong
• Deb Roy: The birth of a word
• Patricia Ryan: Don't insist on English!
• Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are by Amy Cudy 
• Parhogelikhoge by Dawn News Channel
• Alan Kay shares A powerful idea of ideas
• Play is more than Fun 

Essential Blog Posts

These are the essential blog posts from my blog at syedirfanhyder.blogspot.com:

• How STEM and Learning is made difficult
• Why Project Based Learning? An Experiential Learning Case Study of Language Teaching
• How Language Acquisition is Made Difficult for Children: Eight Lessons from an Urdu Acquisition Case Study
• Subject Compartmentalization vs Holistic Learning: How to align with natural process of learning of a child
• Problems with Bloom's Taxonomy: Impact on Curriculum and Motivation of Students
• Education as Tazkia: Is a child like a clean slate?

See also:

For the list of all my posts on School Education, click here

For the list of all my posts on Higher Education, click here

For the list of all my posts related to PhD and Research, click here

Dr Muhammad Mahmud of IBA: A Self-made Industrious Faculty Member

Dr M Mahmud expired early morning of July 12, 2018. Inna lillah e wa inna ilaihi rajioon. May Allah reward him with the best of abodes in the hereafter. Aameen. Allah blessed him with 27th Ramazan night to start this journey.

He was an alumnus of IBA. His association with IBA started in 1967-68 in the accounts section and extended for over 40+ years. At the time of death, he was associated with IoBM as faculty and professor of finance and accounting department. He had been at IoBM for the last several years, and had also been HoD of Accounting and Finance department. As Dean, I found him to be diligent, conscientious professional who would take all his responsibilities seriously.

Dr Muhammad Mehmud (d. 2018)

Top Ten Reasons Why HEC Abandoned Quality Ranking of Universities

Recent decision of HEC to abandon its quality rankings [1] needs to be welcomed. It was an initiative motivated by hubris with scant regard to societal and industry requirements. It was conceived and designed by those who wanted all the universities to become research universities and clones of each other. It was a whip with which to make all the universities fall into the same line ignoring their local, geographical, societal, and industry specific contexts and distinct advantages. The criteria appeared to have been designed to satisfy the Western industry and societal requirements, and not from the point of view of national and regional requirements.  The ranking was called quality ranking but was nothing more than measurement of quantities devoid of any qualitative input. It was plagued by political considerations for a quota system. It had the audacity to measure quality of teaching with PhD degrees, and did not discriminate at all across different disciplines with their unique requirements. Above all, there was no mechanism of verification of data. The ranking criteria had too many infirmities and was modified each time under political pressure. It gave too much weight to input and too little weight to outcomes and impact under the assumption that output measurements will suffice. Societal and Industry impact measurement was conspicuous by its absence. Bureaucratic measures of impact were considered to substitute for feedback from industry and society. There was little recognition of the quality of university processes. Above all, HEC being a funding agency and a regulator could not simultaneously also act as a ranking agency because it would try to give more weight to its own funding decisions. Hence, the ranking criteria became nothing more than the criteria of measuring the decisions of HEC fundings.

Power of Word in Value Based Education: Discriminating Truth from Falsehood

Honorable Prime Minister, Group Chairperson City School, dignitaries, educationists, teachers and my dear students. I thank the organizers for giving me the opportunity to speak about value based education, some thing that is near and dear to my heart. Power of Word emanates from the depth of our feelings. Words are only words unless they have conviction and heart felt emotions supporting the message. The reason why we are talking about values today is because we have lost sight of the fundamental value that used to be ingrained in the lives of the students. Some 40 years ago, all the corridors and halls of the schools in the morning would start with the reverberation of that prayer from Iqbal that outlines the purpose of life of the students: To make my life a beacon of light whose purpose is to remove the darkness from the entire world and to spread light everywhere. Somewhere along the way, we lost sight of this noble value. Our education's purpose became my personal career and prosperity for me and my family. My only objective became to have a generator that would lit my home instead of my knowledge spreading light everywhere. 

Why I am a Faculty Member

Why I am a faculty member:
(1) Meeting a student who graduated a long time ago and who comes over and tries to make me recall  him and his batch. Then reminds me of one of my lesson that he remembers to this day and that has changed his life.  This is the great fulfilling experience that can never be gotten elsewhere.
(2) Company of youth keeps me focused on future and gives me hope for the future. Reason I am an optimist.
(3)Aspirations of youth keep me young as I help them achieve their visions. Gives energy
(4) Youth keeps teaching me new things, dealing with new ideas, and how to innovate.

