Miranda, although we are from diverse disciplines, I am identifying the common denominator in education research as : 1) humans, 2) the human brain. The extras we have compared to a few centuries ago is the better understanding of the human brain through advances in neuroscience. I will list a few areas of education research, which are really all geared towards "transmitting the information from the source into the destination human brain." SOURCE used to be the teacher only centuries ago. No longer the case ! SOURCE can be a website that the teacher is using these days. A few decades or centuries ago, teachers figured out everything intuitively, now that we have such advances in neuroscience, we should take advantage of them. Here goes my list:

HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY / ASSESSMENT THEORY: We used to place mystical values to FEELINGS, emotions, etc. centuries ago. Now we know that, they are the daily functionality originating at the human brain. Humans are very sensitive to reward/punishment mechanisms during learning. When this structure (assessment) is not correct, they might SHUT DOWN ! This is again going right back to neuroscience. Should we completely abolish PUNISHMENT based assessment ? only have reward based ones ? Should it be fully subjective ? or, based on 100% objective terms ??? This is a very important topic !

PHYSIOLOGY: This is in pretty good shape, but can use more research. This topic includes a) best times for humans to soak in information, b) effect of nutrition in learning, c) effect of deficiencies (e.g., iron deficiency), d) exercise, e) sleep ...

NEUROSCIENCE: This topic includes HOW to teach ... How does the human brain take in the information ? Is there a one-size-fits-all model ? or, are there multiple intelligences ? If there are multiple intelligences, what is the right strategy in teaching a class with diverse skillsets ? or, even a bi-modal class made up of two different disciplines. I actually asked a question about this. This topic also includes, what to do to get the students' attention ... How to engage them. The advances in neuroscience will give us many clues about the inner workings of the human brain.

I am sure there are more, but, this is what is coming into my mind now ...

Dear Miranda,

How about students' motivation? Being in a grad school I have had an opportunity to meet with many students and to see different levels of their motivation towards learning. How can we control this part of teaching?

I am a teacher in Nursing (Undergraduate, Post-graduate & Doctoral Level), this is a practicing profession. Therefore i believe that research studies on 'Integrated System of Professional Education' would bring to light many influencing factors regarding --

1. Existing teaching-learning methods & their situational relevance

2. Students' motivation in learning

3. Application of classroom learning to actual clinical practice

4. Integrated development of students' Affective, Cognitive & Psycho motor domains, including value education

5. Capacity Building Training for teachers

etc.

With the global changes in all aspects of life & living, i think this way of education would be required for all streams

Thank you Miranda.

May you and your family enjoy a promising & rewarding

New Year 2014, Filled with optimism, opulence and new opportunities

With Warm Regards & Love to all Research gate Members,

Ratna & Prakash

This is a difficult question. The goal would be to choose a topic (Pavel pointed to motivation in learning) and find similarities and differences among different educational contexts, such as the european, the asian and the northamerican, to be able to come out with ideas that will benefit all comunities.

International collaboration projects are difficult. In many cases, each country has its own set of problems. For example, problems in Western Europe are not similar problems in Western Africa; whose problems are we going to tackle?

@Michael Mannen's response appreciated, even for Western Australia and the rest of it.

Pavel focuses on motivation very rightfully. For my Thai students I can report that many of them are in my classes because of 'destiny' or 'my mother told me'. I think that would be worth finding out for different parts of the world (and Australia -- eh, just joking ;)).

I suggest that those countries like the US which do not have music and the arts in their core curriculum of public education add it and quickly before another generation of developmentally-deprived children go by. In the mid 1950s through 1960s most of the public schools in the US had music and arts as core curriculum and rose to the top of the world in math and science surveys, thereafter Big Society programs at the federal level crowded out local spending on such programs and we shifted to other priorities, plunging in schloastic performance ever since. The nations that have music and the arts as core curriculum have the lowest rates of special education expenditures and the the highest performance in math and science. To me this is the mandate that needs to the discussed by all of us.

