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Books lack the depth, inquiry, reasoning and critical thinking, it is just about memorising names of persons and places, and dates through parroting the quizzes and questions. Students given to memorise names of famous artists Take for example: Book asks to name the national parks of India. What's the point in memorizing names of different national parks, if you don't know anything about ecology; if you can't see and feel the environment and lifestyle of exotic and endangered wildlife in that national park? In many entrances including B.Ed, GK in one of the subjects, and students end up parroting the names. It also takes a huge chunk of time in schools, what if it were used for more meaningful learning. Do the content help in transfer of learning? How questions and content needs to be designed? https://iambrainstorming.wordpress.com/2018/02/17/question-designing-should-be-brain-friendly-cue-based/ Features of great book: https://iambrainstorming.wordpress.com/2017/01/14/all...

In a usual physics book designed for IIT JEE preparation, each chapter contains an average of 50 complicated short cut formulas, and there are about 24 chapters, so in total there can be about 50*24 = 1200 formulas. An almost impossible challenge to be memorized by an average student, which makes the entrance so hard to crack. IIT JEE preparation is not about critical thinking, it's about remembering the formulas, and speed of executing the formulas. This is the 2018 solved paper: Not a single seems to have without formula. https://drive.google.com/file/d/16HkkgWtiOT7T4p0ajYhis9gTqBT2SPGo/view?usp=sharing Please go through the book: Paul Hewitt Conceptual Physics Each chapter contains not more than two to three important formulas, that's all required because all other short cut formulas are based on it. An example question from the book of Paul Hewitt, that helps you to understand conceptual understanding, not executing complicated formulas: An e...

NEP2019 Draft Allowing multiple attempts for board exams of different subjects after semester end is unlikely to reduce the stress of students, it may further increase the burden of students, as they have to read all the chapters or topics of the subject again to score more. It will be better if they make chapter wise or topic wise exams, with a pass and fail system so that they have reattempt only those chapters which they have failed. It not only reduces stress, but students will master the topics. Classrooms can have mastery-based grading https://www.edutopia.org/article/blended-learning-built-teacher-expertise In mastery-based grading each topic content should be linked with tests, that checks the conceptual understanding of topics. Test shouldn't be used in isolation without content. No random test papers without content should be allowed in education system. An example of guided notes, which prompts questions on every paragraph. https://nbviewer.jupyter.org/urls/book-amiyatul...

More than half of the world's population already lives in cities, and another 2.5 billion people are projected to move to urban areas by 2050. The way we build new cities will be at the heart of so much that matters, from climate change to economic vitality to our very well-being and sense of connectedness. Peter Calthorpe is already at work planning the cities of the future and advocating for community design that's focused on human interaction. He shares seven universal principles for solving sprawl and building smarter, more sustainable cities. 7 principles for building better cities | Peter Calthorpe HappiCitites Education and Job Just near you through Competition Collaboration Algorithm The network can include all service providers, such as classroom, content provider such as MOOCs, open laboratories,  dance classes, gym, parks, playground, child care for working parents, teachers based on specialization, science park with essential experiments and equipme...

Students do forget things, we measure the effectiveness of the retrieval practice based upon how much they have remembered the learning material.  But forgetting doesn't mean that students have unlearned what they have learned. Neither learning is about how much you can recall from memory. Paul Hewitt Physics Yes, the best strategy to get a high score is retrieval practice. But high score relies on the ability to recall things, not test the actual learning. We need not have to do retrieval practice to do programming,  just re-reading and using the code is enough. The best way to learn to program is to use and apply it the hard way. The more you use it and apply better strategies, the more better your programming skill will be. The same principle applies to all subjects, whether its maths, physics, biology or philosophy. What is required is understanding of the subject, through strategies like the Feynman Technique. Understanding creates an index in your brain, which later can ...

Are CBSE and other boards designing the syllabus and curriculum by the sweat of their brow by attending the feedbacks, research, and evidence? Our education system should remain brother's keeper to all children of the worlds second populated country.  Why an unstructured syllabus with low-quality and pedagogically unsound content be continued even after everyone knows emperor is naked. [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgmTI5LKkxQ&w=320&h=266] They could have made it more structured, with the recommendation of open access contents (such as openstax) for each topic or whitelisting of content.  How much time does it take for experts? A month will be sufficient. It will also create demand for authors and publishers to meet the pedagogical need of students. There is a trade-off,  between adapting to the newly changed content and enhancing the quality of content.  But it could have been done slowly. If a new drugs work better than old drugs, the longer it t...

