The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

	Promote personalised learning in schools Focus should be on the development of different skills that foster creativity and enable students to come up with unique solutions to problems Kunal Bhadoo WHAT do Leon Uris, Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Sean Connery, Russell Crowe, Ronald Reagan and Wright Brothers have in common? The answer — they all have been high school dropouts. Clearly, there is something wrong with the traditional schooling system if it couldn’t sustain the interest of people who rose in life to become prominent writers, entrepreneurs, politicians, actors and inventors. While this is not an argument for abolishing schools, it does show that the way education has been imparted to children until now needs a drastic relook, especially in our country. The Indian education sector is currently booming, with new schools opening every other day. However, the problem is that most of them are offering even more of the same — the same old teaching methods and the same old way of working with the same old results. There has hardly been any change in the way students have been taught in the last 100 years. The schooling system has become fossilised. As a result, the children remain disengaged from the learning process and schooling fails to inspire or motivate them. In the era of information technology, there is a flood of new knowledge that children have to imbibe. In fact, we humans now create about four terabytes of new information in one single year, which is more than that created in the previous 5,000 years of human history! Simultaneously, the world is shrinking and becoming smaller. International barriers are coming down. The global economy is getting closely integrated. Our universe has become more dynamic and diverse, with a fast-growing economic, social and cultural work space. All this poses a big challenge to the traditional educational system to keep pace with the times. Though many schools have responded to the rapidly evolving environment by introducing latest technology, such as computers and the Internet, others have invested in trendy architecture. A few have adopted international curricula and declared themselves innovative and unique. But these are all superficial elements. What is most critical in the educational field is innovation in the methodology of teaching and learning. This is the anvil on which the new generation would be forged to face the challenges of the future. There is indeed a dire need to innovate because traditional methods are no longer sufficient to cope with the complexities of the modern world. An obsession with academic grades to the exclusion of everything else makes education lopsided. It may not produce students with a well-rounded personality and thus may not result in the development of individual skills. There are schools that have become simply too big to establish an effective relationship with students. On the other hand, the schooling system in many countries has come up with more efficient and effective methods of learning. In India, schools in metro cities are doing everything possible to upgrade the teaching techniques by providing better infrastructure, teaching trainings, digital equipments, etc. This could eventually make the final products more aware, ready for global challenges but may not realise their interest areas and their actual potential. The gap which requires to be filled is probably a pattern which focuses on individual development at a customised pace that could help in self-actualisation. Education, especially in the primary segment, should be more learning-oriented built upon innovative solutions to ensure personalised, connected and active learning among students. Staff morale in the teaching profession is paramount. Teachers will be able to give their best to students only if they take pride in what they are doing. They have to constantly evaluate if the teaching techniques are working rather than treating them as default. For example, some good questions to ask are: Is homework over-rated? Will it be better to reduce it and emphasise on more problem-solving projects in the class where the teacher would be available to assist students? Should the subjects be divided into step courses and themes? How can schools leverage digital technology? Should lessons be available online? How to turn teachers into learners, too, so that they stay abreast of the latest developments in their field? How to make education as personalised as possible for students? How to ensure continuous personal development of the child? India requires a new “glocal” approach to education that prepares students to become world citizens. The best educational practices from around the globe have to be integrated and given a local flavour. This would help bring about systemic changes in the way children are taught. Also, the national standards of schooling need drastic improvement. Much thought has to go into the ideal size of a class, how long each lesson should be, how to make the curriculum more exciting and how to nurture the individual passions of each child. The way ahead lies through personalisation of learning in schools, not through imparting education in an assembly line fashion with the assumption that the same size would fit all. The focus has to be on the development of different skills that foster creativity and enable students to come up with unique solutions to problems and meet workplace challenges on growing up. This is possible only in an environment that encourages learning and exploration, and acknowledges that each child is unique with a mind that has the capacity to achieve great things.