I agree with Michael Mannen that educational problems differ across countries. In fact, my own experience in a European wide project led me to believe that generalisations across even European countries are difficult. However, that need not stop international efforts to develop models and conceptual frameworks that enable teachers to solve pedagogical problems in their different contexts. This approach (providing teachers with analytical tools, rather than prescriptions for action) seemed to work in the above mentioned project in supporting teachers to solve problems for themselves in making their practice more inquiry-based , though we are open to the charge of small, self selected samples (groups of teachers). An interesting project idea that fits your work, Miranda, and Max's comment above, might be to develop a framework that supports subject teachers in utilising music, drama and the arts to support learning.

I would like to quote one of the famous philosophers from India, Jiddu Krishnamurthy.

" The years which a student spends in a school must leave behind in him a fragrance and delight. This can only happen when there is no competition, no authority, when teaching and learning is a simultaneous process in the present, where the educator and the educated are both participating in the act of learning."

Can we create such an environment for our students where they can think freely?

Miranda, Thanks for the question. My comment is much more narrowly focused than the other comments. It is my observation that a large obstacle to learning and performing as a scientist in this computerized age is the understanding (but more so the application) of statistical techniques to one's area research. This seems to be a pervasive and unnecessary stumbling block for many young aspiring scientists. I think much of this stems from the way we teach statistics. With the advent of high-power computers and bootstrapping techniques introducing students to large-sample approximations and the normal distribution seems to be "putting the cart before the horse". I understand the need for this method in the past, but I feel a more practical and modern approach to introductory-level statistics is needed (for pre-college levels as well) . For example, perhaps we should start with the dataset, the computer, and nonparametric techniques (e.g., randomization ) to introduce students to the idea of code writing and basic sampling theory. Currently, the computer, sampling theory, and actual application of statistics are being taught as an afterthought. This may no longer be the most effective way, and may actually be more confusing to younger students that have grown in this computerized age....

Dear Miranda, thank you for your question. "Culture as incantation of chaos"-the title of my last article. To my experience, my technology of a long-term cross-cultural project evoked a great interest in the audience in conferences, seminars, lectures. It's interaction of cultures through integration of arts. You can find this technique in RG- "Classics:Navitas Vitae"- thus,there is a haiku-lesson in the form of Japanese tea-ceremony, or a lesson-performance "The Man with the Scare"(Spanish culture), or "Apocalypse",or "Romeo and Juliet': antithesis of real and ideal"(Italian culture), or "Star-child"(a lot of cultures) etc.This technique is universal, it's relevant for all ages, for weak and gifted students, forms all the competences. The idea of peace is main.

Musical and arts skills development build larger, more developed fontal lobes and corpus collosums, raise cognitive and spatial IQ, teach socialization skills, make better students of science, engineering, medicine, education, etc. Always, those with musical/arts skills developed in youth rise to the top of their fields, they graduate from high school and go on to college in far greater numbers, are involved in much less crime, less apt to use drugs. I know of no other educational preparatory objective that beats this approach. This profoundly deaf fellow, instead of suffering the fate of the deaf in education, socialization, vocation, etc, has been most blessed as a child who was given music lessons and developed to world class level of performance to build the apparatus to do what the deaf do not do: earn 2 bachelors, 2 masters, 2 doctorates with honors, raise 8 wonderful children and 18 grandchildren. I am not exceptional, but my upbringing was. Someone forgot to tell this deaf kid he couldn't do it, so he did. We could cut special ed to the floor if we had music and the arts in core curriculum. We could slash the prison population of its functionally illiterate hordes with music and the arts. We would see more and more people grow their full potential, no matter their physical and mental challenges--if we buckle down and do what we know we need to do: get music and the arts back into the schools.

Thank you Max for your great post. Your words sound like music to my ears.

Thanks, H.E. Even if the pun was intended, it's the truth (smile).

@problem we have with mass education, in almost any country, is that it is not individualized to the students needs; some students are more oriented towards certain disciplines and learn in various ways. Almost any student has something they are interested in and a talent that can be perfected; Max was obviously oriented and learned via music, I was always a very independent learner. I think for mass education, individual or student oriented projects or "thesis assignments" are the way to go, instead of standardized tests.