Study material covers the latest developments on the subject No, seems it is not updated since 2010. e.g.  It talks about popular browser of Linux are Netscape Navigator. The contents of the study material are well organized Yes, the organization of content is too good. Learning objectives, then content based on learning objectives, practice questions after each section. Space at the margin to take notes. Aim and objectives of the courses are clearly explained in study materials No, Even though it uses narration techniques, it does a good job in introduction sections, but it fails to explain intelligibly for concepts that are hard to understand and are abstract. Also, the text is ambiguous, confusing without precise definitions and language. The study materials provided a broad overview in the field of knowledge Yes. The learning objectives cover broad overview. But MCA lacks choice and diversity. Programming languages like python and R should be introduced in MCA. Version controll...

Learning Objectives To convert Roman numbers to Hindu-Arabic numbers What are the big ideas that students have to learn? 1) Memorizing these Roman Symbols with their respective Hindu-Arabic value 2) When to do addition and when to do subtraction based upon the position of  Roman Symbols 1) Memorizing these Roman Symbols with their respective Hindu-Arabic value Without memorizing the mapping of Roman Symbols to its respective Hindu-Arabic value, students can't reach their learning outcomes. The mapping is very hard to memorize. So it's critical to provide them memory tricks for it. Kids usually know 1) I means 1 2) V means 5 3) X means 10 But what about other symbols, here are the memory tricks that students have to imagine. 4) L means 50 So tell them L means (L)ake, and Lake is half filled (50%) 5) C means 100 Tell them C means see and see is a full (100%) eye 6) D means 500 Choose a student whose name starts with D and give him/her a Rs 500 7) M means 1000 The child gave Rs 10...

Inviting suggestions on rationalising curriculum/ syllabus/ subject contents for class I to class XII with the objective of all round development of students "It has been envisioned that in order to develop a fairer and more egalitarian society comprising of well-balanced human beings, in addition to cognitive and analytical skills,adequate attention on activities like life skills, experiential learning,health and physical education, sports, visual and performing arts,literary & creative skills, and work based education are indispensable. Though the existing curriculum does incorporate these skills, however, the load of curriculum in cognitive and analytical area seems to be so heavy that students practically do not get much time to develop skills in other areas. In order to balance the curriculum for cognitive and analytical areas with curriculum in other life skills including creativity and sports, specific suggestions are invited from teachers, academics, students, parents ...

Higher education must immediately stop obsolete blackboard teaching. Higher ed requires mentor and collaboration. What is obsolete blackboard teaching? [Lecturing is the] best way to get information from teacher’s notebook (mouth) to student’s notebook without touching the student’s mind.                                                                                         — George Leonard Patterns for bad practices of teaching, what is done in higher education, even best colleges. https://iambrainstorming.blogspot.in/2017/11/patterns-for-bad-practices-of-te...

1) Teaching whiteboard not students Students work is only to nod head to say yes most of the time even if they understood nothing, disagreement is remarkably uncommon. Teachers don't inquire about student comprehension. Some teachers do inquire but by asking a dichotomous answer of yes or no. But to know the comprehension level, one has to test it by asking questions to students or asking them to explain the concept. 2) Not answering means insult If students don't give the right answer, they are insulted in front of the whole class. Students are completely responsible for not knowing the answer. "Kya tum gharme padthe nahi ho" (Don't you study at home?). So everything you have to study at home. School is not a place for learning. 3) Personal attack when you ask too much question Again students are insulted if they ask too many questions. 4) Target only to finish the syllabus The syllabus is paramount, not students. Why are teachers going so fast that students are ...

All scientific discovery relies on peer review for validation, Why not the assessment of schools and colleges be done through peer review? Peer Review definition: evaluation of scientific, academic, or professional work by others working in the same field. In case of open peer review, the reviewer reports are published which can again go through auditing. Benefits of open peer review: 1) Feedback to the students After a test, feedback to the student becomes a crucial part of their learning. Feedback can be in many forms such as detailed corrections of the answers, making their misconceptions corrected for a particular concept, identifying their specific problems and asking them to take necessary steps to improve. 2) Time-saving of teachers As this can be done in a collaborative manner, it will give freedom to any teacher from the respective subjects to annotate the assessments, the burden is no more to the individual teacher, it will be shared among the country or world. The burden o...

