I agree with Mark in that there is no single model to follow for a given educational culture. In Thailand I experience teaching as difficult, because the students expect you as a teacher to tell them what to do and how to do it - and not to make them think themselves. They have no problem doing their homework (sitting for hours copying some handwritten materials and remembering it for next class). When it comes to analyzing and using the learning stuff (which is a major part of PISA problem solving), it turns out to be difficult.

We have to change the whole culture and tradition of education in order to keep up with other countries. Many are daunted by the AEC (one year left to start), which will transform this country more than we may think now. But Siam, the former Thailand, managed to adapt to the huge threat of Western powers 100+ years ago and circumvent English/French colonization, so there's hope for awareness and readiness to transform. Thais are proud to have avoided direct colonization; in the global world of today we face the disadvantage of poor foreign language proficiency, though.

Miranda, this is an important question for all of us in the AEC - and worldwide, of course. As Nelson Mandela said, "“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

Short answer to start with but more detail later. What I say is based on small scale experiments & class room observations NOT theory, so is closer to opinion. However I have given this exact question a lot of thought over the last 5 years or so.

1. There is no one model that any country can adopt from another & ensure success.

2. The dominant learning culture of the country is paramount in adopting & adapting a model.

3. The model should ain to lift ALL learners from top to bottom. Which means that whatever is blocking any student from more success needs to be considered e,g in our country SES and therefore equity, seems to be the predominant factor in keeping our success rate down, so we need to create a model that targets the reasons for the' inequity (mostly a cultural or mindset issue) and probably none of the Singapore, S-Korea or Finland models would translate directly. A similarconsideration needs to be made for students across the board.

4. The model needs an equitable & respectful base as a matter of course.

5. Hi or Lo tech is sort of irrelevant. If high tech, it needs to add to rather than take from, the teaching repertoire as has been discussed in other RG questions.

I agree with Mark in that there is no single model to follow for a given educational culture. In Thailand I experience teaching as difficult, because the students expect you as a teacher to tell them what to do and how to do it - and not to make them think themselves. They have no problem doing their homework (sitting for hours copying some handwritten materials and remembering it for next class). When it comes to analyzing and using the learning stuff (which is a major part of PISA problem solving), it turns out to be difficult.

We have to change the whole culture and tradition of education in order to keep up with other countries. Many are daunted by the AEC (one year left to start), which will transform this country more than we may think now. But Siam, the former Thailand, managed to adapt to the huge threat of Western powers 100+ years ago and circumvent English/French colonization, so there's hope for awareness and readiness to transform. Thais are proud to have avoided direct colonization; in the global world of today we face the disadvantage of poor foreign language proficiency, though.

Miranda, this is an important question for all of us in the AEC - and worldwide, of course. As Nelson Mandela said, "“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

Thanks Mark and Michael. So we are thinking on similar lines. Hi-tech or low-tech is not so important as the human teacher who can guide and raise the thinking of our students. My boss calls some of us the hi-touch people. It seems funny, but getting students to analyze, synthesize and apply knowledge is truly difficult especially in Malaysia, Thailand where English is not the first language.

Thanks for the reminder concerning N Mandela. There are many things about this fellow believer that we should emulate.

I of course agree with Mark Gould that there can't be a single prescriptive model of teaching | learning | assessing (T|L|A) that would be adequate for all nations and for all times. Historical, geographic, political, economic, social, cultural and psychologic differences are too vast for that.

This is surely one of the weak points of global assessment programmes like PISA, which nobody wants to talk about, as it would undermine its very existence (an alliance between politics and business as usual).

Assuming otherwise, i.e. proclaiming that - in essence - goals and means of T|L|A are or can be made uniform over the whole world, is a form of wishful thinking or mental blindness and certainly not based on empirical facts, e.g. from extensive research on cultural differences between the nations (Hofstede et al).

Even if we would admit that we are rather talking about a long-term vision (of uniformity), instead of a 'state of the world', the chances of realizing such an utopia - as a "conditio sine qua non" for rolling out a world-wide educational reform - are IMHO minimal, and have nothing to do with (infomation) technology.

This belief is based on a common pattern that has been observed and reported many times: at the time that students enter an academy or university, most if not all of the important basic skills and attitudes have already been firmly established in the hands and minds of our students, and many teachers complain about a steady decline over the years of basic skills like reading and calculating, or at least a growing gap between those who can and those who can't.

This forces us teachers to concentrate on lower levels of Piaget's stages of development or Bloom's hierarchy of mental competences or whatever is the current favorite (simplified, pseudo-scientific) model of the mind's capacities. Disappointment and desillusion on all sides is preprogrammed in this way. And just publishing statistics about where one nation stands relative to other nations is not going to change this a bit, i.e. at least not very quickly and not very effectively.

We all know of course what changes would be necessary, and we all know of course, that this is not going to happen very soon. Nevertheless, you should not stop trying out small improvements in your own classes even with the little resources you have at your disposal. And most importantly: report back to us your successes, so we can learn from it, too.

@Paul, thanks for your response and encouragement :)

With whatever resources I have I just get on...

@Michael, thanks for reminding me about the AEC. I remember hearing it frequently on the news at one time, then when there wasn't reference to it, I forgot.

