Category: PBL
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How to Design LMS Based Online Examinations in Asynchronous Mode
In medical universities and engineering universities during the 1980s-90s when cheating and copying culture was rampant, faculty members primarily used to rely on viva examinations for awarding final grades. Vivas and presentations even today during on-site classes are preferred for MS thesis, PhD Thesis, capstone projects, final year projects, clinical, lab practicals, and senior design…
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How Schools Teach Students to Hate Reading: Mass Creation of Non-Readers
Schools are producing graduates who know how to read but are not readers. They have become non-readers (functional illiterates) because the schools have taught them to hate reading! Functional Illiteracy Schools typically use a curriculum and methodology that consists of senseless and meaningless worksheets and exercises which the students are forced to do repeatedly, continuously…
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Why Engineering Students are Reluctant to become Entrepreneurs: Role of PEC and Universities
Presented at ICEE-2016, International Conference on Entrepreneurial Engineering: Commercialization of Engineering Projects and Research There are several reasons why Engineering students in Pakistan have been found to be reluctant to opt for entrepreneurship in their engineering fields as opposed to other disciplines such as Computer Science. These reasons can be classified in five major categories;…
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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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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…
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A Formula is Worth a Thousand Pictures: Dijkstra vs Buzan’s Mind-Maps
A Formula is Worth a Thousand Pictures: Dijkstra vs Buzan’s Mind-Maps Problems with Pictures with too many details and Complexity I had the opportunity to attend Tony Buzan’s presentation of his famous Mind-Maps at the convention of Management Association of Pakistan held at Karachi in September 2014. Mind-maps became popular in Pakistan some years ago thanks to their use for…
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Testing/Grading vs Motivation: A Variation on Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle for Academics
Testing/Grading vs Motivation: A Variation on Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle for Academics Whenever there is a discussion of the performance of students, lack of motivation of students is the most frequent complaint of nearly all the teachers, whether in higher education institutions or in schools, whether today or 20 years ago. Performance of students and hence…
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Why Project Based Learning? An Experiential Learning Case Study of Language Teaching
Why Project Based Learning? An Experiential Learning Case Study of Language Teaching This post describes a major step in my personal journey towards becoming an advocate of PBL approach, which is often referred to as “Learning by Doing” and is part of the “Experiential Learning” landscape. Please note that that the learning through this case…
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Overprotected Kids: Need for Risk Taking and Self Discovery
Overprotected Kids: Need for Risk Taking and Self Discovery Risk taking used to be part of the every day growing up experience of every child. With our over-protection and over-carefulness we are throttling the innovation, creativity and liveliness of our children. Risk taking and suspense used to make kids mentally strong and develop an ability…
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How Language Acquisition is Made Difficult for Children: Eight Lessons from an Urdu Acquisition Case Study
How Language Acquisition is Made Difficult for Children: Eight Lessons from an Urdu Acquisition Case Study [The later part of this post would derive the lessons that I learned from my experience of how I learned Urdu which is described first. These lessons address the problems that our faulty methodologies are creating today in language…
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Of Jungles, Streams, Berries and Wild Pink Flowers: Costs of Commercialization of Islamabad
Of Jungles, Streams, Berries and Wild Pink Flowers: Fragrant Memories of Islamabad that Was This December I was in Islamabad. Going through the town brought a pang in my heart as memories of 40-45 years ago came flooding down. Those were the times when kids like us had immense open spaces with wild growth to…
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Problems with Bloom’s Taxonomy: Impact on Curriculum and Motivation of Students
Problems with Bloom’s Taxonomy: Impact on Curriculum and Motivation of Students The basic problem with Bloom’s taxonomy is defining the learning process as a sequence of progression from simpler memory recall function to the supposedly higher levels such as synthesis and evaluation which as Frank Smith argues below is contrary to the actual process of…
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Most Effective Way of Cutting a Nation from its History and Ideals – Imposing a Foreign Language
Most Effective Way of Cutting a Nation from its History – Imposing a Foreign Language The project for cutting a nation from its history and roots always starts with the introduction of a foreign “language”. We know how Ataturk’s drive for secularism led him to change the Turkish script from Arabic to Latin script to…
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How our Curriculum Design (from Simple to Complex) Insults the Intelligence of a Student
[Delivered as L2L Talk on 2011-03-20] A child is naturally curious and interested in exploring about things that he does not know. Complex and unknown things are the ones that interest him (and us). We are interested in mysteries, conspiracy theories, adventure, drama, and are amused by the unexpected, stupendous, super-natural or sci-fi. We insult a child’s…
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Structural Paradigm of Schools: Foundations and Assumptions
Current Education Paradigm [1] Schools anywhere in the world share a common paradigm that was determined by the demands of the Industrial Revolution. In this post we identify the structural elements underlying the current paradigm. Many of the underlying assumptions of these structural elements are being questioned in the light of the transition to knowledge…