While serving on a Montessori School Board some years ago I was so impressed with their approach. In many countries (have seen New Zealand's system firsthard) they have adapted Montessori into their public education and the kids are zooming upward. Music/arts are core in their program. Japan (another I've been privileged to see firsthand) has an outstanding system, and at the top of the world in producing math and science skills in their children. Neurological development is key to pulling today's kids out of the doldrums of current education. Standardized tests as Michael mentioned are the pits and reverts to rote learning, which doesn't teach kids critical thinking skills--never leave education in the hands of politicians (or medicine, health, etc., for that matter).

Dear friends, I appreciate all your comments. Sure, I agree that each country has its peculiar problems in education. But I was thinking along broad lines, and I need all your thinking caps. Let's think and come up with something feasible and have some benefit.

You can see from my info on RG, I was a biological science student. But I also liked art and music. I put in a lot of hard work to improve at art. Now, I've become good at sewing my own clothes, baking, cooking and decorating the food :)

I sang at school and at church, but I could only afford formal music lessons when I started teaching. I went on to do a Masters in Music Education; my project was 'Music Preferences of Undergrad Students, where I investigated relationships between Preference and music characteristics (tempo, rhythm, melody, harmony etc), familiarity with the music among other variables. For the PhD in Education Psychology, I focused on Music Preferences and Listener Personality. I have 2 papers; one article and one proceeding from my music research uploaded on RG. Music Education in Malaysian schools began around 1995 with 20 schools for its pilot project.

You may also contact me at:

[email protected] OR

[email protected]

Our discussion goes on :)

@John Plumb, I started learning Basic Stats and then advanced stats, using the calculator. My wonderful lecturer said, just use any calculator that has a square root button. So I plug in the formula, plug in the numbers and used as many fingers as needed. I had A LOT OF TIME to appreciate what SPSS can do. When I had to analyse my research data, I used SPSS :)

@Naveen, having taught in school for a long time, I believe that healthy competition is fine; but we must eliminate all forms of cheating and unhealthy copying. Besides that there must be authority to reward the right acts, and to punish and eliminate the wrong. One of the bad things that some students did was to steal from their own parents. Being one of the discipline teachers, I had to contact the parent, and mediate between the erring child and parent. It's not a pleasant job to be a discipline teacher. But then the building up of a character is not easy.

@Pavel and Michael, I agree that motivation is important and basic. But I think that when students get very interested in something outside themselves, they will become motivated. If we tell them, they must be motivated, our words fall flat. For some of us, we are very motivated because we are interested in so many things; we just have to go and get the info, the knowledge.

Great background, Miranda. My first bachelors was in Music Composition. I also played as a young man with a few great symphonies and made a couple of records...had no idea until years later that was a one of a kind feat for a severely hearing impaired kid--later becoming profoundly deaf as a young adult and for the last 21 years a cochlear implant user---no tone or octave differentiation, but still play top of my game according to those who can hear (smile) playing a major concert here and there. I credit music to my being able to speak almost flawlessly--something otherwise impossible with deafness. Cannot understand any words on the TV, movies, telephone, or recorded devices. Cannot even tell when playing a record of my own what is being played. But "hear clearly" in my head what it should sound like, so continue to practice to keep up my skills and as part of my auditory/oral therapy. I mention this only to illustrate that we need music back into mainstream...if any of our commenters did well in school without music they would have done even better with it. In various projects over the past several decades we measured progress of special ed kids who took music lessons and nearly all pulled even with nonmusical, non-special ed kids, and non-special ed kids who played music (or sang, for that matter) always outdistanced the their normal nonmusical peers. For dementia, we have advocated older adults to take music lessons (usually keyboard) and practice daily and mental scores and memory ALWAYS improve. Autistics always improve in development with music. The other arts also help, but music seems to be the king in cognitive development.

@Max, thanks for giving us this info. Beethoven was one of my favorite composers. The physical impairment doesn't remove the ability to 'hear clearly in the head'.

Talking about autism, there are 2 autistic boys in my Sunday school. They help us all to learn to be patient and persevering; these are not easy-to-learn virtues.

Was it a political move to remove music from US schools? Actually there were certain things that I couldn't fully understand, one of them was the partial shut-down in US last year. At that time, Mr Kerry was in Malaysia, and he said that US would help to train up entrepreuners for Msia. I used to think that US had a resilient economy.

