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...

This topic on teaching-research nexus has always been at the back of my mind for some time. I wanted to blog about this topic, so I started some research to find out whether teaching and research are intertwined or otherwise. Wow, what did I find? I didn't realize that hundreds of researches have been carried out on the research-teaching nexus and how it relates to ways in which research supports teaching and vice versa. The verdict? Hmmm...interesting...but I will try to summarize the research findings in my future article. Anyway, Thomas Cech, president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Chemistry Nobel laureate, remarks: “ Why do today’s university faculty so rarely apply the same innovation and energy to their teaching that they invest in their research? There is no mystery here. Good teaching may be appreciated, even applauded, but good research is at the heart of the reward structure ” (Science 299, 165, 2003). So is this about monetary or material reward? Can we get ...

" 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...

" In almost every area of human endeavor, the practice improves over time ," says Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. " That hasn't been the case for teaching ." This is an excerpt of his interview by PARADE – read the full interview on the Parade website. In the interview, Gates shares his insight about the crisis of American Education system and the movie Waiting for ‘Superman’, a documentary from An Inconvenient Truth's Davis Guggenheim. I have not watched the movie yet but I would surely try to get the DVD and hopefully learn a few things. In the meantime, have a look at the trailer and reviews. Waiting for Superman official trailer The PARADE interview with Bill Gates: What I've Learned About Great Teachers Waiting for 'Superman' - A review by The New Yorker Waiting for 'Superman' - A review by The Telegraph Waiting for 'Superman': Are Teachers the Problem? (from TIME magazine) What makes a school great? (TIME magazine)

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...