Thanks for your answers dear Vladimir, Irina and Ljubomir.  Yes dear friends, Ljubomir is right.  It's the same for engineering, biology or medicine or dentistry.  Our students need labs to improve their manipulative skills.

Last week, I tried a new method to show the stages of mitosis of onion root tip under the light microscope.  I explained the procedure to all my students.  But only about 10 of them (not the whole class) were able to do the experiment properly and get nice results of stages of mitosis like metaphase, anaphase.  Have a look.

Some of my students who attended day schools (not the elite boarding schools) reported to me that they did not do science practical, although they should have done!

Have a look at this paper that says the same story!

"The results showed that; most teachers do not understand what standard laboratories should look like; the pattern of usage was very poor; and the available equipment and facilities are not well maintained. "

Dear Miranda! Firstly, thank you for your work. Let more people will like you. You think about the present and the future.

But now I want to look into the past. In ancient Greece, there were no computers, there was no specially equipped classes, it was not complicated devices. But there have been brilliant teacher. There were famous gardens and orchards in which walking brilliant philosophers and teachers of good things, and new students. Fresh air, brilliant ideas gave rise to the desire for creativity of young philosophers. Incidentally, the effectiveness of the emergence of brilliant philosophers in ancient Greece probably exceeds the number of famous philosophers throughout medieval Europe.

Thus, what is important in education - the complex system of devices, the Bologna education system, computerization? Or an increase in the number of talented teachers - patriots of their profession?

Dear Vladimir, it's the people that are most important, the dedicated teachers who work so hard.  But I don't know how teachers can avoid doing practicals in science.

What will happen to future doctors, dentists who have low manipulative skills?  They are likely to cause hurt and pain to patients.  From mobile.

What should I do, that the doctor could besides surgical skills and other manipulations to empathize with the pain and suffering of patients? The pain from cuts and scratches all learn in childhood, but this is not enough. This requires that each expert knew what the pain of losing a loved one.

Dear Miranda,Dear Vladimir,Dear All,

To my own experience, we should begin from the very beginning,from the junior pupils.I was happy,when I supervised the junior grade in 2001.First of all,it's a collaborative work.Our talented teachers of the junior grade (I think,they are the best in the city) develop their pupils,including the stage of propaedeutics.Besides,a lot of teachers of genius have their own author's programs.They are amazing! As a rule,at this grade I used to play-out fairy-tales (dramatized reading),a lot of  my sketches (with dell'arte,and social roles),outdoors lessons,dancing lessons,my poetic scenes,introduce the elements of interpretation (according to my conception).I was interested in the theme of edutainment and defended the paper on Methodology,devoted to this practice in the 90-s (Linguistic University in Nizhny Novgorod now) .As experimentation I decided to do research with my younger friends,too.I want to share the stages of my experiment: 1.trial autonomous creative work(in April-May),2.choice of the best,3.revealing the interest,4.rendering assistance in structuring and translation,5.assistance of their parents in preparing the illustrative material(IT presentation),6.giving a talk on other forms (including yearlings and senior class),7.discussion,8.reading a paper on Lomonosov's reading (scientific conference for students),9.success,10.rewarding,10.motivation for others,11.success leads to new success (with support and then without assistance).I'd like to share my photos.1-3.Latest research works with my students(mainly)of all ages,4.they like writing (I mentioned),5.paper on the lesson and discussion,6.Lomonosov's reading (the best senior students will read their papers in University)

Dear Irina! Thank you for the meticulous explanation of the rules of teaching. How much skill is necessary to instill in students. As diverse skills teachers need to be!

Dear @Miranda, science process skills may be summarized as follow:

• Observation
• Measurement
• Experimentation
• Communication
• Critical thinking skills. 

You are right, we can not speak about improvement of process and manipulative skills without lab. That is my 36 years of working experience with my students.

Manipulative skills may be also developed and improved in labs.

The level of science process skills and manipulative skills among my students is changing, "worse" generations enrol colleges than before, so much more work must be done. The lack of motivation may be a big problem to achieve better skills.

http://ejse.southwestern.edu/article/view/7589/5356

Thanks for your answers dear Vladimir, Irina and Ljubomir.  Yes dear friends, Ljubomir is right.  It's the same for engineering, biology or medicine or dentistry.  Our students need labs to improve their manipulative skills.