What killed music programs in US schools at the end of the 1960s was pure ignorance of federal policy makers who dangled tons of new (Great Society) social engineering money in front of gullible local school districts who took the bait. From total local control and funding to almost near total control and perhaps 25%-30% funding from the federal government has become the result of that terrible development, with our academic performance today less than half of what it was in the 1960s. Today, the single largest expenditure in US schools (next to sports, in some cases) is spceial education. The largest segment of higher education is remedial classes. We have more than 7 million (93% male) people in prison today, the average inmate a dropout in about 8th-9th grade and reading level at 4th grade. To me, besides the breakdown of the American family and a massive increase in dependency on government largesse, the loss in academic performance is worst thing the politicians have done to us. If schools were allowed to innovate and compete freely, the schools that would win out in the end would be those who adopt the approaches like Montessori, Japan, Singapore, etc. Take the best of what's out there and, improve the health of the population (without politicians at the helm), and watch our kids zoom upward beyond anything us parents and grandparents have ever done. Politics and government intervention has ruined our education.

My background is in biometrics, and am now venturing into action recognition using wearable device. Not sure how this would fit into musicology - recognizing musical actions perhaps?

@CC Ho, sometimes it takes a while to recognize the potential each person has, and the role and niche we can fulfill with our God-given abilities. We are all very normal people who just desire to do our best in this short life. Please keep in touch on RG :)

My question would be: How to evaluate 'success'?

I think, a goal of a teacher should be to implant among others knowledge, motivation, and opinions, which then (hopefully) agglomerate, combine with the potential of the person and grow to something more to allow 'kids to zoom upwards'.

But still... how to know if you are successful? In the moment we have all these 'nice' grading systems with grades, points, etc. to evaluate just knowledge. In oral exams you can maybe see motivation and opinions, if you care - but this becomes very laborious if you have a lot of pupils/students/lectures.

I wonder, couldn't there be something better?

And thinking further: If each person is an individual with individual abilities, motivation, knowledge, experiences, opinions, ... and individual potential - is it really convenient to evaluate/grade everyone with a general and equal system?

Sven, if you are interested, i started several questions around this topic. See my page and questions. I would be interedted in new discussions. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mark_Gould/questions/

HI Sven, nowadays we use class based evaluation, where the teacher who interacts with the students grades their abilities, motivation, knowledge, opinions. This complements large scale testing of academic abilities in subjects like language, math, science etc. Previously, large scale testing was considered the important thing; but I think it's more balanced now, with this class-based assessment.

I am not much into this topic, Mira. Can you recommend any publications (pref. reviews)?

And thanks Mark, I'll have a look!

Food for thought.

Miranda, although we are from diverse disciplines, I am identifying the common denominator in education research as : 1) humans, 2) the human brain. The extras we have compared to a few centuries ago is the better understanding of the human brain through advances in neuroscience. I will list a few areas of education research, which are really all geared towards "transmitting the information from the source into the destination human brain." SOURCE used to be the teacher only centuries ago. No longer the case ! SOURCE can be a website that the teacher is using these days. A few decades or centuries ago, teachers figured out everything intuitively, now that we have such advances in neuroscience, we should take advantage of them. Here goes my list:

HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY / ASSESSMENT THEORY: We used to place mystical values to FEELINGS, emotions, etc. centuries ago. Now we know that, they are the daily functionality originating at the human brain. Humans are very sensitive to reward/punishment mechanisms during learning. When this structure (assessment) is not correct, they might SHUT DOWN ! This is again going right back to neuroscience. Should we completely abolish PUNISHMENT based assessment ? only have reward based ones ? Should it be fully subjective ? or, based on 100% objective terms ??? This is a very important topic !

PHYSIOLOGY: This is in pretty good shape, but can use more research. This topic includes a) best times for humans to soak in information, b) effect of nutrition in learning, c) effect of deficiencies (e.g., iron deficiency), d) exercise, e) sleep ...