	Familiar books help children retain new words PUSHY parents who spend a small fortune lavishing books on their young children in the hope of giving them a head start before primary school may be wasting their time and money, according to experts. In reality, as every child knows, the business of helping pre-school children learn their first words is surprisingly simple — repetition and familiarity. A favourite book read over and over again trumps the mini-library of children’s books found in some British households. As the saying goes, less is more. That is the view of the psychologist Jessica Horst, from Sussex University, who presented the latest findings from her research at the Brighton Science Festival. Dr Horst devised an experiment in which three-year-olds were tested to see if they would recognise and recall six new words. The children were visited in their homes by researchers, and, during the course of a week, one group of three-year-olds were read the same story containing the new words three times. And another group were read different stories containing the same new words. When the children were tested a week later, those who had heard just one story were much better at recalling the words than those who had had different stories read to them, according to the research, which is expected to be published in the Frontiers of Developmental Psychology journal later this year. It found that the children who had listened to the same story being repeatedly read to them were able to learn 3.6 out of the six words on average, compared with just 2.6 words being remembered by children who had been read a variety of stories. It is not just the number of words children learn but the difference in the rate of learning between the two groups. And, Dr Horst adds: “All of the groups who learned words, performed statistically significantly differently from chance [random guessing]” Familiarity is the key to learning words, says the psychologist, who has spent several years studying how young children learn. She has taken her own advice in her private life. “My son is 19 months old, but already I read the same books to him. Sometimes every single day he wants the same books,” she said. — The Independent
	Campus Notes Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak Symposium on malaria THE need to develop multi-pronged strategies and multi-disciplinary research to fight the malaria disease was emphasised by experts at a one-day national symposium on "Fight Against Malaria: Prospects and Perspectives" organised by the Centre for Biotechnology (CBT) and the Centre for Medical Biotechnology (CMBT) of MDU recently. Professor Y.D. Sharma (AIIMS, New Delhi) in his keynote address focused upon fundamental research to reduce the malaria parasite infectivity. The chief guest, Dr A.C. Dhariwal, Director, National Vector-Borne Disease Control Programme, threw light on the steps taken by the government to effectively eliminate malaria. He said a multi-disciplinary approach is required to combat the disease. The guest of honour, Dr Neena Valecha, Director, National Institute of Malaria Research, talked about doing path-breaking research to control drug-resistant parasites. Professor S.K. Gakhar, convener of the symposium and Dean, Faculty of Life Sciences, MDU, said a complete overview of malaria-related research is required to develop effective future polices to combat malaria. IGU conference from March 14 to 16 The Department of Geography of the university will organise an International Geographical Union (IGU) conference on “Geoinformatics and Biodiversity and Climate Change” from March 14 to March 16. According to Prof. M.I. Hassan, Head of the Department of Geography, the conference will be organised in collaboration with the International Geographical Union Commission on Biogeography and Biodiversity. Workshop on cyber security Cyber security is going to be an area of concern and a challenging issue in times to come. This view emerged at a one-day workshop organised recently by the University Institute of Engineering and Technology (UIET) of the university. Various Issues of cyber security were deliberated upon at the workshop. Experts from APPIN LABS, Delhi, enlightened UIET students about various aspects of cyber security and hacking. Earlier, the workshop was inaugurated by Prof. S.P. Khatkar, Director, UIET, while Prof. Rahul Rishi, HoD, CSE, delivered the welcome address. — Contributed by Bijendra Ahlawat
	Studyscape IIM-B graduate makes ‘learning outcome’ assessment his business BANGALORE: Breaking from convention, a bright student of the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (IIM-B) has preferred to be an entrepreneur in the education sector. Opting out of placements for a lucrative job voluntarily, Aditya Kulkarni of the 2011-13 batch at the B-school in postgraduate management programme has co-founded ‘Learning Outcomes’ start-up with a view to making child assessment in schools a holistic process. “Though a few standard tests to evaluate a child’s performance are in vogue, there is a need for an effective diagnostic tool. Our aim is to make assessments at schools a pedagogical tool for measurement,” Kulkarni said. Kulkarni has roped in Rishikar, an IIT-Chennai alumnus, to set up the nascent venture. — IANS Troubled teenagers make successful entrepreneurs: Study NEW YORK: Teenagers who are troublemakers may go on to become successful entrepreneurs, if a new study is to be believed. Many successful entrepreneurs exhibited aggressive behaviour and got in trouble as teenagers, an international team of researchers found. Researchers Ross Levine of Berkeley’s Haas Economic Analysis and Policy Group and Yona Rubinstein from the London School of Economics, found that entrepreneurs are identifiable not only by their earning potential, but also by certain character traits that appear throughout their youth, ‘BusinessNewsDaily’ reported. The study showed that people who become entrepreneurs also have some more surprising traits in common. “Our data revealed that many successful entrepreneurs exhibited aggressive behaviour and got in trouble as teenagers,” Levine said. — PTI