Last week, I tried a new method to show the stages of mitosis of onion root tip under the light microscope.  I explained the procedure to all my students.  But only about 10 of them (not the whole class) were able to do the experiment properly and get nice results of stages of mitosis like metaphase, anaphase.  Have a look.

Yes dear Irina.  Even for language, labs are most useful and necessary.  Combining music, drama and poetry together with language is surely the recipe for students to enjoy your class.  Have a look  at this:

"This song exemplifies what music and rhythm can do to grip you. A song can stay stuck in your head all day, and you simply cannot seem to get rid of it. What is it about the power of music that takes hold of your mind and your mood to create an intensely emotional experience? Music can surround you, it can make you feel energetic and motivated. Is there any way to unleash this power in the classroom to energize and motivate students? Can music possibly be used for instructional purposes in a foreign language classroom to assist students in acquiring the plethora of new vocabulary required in a year of language learning?"

https://www.njcu.edu/cill/vol4/adkins.html

Dear Vladimir, when we lose someone very dear (as many of us have lost a parent at least), the psychological pain is almost unbearable.  But a trainee doctors who wasn't skillful caused my friend a lot of pain.  He wasn't even able to draw blood from the elbow vein, but punctured the vein at the back of the hand of my dear friend.  Such a stupid doctor should be sued.  

Dear Ljubomir, thanks so much for the link here (and the info on predator journals).  You are the one of the experts RG must be proud of!  Thanks for being generous in sharing your knowledge.  Take good care of health...

Thank you Miranda! Congratulation! Very pointedly. 

But, I was a little upset to see onion cells in mitosis. I love the pluck onions from the garden is immediately bow. So I absorb more living cells in mitosis onion. Destroys the life of cells at the beginning. What a pity.

Vladimir, the procedure was to tease the treated root tip with a needle, but that would not make it sufficiently flat or one cell thick.  So I tried another way.  Perhaps I should be happy that about 10 students got it, but what am I to do about the slow ones, whose hands seem to be unable to follow my instructions?  Most of my generation of children had to work hard to help out in the kitchen, but my students cannot do this type of dirty, sweaty work.  

Here's another root tip with cells in mitosis.  (You can eat or pluck as many as you need.  Food is meant to be eaten.  It's God's decree.)

Dear Miranda! Thank you very much for explanation. And, it is nice the second picture.

Dear Miranda,Dear All,thank you a lot.Beginning from the 90-s I have used the metacognitive approach,according to my 2 conceptions.I created and realized near 100 scenarios of collaborative projects, a lot of projects and publications in English.Dear Miranda,I shared your publications with our Biology department,they like them very much.Cooperation with my dearest friend Alma Dzib Goodin and her Center helps me a lot in my work,too.Some materials and problems of RG help me a lot,too.I'm so thankful to RG and to my friends on RG,to University of Jordan,to MSU,to Yaroslavl,Novosibirsk Universities,Voronezh Teachers' Training Institute,our Lyceum,American Universities (it was a greatest collaborative work),my favorite Publishing House "The First of September"in Moscow...Theoretical reflection plus creativity leads to good results.  

I do not have any experience in this field as I am not working in University system and we do not have large number of students. More than lack of skills, I observed that gen Y lacks interest and focus in their studies. They seem to be more interested in mobile phones, SMSes, twitter/facebook messages/posts etc.

Dear Miranda. We should also think about the possible moral stress in teaching skills. Causes of distress may not be on the surface.

Just a quick response, dear Irina.  I am busy with classes, but I will be back.  I am happy and honored that you have shared my work with your colleagues and they have found my papers useful.  I believe that students are about the same, but they will have differences too.

(Irina, I remember one important thing.  Our dear friend, Prof Kamal is at HASHEMITE UNIVERSITY, not University of Jordan.  They are entirely different universities.)

Dear Prof Rao, I also observe the same lack of concern among Gen Y friends for studying.  They have little passion for knowledge, except for the few who have imbibed good values from parents.  And yes, they possess the most expensive, the best i-phones etc.  Perhaps it's because this age is already so full of information...

Dear Vladimir and all, at times I am really exhausted with the work load and extra classes that are required to help my students to perform.  Sometimes I think they perform based on the teacher's effort than their own.  And when they get to varsity, the performance drops drastically.  Students can enter varsity with a CGPA of 3.6, and drop to 2.0 in the first semester at university.  This has been observed for the past 10 years or so.  Here is a good paper on teacher burnout.