NEUROSCIENCE: This topic includes HOW to teach ... How does the human brain take in the information ? Is there a one-size-fits-all model ? or, are there multiple intelligences ? If there are multiple intelligences, what is the right strategy in teaching a class with diverse skillsets ? or, even a bi-modal class made up of two different disciplines. I actually asked a question about this. This topic also includes, what to do to get the students' attention ... How to engage them. The advances in neuroscience will give us many clues about the inner workings of the human brain.

I am sure there are more, but, this is what is coming into my mind now ...

Excellent points, Tolga.

In the end, Tolga, your valuable points go down to the individual learner, and there's a lot to research on, agreed.

Answering the original question, though - having had the community in mind - we have to find a way to relate the individual learner's efforts to the better of the community/society without controlling minds and mindsets. I say this in the light of NSA programs focusing on whatever (keeping a low profile here ;).

Mike, Yes, individual exceptions are extremely important, but, it is difficult to research them. However, it is easy to research and aggregate the research results related to COMMON functionality of the human brain. This is what I tried to list. If you get too specific about a certain field of research, say, art, sure, a lot of exceptions will pop up. But, I think there is a lot of road to travel in understanding even the common functionality.

===========

I will give you one example that made me scratch my head and I started reading a lot about SLEEP (and neuroscience), since I was really curious: The common understanding is that, when we are tired, we do not perform well. REALLY ? I wrote my best research grant proposals after being up for 14 hours, and the proposals were written between the 14th hour and the 48th hour, after being up for 2 days !!! Now, simply using pop-psychology is certainly not answering anything. Why was I very productive between the 14th and 48th hour when there was a huge DEADLINE pressure ? Not only I was extremely productive, but, CREATIVE too !!! I invented the best ideas to put in the research proposal within the last 6 hours in some cases, and was able to present them with great passion !!! We try to invent terms like "I got my second wind" or "I got an adrenaline rush." The true answers are only going to come from medicine, and more specifically neuroscience. Human brain is the biggest mystery, and we are getting close to solving it every day ... Every day we have a new discovery, we might realize how certain conceptions were simply a MYTH, and this is not how the brain works !!! The only way we will truly understand how the brain does work is, RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH. And, this research will lead to better ways to educate ...

============

Makes sense ?

@Tolga, I recognize that this is completely outside my area of expertise, but what you state above reminded me of the "placebo effect", whereby you took a pill (say your research paper), but instead of perceiving it as work, perhaps you perceived it as something good for you, even though it was still by all measures really work. Could this somehow be related to taking a null pill and observing improvements in health?Perhaps, it is our perceptions that somehow help us to overcome events whether they be learning or disease? Should we then improve our perceptions about learning?

I think, the placebo effect and what I described above might be referring to related phenomena: The brain has fairly strong override mechanisms (probably the central nervous system) for overriding physical constraints. This is why, psychology plays a huge role in teaching. A properly motivated average student could very well take on the top student in the class ! The key is the teacher igniting the fire in the student ...

Thank you for your responses, Tolga, Michael, John, Max, Pavel et al.

In this brainstorming, I notice that 'motivation' crops up quite often. Yes, I do my best to motivate my students. They have just a few years left to gain their knowledge and skills, in order to function as a professional, and contribute to nation-building.

I also motivate them to become lifelong learners; two to three minutes of class time is spent on motivation. Remember the song by the BeeGees, 'It's only words and words are all I have...'

But motivation must come from within. So, what will make them motivate themselves? Interest in science, arts, music and literature. I recommend all that. Please add your ideas, thanks. (Don't let the time zone difference affect our discussion and thanks for being patient with me.)

Research Collaboration relies on openness and knowledge sharing but also some level of focus and accountability on the part of the business organization. Governance should be established addressing the creation and closing of team workspaces with assignment of responsibility for capturing the emergent results of the collaborative effort for preservation in the repository.

http://www.aiim.org/What-is-Collaboration

Miranda, I can guarantee you , word are NOT all a teacher has !!

A teacher can talk 10% of the time, and fire up every student !

I can't cite a source, but, remember the contents of a management class: Humans communicate by using 40% words, 30% body language, 20% intonation, or something like that, percentages might not be exact, but, the low percentage of the words was shocking to me. Sometimes a frowny face says more than 100 words ! or, a smily face says 1000 words ! If this wasn't the case, we could replace a teacher with a computer and a USB cable :)

I think we must take into account increasingly the relation of all disciplines. But we need to maintain the individual disciplines too. I think the future needs many different views of the topic with other disciplines to can move forward. For that to link the different disciplines be needed.

