flynn099

 Recently I was invited by Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN) as a panelist in a forum that discussed about the impact of curriculum on graduate employability. One participant (a student) raised the issue about the relevance of curriculum with the actual demand of the job market, i.e., whether what they learn in three or four years curriculum is adequate to prepare them for the real job. Another participant (a teacher counselor) also echoed the same concern of their students, especially at a point when the students are deciding which programme to take at the degree level. For example, if a student take a programme in Forensic Science, would he/she end up working as a forensic personnel? I think in some professional courses such as medicine, pharmacy, law and perhaps engineering, it is reasonable to expect that the graduates would end up as medical doctors, pharmacists, lawyers and engineers because there is always a great demand for them in the government (public) and private sect...

" Knowledge does not narrow, knowledge only adds...and without knowledge many experiences in life remain very narrow and very shallow ..." - Professor Walter Lewin, Professor of Physics, MIT . While browsing the internet recently, I came across a picture of the giant mainframe computer of the early '80s. While staring at the picture, I was reminiscing the time back in 1988 during my time as a master's student at the University of Reading, England. For the first time in my life, I had to use a computer to prepare a linear regression plot using a software called Lotus 123. That was still the early days of computer and it marks the beginning of my exploration into the wonderful creation of modern time  –  computer. It was indeed an exciting and thrilling experience for me to be able to plot a graph and derive the equation so easily. I remember using a software called 'Chi-Square' (if I'm not mistaken) as word processor as well as for drawing a simple flow cha...

A Google search on “Bloom’s taxonomy” recently returned an impressive 1.63 million results! Apparently the literature available on the internet is replete with resources about the famous Bloom’s taxonomy of learning. I don’t intend to repeat what Bloom taxonomy is about and how it evolves because I believe you can find wealth of information on various aspects on the topic among the 1.63 million results in the internet. I have selected a few articles (link at the end of this article) for those interested to know more about the various domains (cognitive, affective, and psychomotor) in the original and the revised Bloom’s taxonomy. What I’m interested to talk about in this article is the issue of implementing and infusing the various domains in the curriculum. I’m aware that certain facets of Bloom’s taxonomy have been challenged (for example the hierarchical cognitive domain) but to me this is more of intellectual academic arguments that do not reduce the overall value of the concept. F...

I remember when I joined the university about 17 years ago (it feels like only yesterday!) I was given the task of handling a laboratory class. I already had some experiences as a graduate assistant during my time as a Ph.D. student so it was not very difficult. I think I did quite a good job designing new experiments, interacting with the students and helping them with the experiment and marking the lab report. During the first few months, I had to attend induction courses including one or two sessions on teaching and learning. I don’t think I learn much on the learning theory or pedagogy then but I still remember a session where I had to give a mock lecture that was recorded and later commented by the facilitator. That was how much the training I received to become a teacher (lecturer) and I was supposed to be ready to carry out the task of educating the adult students. Without sufficient knowledge in pedagogy and teaching techniques, I was forced to use my intuition and developed my...

I always share my enthusiasm with my colleagues about my teaching approaches and very often one of the issues raised during our discussion is “spoon-feeding” or “over teaching”. “Don’t you think you are spoon-feeding your students by putting your hand-outs, notes, PowerPoints slides, etc. for them to freely download?” “Don’t you think we over teach our students?” – These are the questions commonly asked by my colleagues and also when I give a presentation related to teaching-learning issues. Hmm....actually these are difficult questions to answer because to me there is no fine line or clear demarcation as to what constitutes spoon-feeding or over teaching and what is not. Well, this is what the dictionary says about spoon feeding in the context of teaching-learning: " If you spoon-feed someone, you do everything for them or tell them everything that they need to know, thus preventing them from having to think or act for themselves. There is a tendency to spoon-feed your pupils whe...

" Teachers should not be predictable in their teaching practices or approaches – in fact, in my view all great teachers are not predictable because they always surprise and excite their students with different “tricks of the trade” up their sleeve " - A. A. Karim . In this posting I will share some of the 'open secrets' of being great teachers and their attributes that provide the environment for teaching excellence. In fact, I put the original title as "Open secret recipes of great teachers" but I changed my mind and instead use the current title. The main points actually are based on the article “ The Quest for Excellence in University Teaching ” written by Sherman and others [1]. It was published more than 20 years ago but I think the idea is still very much applicable and relevant when we talk about the characteristics of teaching excellence, be it in school or in higher education.  Some might argue whether it is still relevant to talk about teaching exc...

“ Technology doesn’t inherently improve learning; it merely makes possible more effective pedagogy, and only when it is consonant with an instructor’s educational philosophy and beliefs and reinforced by other components of the total course ” – Educause Research Bulletin , 2004(3), 2004.  No, no…I’m not talking about mobile learning here but rather on using mobile phone in a classroom for interactive learning. First, let’s picture this scenario: You walk into the classroom with high spirit and full of enthusiasm, eager to start your lecture. As usual, you have prepared well in advance and you have visualised in your head how you would deliver the lecture. You start the lecture and after 10 or 15 minutes you pause and ask, " Does anybody have any questions? " More often than not, nobody raises a hand. “Hmm…sure everything clear? ” (yeah…nodding…). If you ask a specific question, “ Can anyone give one example of shear-thinning food?" , perhaps only one or two students woul...

Seeing is believing! In journalism, an image or picture can be so powerful that it can change the world! Jonathan Klein in his TED talk (below) says that images themselves don't change the world but the images have provoked reactions in people, and those reactions have caused change to happen. The image can have a profound impact on our mind and can change our perception on certain issue and how we view things around us. Good image (photo) tells a visual narrative – it tells a story. A photograph has the ability to convey emotion, mood, narrative, ideas and messages – all of which are important elements of storytelling. In another TED talk “ Photography Connects Us with the World ”, David Griffin says, “ photography carries a power that holds up under the relentless swirl of today's saturated media world, because photographs emulate the way that our mind freezes a significant moment ”. There’s a problem, though, a picture can also be deceiving! People will interpret pictures ...

Do you know how MSG (monosodium glutamate, a common flavor enhancer added to food) was discovered? Do you know we can produce sugar from starch – any starch? Do you know the history of food canning? Do you know that everything flows, even the mountain – if we wait long enough? Do you know…OK, let me tell you an interesting story…here goes... I like stories and I think students of all ages also love stories. In fact, one of the classroom techniques that I personally have found most rewarding is the anecdotal and storytelling. Science is full of interesting stories and anecdotes that can spice up and enlighten ordinary lecture/presentation into a memorable one. So whenever possible, I like to start my lecture or presentation by asking question or telling story and anecdotes. Judging from students’ response and facial expression, I would say that most of the time (perhaps all the time) the students enjoy listening to the story. From my experience, every time when I tell a story or anecdot...

" I cannot teach anybody anything; I can only make them think " – Socrates " I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn " – A. Einstein In the quest to explore and probe how teaching-learning practice is best approached, I read with great interest the long (14 pages) article written by Barr & Tagg, “ From Teaching to Learning – A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Teaching ” which was published about 15 years ago. I was interested to get hold of the original article because it is often cited in many discussions (article/book) on student-centered learning vs teacher-centered practice. Basically in the article they compared the traditional “Instruction Paradigm” and the emerging “Learning Paradigm”. The terms are equivalent to “teacher-centered” and “student/learner-centered” that are more prevalent in the contemporary literatures. Barr & Tagg argued that the purpose of teaching institution (schools, colleges, univers...