"Teacher burnout is regarded as a serious problem in school settings. To date, studies on teachers' stress and burnout have largely centred on teachers' own characteristics, socialization, and behaviours, but few have explored the connection between teachers' burnout and students' motivation..."

Article The Relationship Between Teacher Burnout and Student Motivation

Dear Miranda,

You see,we meet good human beings by chance.Good human beings do good even in the virtual space.Goodness has no any borders,as well as wisdom.Prof.Kamal is  a unique personality,and all of us miss him.Prof.Kamal has a greatest ability-to unite people through his opennes,tolerance,humanism,wisdom,attention and interest to every of us.On RG I have found a lot of friends,whom I highly appreciate and love.My romantic idea of brotherhood turned out to be possible on RG."From a reflective culture to a personal culturedigm" (my paper on the conference in MSU,Lomonosov's jubilee) is relevant in the perfect social environment.

Thanks dear Irina.  On RG, I find a large family of researchers with similar interests, a large family of educators with the same passion for teaching, and who experience similar problems in our efforts to develop our students.  Thanks very much.  Even online friends share their thoughts, and open our hearts to one another.  Brotherhood is indeed a reality on RG, among people who have similar values.  From mobile.

Worldwide, university chemistry courses' plans contain more theoretical courses than practical courses due to the cost factor (obviously, 3 hour lectures are far less costly than 3 hours laboratory single session). Students of these days prefer lectures to labs due to the comfort factor (!) because lab demands hard work under tension & not just sitting as is usually done in lectures. To get the students involved & more interested, the instructor has to turn the lab session into an enjoyable experience by all means. The students ought to be encouraged by praising them every time they succeed in obtaining useful products. In my opinion, an (A) grade in practical organic chemistry is better than an (A) grade in theoretical organic chemistry (though both are important) but the practicals give real applied skills & improve them.

This is fine article dear @Miranda. Teaching The Science Process Skills!

Six basic Science Process Skills were treated in this research article. 

" The science process skills form the foundation for scientific methods... 

In summary, successfully integrating the science process skills with classroom lessons and field investigations will make the learning experiences richer and more meaningful for students. Students will be learning the skills of science as well as science content. The students will be actively engaged with the science they are learning and thus reach a deeper understanding of the content. Finally active engagement with science will likely lead students to become more interested and have more positive attitudes towards science." 

Dear Ljubomir! Dear all! Splendid and clever article about teaching the science. Many thanks. Vladimir

Dear Dr Nizar, thanks for your comment.  In the same way, my students prefer a theory lecture in an air conditioned theater than a practical, where they must perspire.  They are treated like princes and princesses.  But when I was growing up, it was always "BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO SERVE".  (My students perform poorly as compared with the students in a rural college (KML, Labuan).  The lecturers there motivated students to work hard to improve the opportunities for themselves and their families.  Here, with students from affluent homes, such things don't work.)

Thanks dear @Ljubomir, we always need you to fish good links.  You are the expert on RG just like the folks whose score exceed 100, and you actually do a far greater service to many of us.  A lot of what I learn to do on RG is really inspired by you.  I will get into the link soon.  (Nowadays the time on Q and A is less, but the time for real research and teaching is a lot more.  Thanks dear @Barbara and @Vladimir.  I believe that I learned to be dexterous and to multitask while working in the kitchen.)

Dear Miranda! Knowledge is increasing on a logarithmic progression. Funding for training programs and culture slowly grows in arithmetic progression. The question is - when will form a catastrophic failure between new knowledge and education of most students?

Dear Vladimir, thanks for your post.  Education is training the mind to think to solve our problem (past, present and future problems).  When the problem arises, the solution will be clearer.  I have been busy so I don't always have time on RG.  Thanks for patience!

"Education in the modern world is intimately associated with work. Education is considered to be a necessary preparation for employment and is, itself, one of the largest employers in a modern economy." Skills are must!

"We produce a higher education system which is more and more separated, more and more divorced from the intellectual function. What I see out there is an enormous public hunger for high quality, general propositions of an intellectual kind, something that isn’t journalism, isn’t the sound byte culture, isn’t entertainment, is ideas." -Michael Ignatieff

http://www.basicincome.com/bp/zeducation.htm

Dear @Miranda, this is fine research paper Mastery of Science Process Skills and Their Effective Use in the Teaching of Science...