Tolga's correct. We need always to remember that a question not asked but answered rarely is retained by the one (supposedly asking). The teacher's job is to get the students to think--I think of Socrates, in this case. If anything is music to this old professor's ears is when my students tell me I make them think. Make them curious and they will ask (and remember the answer).

@Ayaz, Tolga, Ana, Max: thanks for your input. It's good to know that I don't have to talk till my throat is dry in order to motivate my students to value learning, focus on getting knowledge and skills, rather than aiming at only getting high marks.

Dear all,

Thank you, this discussion is enriching my competency as a teacher.

I agree with Miranda that, 'motivation must come from within.' I have experienced that counseling students at individual level to them to understand their own mind & intellectual capacity help them to identify their academic goals and means to attain the goals. They are able to motivate themselves. SWOT analysis also helps. I also meet the students' guardians & discuss with them about their supportive roles in motivating their Wards for real learning.

Some of these students write to me reporting their success stories. Others - hear about their achievements. Feel good to be a teacher.

New technologies in relation with learning/ teaching and comparison of learning with its utility.

@Max: I was teaching in a secondary school in Serdang, before I got posted to this college. It was a predominantly Chinese community, but Malay and Indians were 35 %. We had a good brass band. The students were very close, they practiced after school and during weekends. The parent-teacher association paid for a part time coach.

The teachers were concerned that the students spent such a lot of time at this activity. Students who didn't perform well academically were 'threatened' that they would be suspended from the band. Their band pals who were better helped to coach the weaker ones; they couldn't afford to lose their wind players, brass players, and percussion people. We didn't have to carry out the threat at all. They enjoyed their music and their fellowship.

Yes, and their brains developed better in that activity than any other, no doubt. Noting the comradery and teamwork of musical groups, we see far less delinquency and egregious behaviors than in the non-musical students, as a rule....and these kids were doing it on their own time? Wow, who does that?

@Max, et al.:

When I was in school, I managed to visit several schools that took part in the music education project. For my PhD project, my respondents were from 4 such schools.

The music teachers commented that it was very exhausting to teach music, they preferred to teach Maths or language. I agree that a music class consumes a lot of energy. My friends in the university orchestra also admitted that being a musician is tiring; 'when others are relaxing, we are performing'.

My own school just required that I manage the brass band with 2 other teachers. My main duty was to teach Science, English and handle the discipline problems. My school head was very understanding.

What do you all think? I am afraid that this is one main factor affecting the music education program in schools in my country.

Yes, Miranda, there is this odd logic that kids will excel in math and science by learning math and science. But lest we forget these are developing minds whose coginitive and spatial reasoning is still far from developed, we need to first (or at least simultaneously) help the kids develop the neurological and experiential apparatus for tackling critical thinking and synthesis of complex concepts. Nothing does that in a multisensory way like music and the arts--and, again, I say, as core curriculum, not as afterschool electives. Just phys ed classes develop strong physical bodies and robust immune systems and health for life, music and fine arts classes develop brains and geniuses and succesful scientists, mathematicians, and professionals. Once there is consensus on this point in education (there once was), the budget and equipment and facilities pop up and the race is on. Actually the race is already on, the winners in the race are consistently observe what I've mentioned above, while everyone else somewhere else down the line.

@Max, please send me some more literature on how effectively music develops the cognition. Or the free internet sites where I can get that. I know it's true for myself and my friends, but I need the scholarly articles. Thanks :)

@Miranda, Your subcategory under this thread, and the proposal was brainstorming! Due to the definition of, by Webster :"A group problem-solving technique that involves the spontaneous contribution of ideas from all members of the group; also : the mulling over of ideas by one or more individuals in an attempt to devise or find a solution to a problem"! So, I think Your proposal was good. The ongoing discussions in this group looks like brainstorming! This is my experience as an engineer! Am I right?