Most often questions are designed that tests the understanding of whole instead of its components.  Students miserably fail to solve these problems due to lack of enough practice of its components. So systematically breaking down the whole concept into its required components is important. e.g. Take this question: [Cr(NH 3 ) 6 ] 3+  is paramagnetic while [Ni(CN) 4 ] 2-  is diamagnetic. Explain why? To start solving this question you have to know the following components: 1) You have to know the atomic number of Cr and Ni. If you have forgotten the atomic number or not memorized it, you are out of luck to solve it. So, has the teacher or the book has given memory tricks to memorize the periodic table. 2) After you know the atomic number, do you know the electronic configuration of the metal atom? 3) Then, can you determine the electronic configuration of metal ion? 4) Do you know how to calculate the oxidation state, because you need to calculate the charge of metal ion? 5...

Problems with alike content: 1) Homogenization of skills When a finished product reaches the market, the product development cycle goes through the touch of many divergent skilled peoples. A product can have many components which require different skill sets of different people. For example, Website Development: When you begin to develop a website, you start with designing a prototype of how it will look, which requires the expertise of graphic designers, you need the skill of programmer to code for the website, you need to be a webmaster to host your website. If you look into the depth, there is much more complexity to it. Each website has its own requirements. A prototype can be designed by using different software, such as Inkscape, illustrator and many others. Each software requires a different kind of learning and experience. Similarly, from programmer side, which language you will be using, which framework, based upon your website requirements such as speed of development, scalab...

Solving by intuitive methods helps students to understand the working of the formula, which is most important to build strategies for different problems. But our books and entrances only give most leverage to formula part without the intuitive part . Take it physics, chemistry or mathematics. Students in coaching centers are mindlessly taught short cut formulas so that they can solve the problem in short time, as there is time limitation in entrances. Example of Intuitive vs Formula Based in probability (Addition Rule): Book: Elementary Statistics (Mario F. Triola)

1) With increase in frequency, energy of electromagnetic waves increases or decreases 2) Molarity is Often students confuse between molarity and molality. 3) In positive deviation from Raoult's Law, Solute-Solvent Interaction is strong or weak Students often confuse with these kinds of answers, when there is a dichotomy. It's nothing to do with the understanding of the subject, it's about memory. Students confuse because they have not formed enough association with main concepts . Eliminating these confusion requires memory tricks. Let's work with the first two example: The third one I leave to students or teachers to design so that they can memorize it.  In positive deviation, there will be more vapor pressure, this is only possible when solute-solvent interaction is weak. Weak intermolecular force means more particles in the gas phase.

A student is not scoring well, the main reason given: He/She has the less innate ability . He/She was not working hard . Let's bust the second myth first. My question to schools, teachers, and parents is after spending about 6-7 hours in schools, or 24 hrs in residential schools and colleges, how can you really blame children for not working hard. Why do schools expect children to study all by themselves? Why they have to do homework? The problem is not about working hard, it's about not following effective study strategies. Not providing them to do enough retrieval practice. The implementing of the effective study strategies is a very complicated process and often contextual, so much of attributes involved, from content, curriculum to test questions. But the good thing is so much of research already available that will guide teachers to help students in learning. http://www.learningscientists.org/ Now the first myth: She lacks the innate ability. Fact: All organisms at the i...

You can change and improve things if you are able to imagine it. You can't make it, if you can't imagine it. It's naive to think that everything will happen serendipitously or just knowing things is enough. Our schools incentivise student just for knowing things in form of marks without giving considerations to creativity . Attitude toward inventiveness is almost negligible in our schools. You can't make it, if you can't imagine it. Economic growth matters. Wealth brings us flush toilets, antibiotics, higher education, the ability to choose the career we want, fun vacations, and of course, a greater ability to protect our families against catastrophes. If wealth is so important, what makes a country rich? The most proximate cause is that wealthy countries have lots of physical and human capital per worker and they produce things in a relatively efficient manner, using latest technological knowledge. But why do so some countries have more physical and human capital ...

How education hinders alternate way of thinking? A teacher gave the following question in MCQs: If you add some dissolving solute to water, does there is a change in total mass i.e. ([mass of water + mass of sugar]) changes? a) There is no change in total mass b) There is change in total mass Student wrote: b) Teacher gave the mark: zero What if the student thought the following deeper idea to answer the question. When we add a solute to water, the reaction can be endothermic or exothermic,  so if heat is released in case of exothermic, an amount of mass is converted to heat, so there is little decrease in mass that is difficult to measure. For an endothermic reaction, some amount of heat is absorbed, so there is little increase in mass. So the answer can depend on scientific theory, concepts, inductive or deductive reasoning, premise, and method or procedure used. There are no one 'correct' answer, the answer can depend on the process of thinking and context.