"Educology is knowledge about education, and the educology of science education is knowledge about the process of teaching and studying science in some setting,

e.g. in schools, colleges and universities. Part of scientific expertise is having the process skills associated with scientific inquiry. Expertise in science process skills is a basic and integral part of having effective science teaching skills. Such expertise obviously is not innate. One is not born with it. To become expert, one must receive guidance in the ways of scientific inquiry, and one must conduct extensive guided appropriate practice in the use of the skills of scientific inquiry.The development of skills in scientific inquiry requires that students of science be provided with appropriate and adequate guidance in their study of science. This guidance is to be found in the instructional programs provided by schools, colleges and universities..."

http://www.era-usa.net/images/011-IJE_2002_V16_N1_Ango,_Mary,_Mastery_of_Science.pdf

Thanks dear Ljubomir for a good link.  I should tell you that when I was in secondary school, we had practical exams for Physics, Chemistry and Biology.  So we actually were well taught and trained.  But this exam was removed because it was costly and time consuming.  When I became a teacher, students took a written 'practical exam', where they didn't have apparatus to manipulate or first hand observations to make.  Very soon, the profs in our universities complained that our undergrads are really lacking in science process skills and manipulative skills.  

Strange expression "written practical exam" dear @Miranda. There is no substitute for lab work and practice. 

Exactely dear @ Ljubomir,  I  agree with this.

Strange decision too to remove hands-on instruction and exams because it is time-consuming and costly.

Think about the following (hypothetical) scenario. From next year on, sports and music students won't be taught and assessed how to run and jump c.q. play an instrument  or conduct an orchester, because that is much too time-consuming and costly (think e.g. of all the equipment or instruments, thousands of dollars / euros each). Instead, they will have to sit in classes, listening to instructors lecturing about theories, methods and techniques and occasionally giving a short demonstration, and doing exercises all on paper (e.g. reading musical scores, or detailed instructions how to perform certain sport techniques) as substitutes for the 'real thing'. Sure enough, we will soon have virtual realities to train certain techniques, but alas, for the moment that is still too costly and by the way, teachers aren't yet trained to include these technologies into their classes. So the story goes.

How realistic is this scenario? How come that intelligent people collectively decide that the real stuff is too costly and time-consuming for bothering with it during education? I guess it has to do with the fallacy of believing that such 'practical matters' aren't so important because - so the argument goes - these can be easily learned on the job, i.e. after formal education, and that it won't be too late then.

It also has to do with another fallacy, the belief that theory comes before experience, that knowing precedes doing. Apparently, those people haven't read Polanyi or Schön, or worse, not even heard of them. Apparently, too, we value theory much more than reality, because theories are simple and elegant, and reality is complex and dirty. 

Currently I am reading a little gem of a book by Gary Thomas about the use of theories in teaching and research, especially in the field of education. It becomes clear that not only do social scientists over-value the significance of theorizing, but also have a thoroughly confused conception as to what a (good) theory should be, to the extreme opinion, that almost any single idea may be called a theory, because it sounds so good. Perhaps the situation is not quite so extreme in the natural sciences, but it is well-known that e.g. (purely) theoretical physicists have a tendency to look with disdain on (just) experimental physicists. In the end the result may be the same in both camps: promote theory, demote practice. 

http://www.amazon.com/Tacit-Dimension-Michael-Polanyi/dp/0226672980

http://www.amazon.com/Educating-Reflective-Practitioner-Teaching-Professions/dp/1555422209

http://www.amazon.com/Education-Theory-Conducting-Educational-Research/dp/0335211798

Dear Paul and all, as you say, some people are strange.  At one time, we had English medium schools, national schools and vernacular schools.  When English medium schools were doing much better, they were converted to national schools.  Only after many years (2002), the then Prime Minister started the education policy of ETeMS (English in Teaching Math and Science, or PPSMI in Malay) because English is the language of science.  But that was replaced by another education policy around 2011, that reverted the teaching of science and math in English back to the national language in schools.  

My college continues with ETeMS, but in the past few years we had a general drop in the quality of students.  This calls for a need of my research in music mnemonics!

