#Twisted Education Workload

Workload is we all end up complaining about, the students are in tango to this. Why not dissect this topic like a mouse, which a science student always ends up doing it. My remained always a dream, that’s the reason dissection with words is where I found my peace.

Workload, teaching methods and learning outcomes are clearly related to each other. However, there are other relevant elements. In achieving the desired learning outcomes a large number of interrelated factors play a role. These are not limited to the number of working hours, workload and brightness of the student. Also methods of teaching and learning have to be taken into account. It makes quite a difference whether teaching is organised in large groups or more individually: in other words, whether the majority of course units a student has to take are lectures or seminars, exercise courses and practical exercises. Furthermore the number of students in a working group might have its effect on the result of teaching, as probably the use of a tutorial system has. Also the kind of assessment will play a role, as will the design and coherence of the curriculum (is it focused on gradual progression in performance or does it make excessive or insufficient demands in some phases?) as well as the availability of advanced teaching aids like computers. Furthermore, national and regional traditions have to be taken into consideration. For example, in some countries most students will live at home and need time to travel, while in others they live on their own and have to look after themselves. In others again they will be housed on campuses. All these factors bear, in some measure, on the results of the teaching/learning experience as measured in time and in performance (in terms of level of achievement). In an ideal situation the aims and objectives set will be fully reached in the notional learning time. As said before, notional learning time is not the actual time that any particular learner needs to spend in order to achieve the learning outcomes. The actual time will differ from student to student.

In many cases the ideal situation will never exist.

#Twisted Education

Three characters from literature who are known all over the world: Hamlet, Alice, and Sherlock Holmes. The irony, of course, is that no one reads what Doyle regarded as his best work, but everybody reads about Holmes.

My ideas have been largely ignored, mostly on the grounds that readers believed they were included as an attempt of humor. Where I always wanted they take me as less humorous & more logical, maybe someday it will happen. I still have a big grin while sharing this, some people can never change one is definitely me.

You may judge for yourself. Here is one of the ideas. We could improve the quality of teaching, as it were, if math teachers were assigned to teach art, art teacher’s science, science teachers English. My reasoning is as follows: Most teachers, especially high school and college teachers, teach subjects they were good at in school. They found the subject both easy and pleasurable. As a result, they are not likely to understand how the subject appears to those who are not good at it, or don't care about it, or both. If, let us say, for a semester, each teacher were assigned a subject that he or she hated or always had trouble with, the teacher would be forced to see the situation as most students do, would see things more as a new learner than as an old teacher. Perhaps he or she would discover how boring the textbooks are, would learn how nerve-racking the fear of making mistakes is, might discover that a question that has unsuspectingly aroused his or her interest must be ignored because it is not covered by the syllabus, might even discover that there are students who know the subject better than he or she could ever hope to. Then what?

All in all, I believe the experience would be chastening and even eye-opening. When teachers returned to their specialties, it is possible they would bring with them refreshing ideas about how to communicate about their subject, and with an increased empathy for their students.

Here is another idea, not meant to be funny: We can improve the quality of teaching and learning overnight by getting rid of all textbooks. Most textbooks are badly written and, therefore, give the impression that the subject is boring. Most textbooks are also impersonally written. They have no "voice,'' reveal no human personality. Their relationship to the reader is not unlike the telephone message that says, "If you want further assistance, press two now.'' I have found the recipes on the backs of cereal boxes to be written with more style and conviction than most textbook descriptions of the causes of the Civil War. Of the language of grammar texts, I will not even speak.

But worse than this, textbooks are concerned with presenting the facts of the case as if there can be no disputing them, as if they are fixed and immutable. And still worse, there is usually no clue given as to who claimed these are the facts of the case, or how "it'' discovered these facts.

There is no sense of the frailty or ambiguity of human judgment, no hint of the possibilities of error. Knowledge is presented as a commodity to be acquired, never as a human struggle to understand, to overcome falsity, to stumble toward the truth.

In one line I sum up my write-up “Genius are not born, but are made”. 

#Twisted Water

The article on “Water Pollution” in TOI was easy to ignition me into writing of this article. TOI alias Newspaper, "Times of India". I’m sure very soon we will be having a dictionary only for short forms. Do we already have one?...I guess I’m always late on catching things.

Pollution is not a new phenomenon. In fact, it is older than most people realize. In ancient times river-water was already contaminated by dead bodies of men and animals, wash-water - sometime industrial - , human excrement's, and waste water from baths or mines. So drinking or tapping river-water was always problematic.

Aqueducts are man-made conduits constructed to carry water. In ancient time roman's were the first to find this solution then later ancient India also saw light in it. The term aqueduct comes from words meaning "to lead water".

Aqueducts remain an important and efficient means of delivering clean water to cities. Today’s aqueducts are longer and able to carry more water than ancient aqueducts. Pumps and pressurized water flow permit aqueducts to flow up a slope. Improved pipe materials allows today’s aqueducts to be completely hidden deep underground. Aqueduct is designed to provide rapid recovery from existing water management problems & also aid in solving dry area problem.

Why are we not using this system?…I’m still looking for an answer on the same……

#Twisted Data

“Wild card entry”, I’m acquainted of thanks to the various soaps on my television set. Wild goose chase does it mean different, anyways few days before I had an agenda to short list all the NGOs existing in Delhi. My search engine was not given any choice, but to fulfill my demand. My query gave me a result of various pages, making the page one to be the latest & the best. This is what I always feel & believe.

Scrutinizing through my result, I settled for a search sequenced third or fourth on my first page. They had a list of addresses, which I noted down as per my requirement. Only to later realize the phone numbers don’t exist, one of the NGO has been closed down 10yrs back & some have been shifted to a different location.

All this chase made me realize, the search engine does not only finish of by giving the information asked for. But has to make sure the data given out is updated one too. To act on this data is necessary as finally we may end up with false data everywhere.

One of the challenge for the search engine faced on today’s date is updated data. Which can easily be tackled by synchronizing with phone/address directories all over the world with deleting the non-existent & giving out the latest crisp one in turn. 

#Twisted Freebie

Freebie has never been dearer to me, may be taken for granted attitude rules me more. Till the time one final day one of the big branded outlet asked me, “If I required a bag to carry out my stuff”. I was as surprised as when someone suddenly hits you without you being aware. Catching on my expressions, the sale guy at the counter completed his sentence by saying, “It’s chargeable, if you want one”. That was enough to make me get folds on my forehead. Shopping in unchartered territory was far, as the chartered territory was enough to make me think. Which ends up in me, sharing my twisted byte to make it untwisted.

After the sweetness of my shopping, the sourness is sprinkled with just letting me know that the carry bag is chargeable. No matter how many zeroes are added to my bill the concession is far to be thought about. I & I’m sure any one of us can pay, but the question is not of paying. Makes me wonder why big brands, without getting into the name game would like the experience of a customer end in a sour note. As I’m sure it leaves everybody thinking on this new policy.

In nutshell when we as in customers are not asked while designing the bag, why are we asked to shell out extra grands for the same? Even If it has to be paid by the customer make it invisible to them & visible in your costing per garment. Which will positively make your customer loyalty more polished.