@Max, I am going to elaborate on your sentence: "We need always to remember that a question not asked but answered rarely is retained by the one (supposedly asking)."

====================

I used to talk 60 minutes in a 75 minute class 8 years ago when I first started teaching. I worked it down to about 20, 30 minutes. I now let the students talk. I ask questions and let them answer in a round-robin fashion. This keeps them alert ! Comparing these two scenarios of teaching: This is just a fictitious example to make the point.

*** SCENARIO1 : I teach how a car works, every detail for 30 minutes. The pistons, the engine, etc ...

*** SCENARIO 2: I describe what a piston is, and what the engine does for 10 minutes. I ask a question : "How do you think a car works using the pistons and the engine? " I never talk for the remaining 20 minutes, but go through 20 students and let them defend their theory. When one student is talking, 19 of them are listening. Everybody is alert, since their turn will come up next. They better come up with a theory !!!

SCENARIO 1 seems to engage about 20-25% of the brain, which might be enough for them to learn the concept. However, SCENARIO 2 possibly engages 105% !!! They think of so many scenarios about how a car could work, and come up with their own theories in 20 minutes. Some of those theories get crushed as the other students answer the question. Some of them survive. And, the instructional value is even stronger if the answer is something that none of the 20 students can guess !!!

Notice, I talked for about 10 minutes ... This concept, I believe, applies to teaching in a global sense, and is independent from the discipline.

Astounding, but age old concept, Tolga. The masters knew it and during those times were the golden ages of man's progress in critical thinking, synthesis skills, and specialization knowledge. Yes, I have to remind myself every time I lecture, noting whether this is a "I must get through the material because that was what I was hired to present" or "Do I want my students to learn?". Sometimes, I have to present a vast amount of deep knowledge to humble a class of know-it-alls until they are sufficiently softened up to start actually wanting to learn (smile). Then, the learning can begin!

@Ljubomir, thanks. Yes, when I have moved off in a certain direction, please remind me of the original intention.

SORRY my friends. We go back to brainstorming; but please remember I am not a very technical person, not an engineer, so there are things in your posts that I can't respond. And perhaps Amir, Ljubomir and some others will help out. I didn't respond to Tolga's SKYPE question either, because I only email, message and Whatsapp. My ram is 1 Gb, is it enough for Skype?

Dear Mr. Tolga Soyata,

Congratulations friend, I tried your Scenario !, 2. etc method in combined undergraduate classes (2 hours) Teaching Health Assessment Series of 'Brain Functions', I observed the similar result - evaluated by answers to objective type questions (individual) & drawing of Concept Maps (Group). Its very intersting. Thank you for the idea.

I find it best in such a scenario as Tolga describes to use behavior models and flowcharts in such discussions, to teach my students how to use heuristics and bottom-up and top-down analytic processing as vantage points, and to pull out the larger picture in their explanations. By doing so, they have to dissect through the micro to find relevance with the macro, and anchor their observations in the theory and science being discussed. I can easily see that being used by Ratna in her lectures on Brain Function. These kinds of teaching approaches make inquisitive scholars of our students, and eventually innovative scientists.

This is my experience comparing SCENARIO 1 (having the teacher talk all the time) vs. SCENARIO 2 (teacher showing the basics, and using the students in the class to generate ideas) :

SCENARIO1 : how many times can an instructor teach the same exact material without it becoming so boring that, the instructor loses enthusiasm before even we involve the students ? !!! We try to update the class notes every year, but, we get busy, etc.

SCENARIO2: When you involve the students, there is almost always a fresh idea ... It is as if you are teaching a different class. Every now and then, some of them will come up with such a weird way of viewing the same topic that, not only this teaches me new stuff, but also, allows me to understand how (what) students are thinking. I think, the key in teaching is to view the topic from THEIR eyes. This sometimes becomes hard (i.e., going back in time and remembering what things were not obvious to you when you first learned this material). When you completely engage the students, this becomes easier, and you let the students redirect the flow of the class partially.

Thanks Tolga, Ratna, Max: YES, it's our students who must get involved and excited with the learning. It's the LEARNING EXPERIENCE that's important. Let's go on to discuss how we can continue to design these exciting learning experiences, among other things. Too often, teachers focus only on teaching content to complete the syllabus :(

@Max, it's the HUMBLE students who are most teachable and able to learn. There may be a correlation between humility in seeking knowledge and skills and the realization that there's such a lot we still have to learn. What do you think?