In a way, it means good for some of us because 'AEC will transform ASEAN into a region with free movement of goods, services, investment, skilled labour, and freer flow of capital'. Competition will be based on merit and ability, I hope!!

@Miranda, in Serbia we do PISA. Unfortunately, our students are among the worse!!! The research shows that Serbian students are among most unfortunate, The results says that the students from Indonesia are the happiest one, while the best schools are in Singapore!

I don't think that in my country exists such an advanced care for students... sorry but professors (we have told: lifetime professors like a Leader of a Religion ) care about how to take a minister chair for themselves, among other jobs ofcourse...

Dear Miranda,

I agree with Abderrahmane that educational model and exams must be developed locally. Each country has its own culuture.

@Prof Ljubomir and friends, thanks for your post.

My country is like yours (Serbia); it's at the bottom third, at the last int'l exam it was somewhere in the middle. So the Education Ministry is asking why Education that consumes so much of our budget, isn't producing good results?

Indonesia is our neighbouring country. Perhaps students are happy because schooling is expensive, and it's a Great Privilege to study.

Singapore is also our neighbour. Singaporeans are hard-working and competent. Many years ago, when Singapore was part of Malaysia, the country was really good.

@Abderrahmane, thanks.

You have a good point, 'Education model must be developed locally and each country has to find its own path'.

But perhaps it's due to our historical unity with Singapore, that I raised this question. Singapore went on to achieve great progress, and they DESERVED it. People like to say that Singaporeans live in a pressure-cooker society, where you must WORK. When I was a child, my society (and family) was like that. My dad used to say to me: 'Good girls go to heaven, but naughty girls can go Everywhere.'

The best model, in my opinion, should be unique in the context of the country and culture.

Thanks Darasingh, how is the scene in India, just your area, perhaps? Do the students participate in TIMMS and PISA?

Dear Miranda. I subscribe most of the above comments and oppinions although I'd like to state an additional point: of course each country has its own ways, namely tradional and cultural values. However, science is an international language so to say - perhaps paralell to music - and our global World certainly needs to come closer and with increasing high standards especially when dealing with the so called "tough" sciences (maths, physics, physiology/biology, etc.). I do think that, and in some way RG is a sample of this, we all share increasingly more common interesting within the same demanding and excellence levels so it would be wise to increasing INTELLIGENT ways of sharing education on an International basis. This will certainly help in creating a more educate hummanity.

Best regards,

JP

@ João Barreiros : " ... our global world certainly needs to come closer and with increasing high standards especially when dealing with the so called "tough" sciences (maths, physics, physiology/biology, etc.)."

In my >40 year of experience within the "tough" field of psychology the problem is already on a national level (countries, local), not just BETWEEN countries (international, global). We should distinguish between field X as a "tough" science or discipline with a strong research tradition and field X as a "non-tough" (?) societal or engineering field with an equally strong but different vocational tradition. Often both sides don't know much about each other or even have pertinacious misinterpretations of what each side is really doing and aiming at.

For instance, you didn't mention (but you may have implied by "etc.", I don't know) psychology. This is a typical example of a field name with a double, triple, ... meaning and associated worlds of theory and practice, again words with different connotations when you look closely enough at it.

I have to admit that I don't know SO much about the vocational field of psychology, however, I know that may take 10 years or more for students of psychology after their first examinations (BA, MA) to become registered (fully certified) psychologists, allowed to run their own psychological practice without any supervision. You may call that "tough", but that's probably another sort of "toughness" what you meant.

That other sort of "toughness" you will find on the other side of "psychology", i.e. psychology as a science, or discipline, or research field. That's really tough, in some areas (e.g. the theory of measurement) even tougher as physics. No kidding! The toughest area is certainly mathematical psychology (MP), which aims at building mathematical models of human perception (a field as old a >120 years), human memory (also very old and respected), human language perception and production, human reasoning, human decision making, human skills, etc. p.p.

The thoughness of this field is a high as that of mathematical physics, although of course the models and theoretical underpinnings are quite different. And of course there is the sister of MP, called experimental psychology, like we have experimental physics, with its long tradition of setting up experimental research to find out how good the theoretical models represent reality, taking into account all the diverse statistical approaches and techniques to distinguish pure chance from correct explanations and predictions.

As long as such basic facts are not even (well-)known in each and every country, how can we expect to arrive at "higher standards" and "better communication" on an international level?

[added in retrospect]

People interested in Mathematical Psychology may do a quick search thru GoogleScholar, or turn to Amazon looking for relevant publications by big names as e.g. Suppes, Tversky, Luce, Narens, to name a few. There's also a highly respected Journal of Mathematical Psychology, this year celebrating its 50th anniversity.

Thanks Joao and Paul, for your comments. Glad that my question stimulates all this dialogue and communication :)

I will get back as soon as I can :)

A combination of both approaches is definitely warranted.

A low tech approach to build the base of knowledge, and it is here that proper grounding happens, and one learns to keep an open mind for accepting newer ideas, at the same time preparing oneself to ask 'why?'. Helps in having a database of facts for easy reference and comparison.

Further studies after grounding require a high tech approach - which is mainly aimed at optimizing one's work, to help in rapid systematic problem solving,