How to Create Love for Poetry: A Tribute to Sir Ghalib Raza of ICB

Over the last 25 years as I desperately try to connect my students with the joy of reading and poetry, at universities and at schools , I realize the worth  of what Sir Ghalib Raza was achieving in my school days. He was making us "feel" the poetry, not "understand" it. Poetry is meant for "feeling" the emotions which are being expressed by the poet. You kill the poetry by trying to "explain" it. This is the story of how Sir Ghalib Raza imbued love of poetry in me and other students. He would not make us labor with "explanations"  but would rather focus on evoking the "feelings". He knew that once a loving association is developed, understanding will follow naturally in good time. He would enjoy reading the poetry immersed in the emotions being expressed. He loved poetry and he infected us with that love.  Thank you, Sir Ghalib Raza, for cultivating in me this love for poetry and literature.

My association with Sir Ghalib Raza started on the wrong foot. I was in class 8th at Islamabad Model School for Boys (now ICB), in G-6/3, adjacent to the famous Covered Bazar (which was razed a few years ago). It was first or second week of the new term. When Sir Ghalib Raza entered the class most of the students were talking to each other. He may have noticed some disturbance in the class, and he thought that I was the one making it, and the first thing he did was to come and slap me. I used to be a really quiet student at that time; always very careful not to get on the wrong side of any teacher. This  was my first time in life being slapped, and I cried. When I reached home, I was still disturbed and shared my perplexing experience with my mother. My mother arranged a meeting at the school a few days later. She met with Sir Ghalib Raza, and discussed the issue. I think the matter was resolved amicably and Sir Ghalib Raza's attitude towards me changed drastically. Of course, I never gave him an opportunity to be cross with me ever again. He would later on always call me as Irfan-e-Hyder, and I think he was the only one who called me with this twist that actually improved the meaning of my name.

• See also: Why People Hate Poetry? Because Schools have Taught them to Hate Poetry!

I can still recall his athletic built, his fair complexion, his hazel, brownish-green eyes. He was among the smartest of the teachers at the school, looking specially dashing in his Pakistan flag color blazer with Pakistan emblem indicating his participation in an international event where he had represented Pakistan. We could see him in the morning conducting fitness exercises for the male and female teachers. Exercises for teachers included jogging, stretching, warm up, etc. I learned to copy many of these movements during my early morning exercise regime at my home, and still seem to repeat these movements when I exercise. Several year later, I would learn of his romantic, colorful and adventurous side of his handsome personality.

From that 1975-76 session, I recall his love for Urdu poetry. He seemed to have in his memory immense poetry related to every conceivable situation which he could recall effortlessly. His recitation was correct,  balanced and amazingly wonderful and without accent. I still recall his explanations of poems and "ghazals". They were less about pedantic details, critical appreciation of the style, or focusing on form or measuring the meter. They were more about beautiful and emotional evocations with copious references to  excerpts from romantic poetic works emphasizing a relevant theme.

I recall vividly three of his recitations in class that were delivered in his distinctive style. First one is from the ghazal of none other than the most romantic of Urdu poets, Shair-e-Rumaan, Akhtar Shirani: 

mai aarzo-e-jaaN likhon , ya Jan-e-aarzo ​

tu he bata day , naz say emaan-e-aarzo ​

I later discovered its beautifully fluent rendition by Munawwar Sultana. Whenever, I hear the song, I can see Mr Ghalib Raza reciting it teht-ul-lafz.

The second piece was no wonder, again from Akhtar Shirani:

tā ḳhuld-e-barīñ le chal! 

ai ishq kahīñ le chal! 

sansār ke us paar ik is tarah kī bastī ho 

jo sadiyoñ se insāñ kī sūrat ko tarastī ho 

aur jis ke nazāroñ par tanhā.ī barastī ho ​

I now come to his wonderful rendition of a  poem of which only two verses had remained stuck in my mind for the last over four decades, I vaguely remembered that the poet was Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi. The two beautiful ashaar were:

Maang ki tarh seedhi sayyaarain, teRhi leekhoan say kutnay na paaen

and

mein in chatanoan peh bethi tujh ko dohay sunaati rahoon gi;