@Amir Ilyas, what are the technologies that you will use to enhance learning? It's interesting to hear from someone like you who is in Communication Studies.

Yes Tolga. There is a saying, "The more you understand, the more that you know you do not understand." Sometimes ignorance makes us think we are smarter than we are, as Max has experienced. Still, using versions of scenario 2, I have, as I have written elsewhere on RG, been surprised just what students from a very young age upwards can do. Perhaps, there is something there for co-operation. Ensuring students can really show what they can do, rather than stifling it by the scenarios we do use. .

Yes, humble and teachable, traits we see now and again, and are overjoyed when we do. Those are the students destined to go far.

Max, the same applies to teachers, BTW. It's not easy here in Thailand, though, where students expect the teachers explain every detail and then remember/follow the advice and too shy to offer a 'wrong' idea (Miranda, any comments relating your culture?).

Mostly, I can break the ice by telling them a well-known analogy: If you had an apple (or whatever object I may fancy) and I had an apple and we would exchange these two things, both of us would still come up with ONE apple. But if I have an idea to exchange and you have an idea to exchange, we both have TWO ideas after that.

And then, quite often, students are delighted when they can deal with teachers that take them seriously enough to ask for their ideas.

Yes Michael, your practice is good. I'm sure that like Tolga's and some others each one of your class is different and quite novel, because the students and their input always vary. Furthermore, students are 100% involved.

My students are not shy; quite many of them, 80%, are materialistic. They want to put in minimal effort and get good grades. But I think now I have 20% who are sincere, likely to be LIFE-LONG learners. They do beyond others. Thanks.

Lifelong learners are the legacy of good teachers.

@Max, Michael and all of YOU:

Thanks for your posts on this thread. It's not just ideas, but also advice, encouragement :)

Dear All,

From all these brain storming i find that my experience as a teacher is mostly similar & i have come to understand the following -

1. Over the years students' & their guardians' expectations from the educational institution and teachers have changed, majority wants less work, but good outcome in terms of good marks/grade & hence good jobs.

2. Yet a few students are sincere by nature & really want to learn, though the number is declining

3. Teachers (many) are experienced by counting their years in job, but there are very few are committed & want to improve their teaching ability. Private tutoring bring more revenue

4. Stringent structured syllabus & counted number of hours give teachers little freedom to experiment with different teaching methods

On the ground of all the above i have adjusted my work as -

1. Understanding Students' Intentions & Need for taking up this course of study, Learning Style, Retention Capacity and Areas of Interest

2. Identifying leaders from the 80% who are not much interested, 10% who are disinclined and only 10% who are sincere learners

3. Dividing the class into groups - mixed up with these 3 kinds of students & assign group leaders from all 3 - depending on the topic

4. Teacher teaching during the 1st half of the hours & group discussions during the 2nd half on specific questions to each group

5. Winding up, constructing possible questions, organizing answers -- all by the group leaders with class participation

Right or wrong, so far in 4 sessions its difficult to determine.

Thanks everybody for your ideas.

@Ratna, congrats for implementing the ideas :)

Keep us posted on the progress!

Dear Miranda,

Stimulated by the brain-storming now I have started combining 2 classes of different strata in the same discipline. I teach common topics required for both groups. Then follow the above 5 steps. There is a healthy competition between both groups. On assigned parts of the topics randomly selected students do individual presentations & lead the combined class to discussion. Completed 16 hours (2 hrs in each slot), so far situation is promising, Want to watch for little longer. Documenting process in a self-developed format.

So happy to hear about your progress @Ratna.

I'm putting here my thread on a collaborative study. I need much reading, to be able to write up for a conference soon. If I need help, I will ask RG friends. But I won't trouble you all too much :)

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Who_is_keen_on_a_collaborative_study_on_K12_students_motivation_to_study_science_Do_you_have_resources_or_review_articles_on_this

Thank you Miranda. Translating the questionnaire is of no problem. Please list the resources, then we can tell