@Fateh, what are your experiences with your own students?  Please inform.

Article Musical Mnemonics to Facilitate Learning of Transcription of RNA

Data Failure of ETeMS: The Teaching Courseware Factor? (A REVIEW DATASET)

Dear Colleagues,

Good Day,

"SIX BASIC PROCESS SKILLS

The science process skills form the foundation for scientific methods. There are six basic

science process skills:

• Observation

• Communication

• Classification

• Measurement

• Inference

• Prediction

These basic skills are integrated together when scientists design and carry out experiments or in everyday life when we all carry out fair test experiments. All the six basic skills are important individually as well as when they are integrated together.

The six basic skills can be put in a logical order of increasing sophistication, although even the youngest students will use all of the skills alongside one another at various times. In the earliest grades students will spend a larger amount of time using skills such as observation and communication. As students get older they will start to spend more time using the skills of inference and prediction. Classification and measurement tend to be used across the grade levels more evenly, partly because there are different ways to do classifying, in increasingly complex ways, and because methods and systems of measuring must also be introduced to children gradually over time."

please, see the rest of the article "Teaching The Science Process Skills" - ist attachment , you can see the rest for further details:

http://ejse.southwestern.edu/article/view/7589/5356

@ Hazim Hashim Tahir ::: these are rather broad categories of skills (e.g.: communication), in order to teach and assess those skills, teachers need guidance in developing courses, assignments and assessments, thus I added here a reference to a booklet which does exactly that (it's still for sale, and only costs $ 1,50). Surely, you can find thicker books on the same topic by amazon, but they are much more expensive :-((

http://www.amazon.com/Science-Process-Skills-Hands--Performance/dp/0201290928

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Science+Process+Skills+

Hand-on skills, laboratory skills and getting good ideas!

"Evaluate the extent of your hands-on skills and laboratory skills Are you good at working with tools, at building equipment, at running equipment – electronics, microscopes, telescopes ,,,? This is my strength. I am an experimenter in physics. because I like to work on equipment, because I am mechanically handy and because I get great pleasure when an experiment works. But hands-on skills do not have to be your strength. Isadore Rabi, who was my doctoral research supervisor at Columbia University in the 1950’s had no laboratory skills. Yet Rabi won a Nobel Prize for advancing experimental atomic physics.

When choosing what you work on in engineering and science honestly evaluate the extent of your hands-on and laboratory skills..."

I do warmly recommend the following resource dear @Miranda : Educational skills for 21 century teachers!

http://www.pitt.edu/~super4/38011-39001/38141.ppt

In some 3rd world universities, there are deliberate policies to decrease the laboratory skills of students & I shall give examples: i) The general laboratory sessions for first year students have been reduced from 3 hours/week to 2 hours/week for each practical course.  ii) The laboratory instructor is subjected to deliberate annoyance & irritation by the so-called general safety committees who carry out witch-hunt. Since these are nearly illiterate science-wise, then they will look for trivial matters & "make a mountain out of a mole hole" in their reports. iii) The load of the instructor has been reduced from 3.66 hours for a 4 hours/week lab session to 2.66 & from 2 hours for 3 hours/week lab session to 1.4. This has meant reduction of the money paid for teaching the same experiments as was done in the past. Many instructors enter the laboratories while they are fed up of injustice & of being spied at by cameras and the students are also fed up by the unfriendly environment. Some of the students will ask: Will the experiment today be short or long? When they are told that it is going to be long, they will become angry. Naturally, there will be lack of skills among the students.To overcome this problem, total overhaul is needed in the educational systems of 3rd world universities.                                              

Thanks for the posts, and for the links.  I will read each of them, you can be sure.  (I am busy, working on a paper that I collaborate with an RG friend.  The editor called me this morning and gave me just 2 days to send it back.  I will be back soon.)

Dear Colleagues,

Good Day,

"We have to improve life, not just for those who have the most skills and those who know how to manipulate the system. But also for and with those who often have so much to give but never get the opportunity".

                                                                        ------   Dorothy Height

 I like to change this quote a little: 

I believe there's an inner power that makes winners or losers. And the winners are the ones who really listen to the truth of their hearts.

Sylvester Stallone

I believe there's an inner power that makes winners or losers. And the winners are the ones who really listen to their teachers!