The poem related to a young wife looking at her husband tilling the soil of the fields as she carried the lunch to him at mid day, and waiting for him to join her on a rock nearby. The way Sir Ghalib Raza recited the poem deeply immersed in the scenery and engrossed in the imagery depicted in this poem is a treat for me till this day. I can visualize him reciting the poem each time I think about that class session way back over 4 decades ago in 1975. I can see his face red with emotions. I can see him in his trance actually living the situation of that young wife of the tiller singing for her husband. In that moment his emotions and feelings were felt by us in a transmission that connected him to the hearts of all the students. I can still visualize him standing there in front of the class reciting the poem. I don't think I understood at that time all the meanings of the verses or the depth of emotions and messages. But I experienced the feelings that he was feeling and expressing in his ecstasy. In that moment, I fell in love with poetry. I enjoyed it then and I enjoy that experience now whenever I think about it.

I had been searching for that poem for a long time. My Sargodha Board Urdu textbook of 1976 is long gone and forgotten except the couple of ashaar that I found stuck in my mind. Today I had the great fortune of having Mr Hammad Rasheed, a lover of literature and poetry, some how pulled out the poem from Internet. It is actually by Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi:

 تھپکی : ایک کسان عورت کا اپنے شوہر سے خطاب 

I was waiting for this information. I am now completing this post which had been lingering in my draft folder for years. Thank you Hammad Rasheed Sb. for reconnecting me with the poem and that experience. The context of the two couplets that had been stuck in my mind for so many decades are now again much clearer, and what a pleasure it is to remember and recall that experience of his rendition:

جھٹپٹے تک ابھی ہاتھ تیرے

ہل کی ہتھی سے ہٹنے نہ پائیں

مانگ کی طرح سیدھی سیاریں

ٹیڑھی لکیروں سے کَٹنے نہ پائیں

میں یہاں اِں چٹانوں پہ بیٹھی

تُجھ کو دوھے سُناتی رھوں گی

اپنی آواز کی تھپکیوں سے

ہاتھ تیرا بٹاتی رھوں گی

The full poem is copied at the end of this post to highlight how poems highlighting the feelings and emotions should be used for kindling love of reading and poetry rather than dry analysis and dead erudition.

• See also: How Education System is Promoting Non-Readers and "Functional Illiteracy": Top Ten Reasons

Mr Salman Siddiqui, a renowned academic, often says that if you want to make people hate poetry ask them to explain the poem or paraphrase it or explain the style, or explain the context. Poetry is not about context or analysis. Poetry is about emotions and feelings. 

I think this is so true. Our curriculum and text books prefer explanation of poetry over feelings and intellectual analysis over heart felt emotions. Instead of developing interest in poetry,  the analytical approach of critics teach us to hate all those poets whose life events we were forced to memorize and "tarz e kalam" that was thrust down our throats. We could not understand those sentences and therefore hated pedantic explaining of details that we found in no way connected with the emotions that the poet was actually feeling, experiencing and then expressing. No wonder most of us hate poetry to an extent that we have stopped enjoying it and have even started hating Urdu itself. 

• See also: How Education System is Promoting Non-Readers and "Functional Illiteracy": Top Ten Reasons

Later I learned about his romantic life that was full of adventure. He had passion and was romantic. As someone said: Poetry is an infectious disease.  It can not be taught.  It can only be caught.  And it can only be caught by someone who already has the disease. 

• See also How Language Acquisition is Made Difficult for Children: Eight Lessons from an Urdu Acquisition Case Study

تھپکی

See Also: 

• A Formula is Worth a Thousand Pictures: Dijkstra vs Buzan's Mind-Maps
• Anti-National Language Policy leads to Rule by Rich and Corrupt Elites
• Capitalist Transactions Replacing Traditions and Values from Istanbul to Makkah
• Georgia - Lesson in Preserving Language, Religion and Culture
• How Education System is Promoting Non-Readers and "Functional Illiteracy": Top Ten Reasons
• How Language Acquisition is Made Difficult for Children: Eight Lessons from an Urdu Acquisition Case Study
• How Schools Teach Students to Hate Reading: Mass Creation of Non-Readers 
• Managing English Teaching Outcomes in Universities: An Experiential Learning Case Study of ESL/EFL
• Most Effective Way of Cutting a Nation from its History and Ideals - Imposing a Foreign Language
• Why People Hate Poetry? Because Schools have Taught them to Hate Poetry!
• How to find "Buzurg" and "Wali" of Allah
• Importance of Literature in Law: A Case Study of the Panama Case Supreme Court Judgement
• Mukhtar Masud's Awaz-e-Dost and Love for Literature and History
• Sad Ending of Abdullah Yousuf Ali - the Translator of Quran
• What Legal Questions Perry Mason would have raised in SC Panama Case Disqualification of PM - New!

