Category: Experiential Learning
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Change Management and Change Agents
There are two types of turnaround/change leadership. First is the one in which you are a chief executive and you simply have to bring about the change down the hierarchy. The second type of turnaround/change management is the one in which you are not the chief executive and you need to bring the change/turnaround down…
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Visit to Baba KhorwaRi Shrine Ziarat
I had experience of meeting someone who predicted the rain fall time precisely. It was 1983 in ziarat, our NED batch mates of 1980-85 were on the study trip of Pakistan. We were around 200 students in three compartments that was attached to different trains and detached at various stations in the city for a…
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Learning and Life is My Autobiography
Writing poetry, blogs, essay, or reflections is greatly cathartic. Things that greatly troubled me, once I got them out of my system through my writing, they stopped bothering me. Once expressed, they stop festering. This is how I forgot many of my longings. My long blog posts are my learning and my efforts in my…
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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…
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Assumptions of Conventional Exam vs Assumptions of LMS Based Online Exam
What are the underlying assumptions and presuppositions of conventional examinations and how do they differ from their counterpart assumptions and presuppositions of the LMS based Online Exams especially those conducted in asynchronous mode. The differences are explained below: Here is a brief description of an extemporaneous talk that I recorded before putting the thoughts down…
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A Tribute to Cricket for Spearheading my English Language Acquisition – Sports and Language Learning
I often see parents worrying about language skills of their children. A closer look at the hobbies of such children will indicate that they are not passionate about any hobbies especially sports. Here I would detail the role of cricket in spearheading my English language acquisition. As my interest grew, with cricket and started following…
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Sir Najmul Hasan of IBA and How to Determine the Extent of Your Success in Life
Yesterday, during my PhD class with students I was trying to explain the complexity of real world and how models (and theories) help us in making sense of this complexity by focusing on a few concepts and their relationships. The discussion moved towards perception and reality and from there to this phenomenal lesson by Najmul…
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Managing English Teaching Outcomes in Universities: An Experiential Learning Case Study of ESL/EFL
My recollections as Vice President and Dean about ensuring the learning outcomes of English courses at PAF KIET from 2002-2012. Around ten to twelve years ago in our academic discussions with the President of the institute where I was working at that time, we would often worry about raising the English skills of our students.…
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6 Trends that will Determine your Career Success in the 21st Century
There are six major trends that are going to determine the careers of graduates in the 21st century: Shortening of the life cycle of organizations and businesses. From life-long full-time employment to short term, contractual, project-based engagements From teaching to learning From knowledge acquisition to enterprising creativity and innovation From management to leadership. From managed…
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Nine (9) Dimensions of Ethical Leadership
[1] There are three competencies of a leader which are necessary to inspire the followers on the path towards the destination. These competencies serve as a beacon of hope and encouragement for the followers to overcome the hardships likely to be encountered on the way. These are (i) the loftiness of vision (nigah-buland), (ii) heart-touching…
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Mismatch of Curriculum with Realities at Stanford, MIT and other Ivory Towers
From ivory towers to realities By Dr Asad Zaman Published: June 28, 2015 Curriculum Mismatch with Real Life As MIT freshmen are wont to do, we were up way past midnight discussing big absorbing questions like the meaning of life. We realised that none of us had a clue and decided to ask our professors. A natural candidate…
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From Disposable Cups to Throwaway Relationships: Costs of Disposable Culture
Transforming a Disposable Culture By Dr. Irfan Hyder Disposable Relationships The emerging lifestyle of today requires that we restrict ourselves to a small cocoon. We are sold that we should gain expertise in only one particular subject. Our occupations are specialised, limiting our view to a narrowly focused area, and our daily chores revolve around…
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Time Management of Social/Marriage Events in Karachi: A Case Study of How to Create Social and Youth Impact
It was first week of May of 2014 and representatives of Youth Impact came to see me at CBM. I was impressed to meet the team. They talked about the impact that they wanted to create on the youth and through them. They told me about their experiential learning program in which they take the…
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Revamping Business Curriculum in Collaboration with Industry for Impact
The model followed in Pakistan in the design of curricula is basically based on rearrangements of popular course names that correspond to some established (typically foreign) text books. A typical university in Pakistan designs a program by copying and pasting course names from some of the foreign universities and prominent local universities, making a semester-wise…
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How to Create Impact on Society: A Case Study of Experiential Learning Intervention in a Course on Social Advocacy
It was around 2007-08, I was chatting with some top decision making executives of five private universities/institutes in Pakistan. As is customary in Pakistan, the discussion invariably turned towards lamenting the sorry state of affairs in Pakistan, how Pakistan is going down the drain and how its situation is increasingly becoming deplorable. After a while, I could…