How Schools Teach Students to Hate Reading: Mass Creation of Non-Readers

Schools are producing graduates who know how to read but are not readers. They have become non-readers (functional illiterates) because the schools have taught them to hate reading! 

Functional Illiteracy

Schools typically use a curriculum and methodology that consists of senseless and meaningless worksheets and exercises which the students are forced to do repeatedly, continuously and ad-nauseam. And, when they resist, they are punished with F-grades, labeling and humiliation. These meaningless tasks and exercises and their resulting punishments teaches the students to hate reading and convinces them that ALL reading is so tedious, so boring, so frightful and accompanied with so much punishment that it is inconceivable that reading can ever be pleasure and fun. This is how we are producing non-readers, who believe that reading books is unreal, irrelevant, and disconnected with the challenges of life. We are in fact producing functional illiterates. 

Life Long Learning vs Sacrificing Interest
at the Altar of Technique Mechanics

Why Students Avoid and Stop Taking the Course of Some Teachers: 7 Top Reasons

Over the last 37 years in higher education  as student (from 1980-94), and as faculty member and academic administrator (since 1995), I have come across scores of instances  where students went out of the way to avoid certain teachers, dropped the course en-mass, ganged up to remove the teacher, walked out or simply dropped the course whenever it was possible possible. Here are some of the top reasons for why students avoid certain teachers and drop their courses en-mass:

Why Educational Experiments are "Doomed" to Succeed?

It is often said that all educational experiments are doomed to succeed [1]. Here is my different take on this from the perspective of an educational reformer and educational leader.

There are tons of methodologies, experiments, strategies and their resources that are available to teachers. However, when a teacher designs a new educational experiment, it often means that he has exhausted most of the existing material that he could lay his hands on. He is so frustrated and so angry that he feels inspired to design a new educational experiment of his own.

Abuse of Presentation Slides in Classrooms: Ban Powerpoint Presentations

Problems with Powerpoint Presentations in Classroom

A couple of weeks ago I came to deliver a presentation in a seminar after four speakers who were delivering a technical talk to the business owners using powerpoint and speaking in English, which is the second or third language of the speakers and the audience. I could see the disconnect of the speakers with the audience. I could see the boredom. It was getting late after lunch and people were dozing. I came, junked the presentation that I had prepared, and made a presentation using our local language and talked with my heart. Immediately I got the attention and the audience woke up. Several from the audience later came and congratulated me for waking up the participants and making the session lively.

 For  over 10 years now, I have realized the futility of using the presentations. I have discarded the use of the powerpoint presentations, except very technical talks to very captive audience where there is enough time to intersperse talk with slides, in workshop type formats.

• Anti-National Language Policy leads to Rule by Rich and Corrupt Elites

I had started with power point presentations much before they became a norm. It was way back in the mid of 1996-97 that I started with multi-media presentations using a laptop. Those were the time when powerpoint presentations and multimedia was a novelty. Somewhere along the line they became a ritual. They lost their power and became a drag on the presentation.Following are my reasons for urging people to ban the use of powerpoints:

Lights are on the Powerpoint Screen and
the performer is hidden in the dark

What Students Expect from their Teachers: Roles and Responsibilities of Teachers

Core of the following talk was presented at 3rd Conference of Deans and Directors of Business Schools organized by NBEAC at PC Lahore, Feb17-18, 2016. The talk was presented during the session Roles and Responsibilities of Business Schools' Teachers: Perspectives of Students.

This talk is based on my experiences of managing the expectations of students over the last 20 years as a teacher and predominantly as an academic administrator: During the late 1990s, I was managing scores of sections taught by visiting and permanent faculty as deputy director CCS at IBA. This was followed by my tenure as Dean and VP at PAF KIET from 2001 to 2012 during which I was managing hundreds of sections per semester spread over three campuses in Karachi, and across three faculties. For the last three years as Dean CBM and CES at IoBM I have been looking after over 500 sections spread over two faculties ranging from business disciplines to engineering disciplines and from bachelors up to PhD level.

Who Fails when a Student Fails

Should not this be true also for schools?