BEYOND CONVENTION

THE TEACHING-LEARNING EQUATION, WHETHER WITHIN THE CLASSROOM OR OUTSIDE IT, NOW ENCOMPASSES INNOVATIVE STRATEGIES SUCH AS GETTING INTO THE SKIN OF CHARACTERS AND USING ART, MUSIC, DANCE AND TRAVEL TO LEARN CONCEPTS BETTER, AMONGST NUMEROUS OTHER CREATIVE APPROACHES. GEETHA RAO LISTS SOME UNIQUE EXAMPLES
FROM ACROSS THE WORLD

The words 'teaching' and 'learning' project different images to different people. Conventionally, these actions were perceived as dull and tedious tasks, but that is far from the truth, especially now. The world over, there are academicians, who thrive on making the whole procedure of teaching and learning, a stimulating and inspiring experience. To them, innovation is the name of the game and they strive to bring excitement into the everyday classroom with their novel methods.
Tina Seelig, Executive Director, Stanford University Technology Ventures, is one such pioneer, who employs several out-of-the box teaching methods.“Most of my techniques involve getting students engaged with the entrepreneurial process. This means taking risks, challenging assumptions, identifying opportunities, leveraging limited resources, and creating value,” says Tina.
An exciting project Tina ran around the world, including India, Thailand, Ecuador and the US, dealt with making students add vaue to an everyday object, which culminated in to a film, Imagine It.“Students were given a packet of post-it notes and five days to create as much value with them as possible,”explains Tina. So, one team created a musical piece by asking people to write musical notes on the post-its, and put them together. Another team created awareness on wellness of the heart, by getting people to agree to take care of their hearts by signing the post-its etc.
In another method used in Mumbai and Bangalore,Tina asked students to visit the local bazaar and speak to coffee shop personnel or cobblers to find out all about their businesses as well as to observe how many customers they drew and what the turnover was.Thus the participants were made to get out of their comfort zones, since many were hesitant to approach strangers and ask them these insightful questions.
Another exercise involved asking participants to make two lists, one filled with good ideas, the other with bad ones (to start a business in). The papers with the good ideas were then torn up, and the participants were asked to convert all the bad ideas into good ones.The lesson? There is an opportunity in every 'fuzzy' idea.
Further, pairs of students are given paper and colour pencils, and each has to design a wallet for the other based on his/ her personality. It could be fancy or simple, loud or understated. Also, the person could be a spendthrift or tight-fisted. So, each individual must consider whether their partner needs many or few pockets for credit cards and the like.The lesson: understand your customer.
In the UK, at Oxford Brookes University Business School, Richard Beresford, Director, Centre for Creativity and Enterprise Development, uses innovative teaching practices, which are fun too. One of his exercises deals with placing Brookes' students on a boat off the Swedish coastline with students from seven other European countries.This exercise forms the basis for networking and opens many business opportunities.
Brian Morgan, Director, Cardiff School of Management, University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, gives an example of how the physical environment can be linked to teaching and learning. Students visit local underground caves, go white water rafting or abseiling.“All these activities have a purpose attached, such as getting somewhere and coming back safe, and these form part of the students' learning experiences,”says Morgan.
At the SP Jain Center of Management, in Singapore and Dubai, Dean Debashis Chatterjee, formerly with IIM Lucknow, uses unusual methods such as SMILO or Self Mastery in Life and Organisation. Learning, he believes, happens not so much through lectures, but through total immersion in the learning process. So SMILO encourages students to work on projects such as nurturing a plant for six months or making a drab bus stop in Singapore look interesting.“I would like my students to learn how to use power without holding on to it, as this is the essence of leadership presence,” explains Chatterjee.
Chatterjee who offers seminar courses at Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on wisdom leadership has now developed a course in Singapore, based on two war classics: the Gita, and China's ancient military treatise, The Art of War.Here, students learn how to use ‘soft power’ in winning corporate wars. The seminars cover such topics as wise decisionmaking, strategic mindset, managing in response to time and stress and so on.
At the Singapore Institute of Management and Tamasek Polytechnic, students take pushcarts on rent, source items like wallets, handbags, music albums and others that students would like to buy, and sell them at a profit.This helps them to learn sourcing, display, supply, customer service, costing and general business sense.
At Singapore Polytechnic, professors guide students to create robots that play soccer, cashing in on the appeal of sport to youngsters.Through this, they learn about movements of the human body and artificial intelligence.
Trilochan Sastry, Professor, IIM, Bangalore, speaks of the ‘Independent Activities Period’ at MIT, which is a week devoted to things outside the curriculum when students do ‘crazy stuff’. “Once they hoisted a car on top of a dome on campus. While this may seem bizarre, it tests their ability to balance the car on such a surface, which is an engineering feat,”enthuses Sastry.
An innovative method Sastry has observed at MIT is team teaching. He explains, “Two experts in different areas, like marketing and production, teach the same class so students can gain a multidisciplinary perspective.”
Closer to home, at Women's Institute for Studies in Development Oriented Management (WISDOM), Rajasthan, students were given an open-ended poem by Prof Subhash Sharma of Indian Business Academy, to which they added their lines. This became the WISDOM college song. Sharma explains,“Poetry develops the right brain and unfolds creativity. I use poetry to expand the students' mental horizons, because management goes beyond technical know-how.”
Sharma has penned another ‘corporate rhyme’ called Churning of the Ocean by the Quantum Rope, and set it to a tune which students sing. He believes it gets students charged up.“Goals that earlier appeared tough now seem easy.The group chanting energises them and fights negative emotions,” reveals Sharma.
In another instance, Ramnath Narayanswamy, Professor, IIM, Bangalore, uses epics like the Mahabharatha and interprets the roles by the Pandavas and Kauravas in lieu of today's managers. According to this exercise, Yuddhishtira is a mentor, Bhima an executor manager, Nakul an enabler, Sahadeva the visionary without action, Arjuna is the manager in search of his meaning in life, and Karna is loyalty personified- the manager who'd probably buy vegetables for his boss, while Krishna is the CEO!
Narayanswamy uses culture in his classes for IIM students where he exposes them to craftsmen and artists. Students understand what makes them tick, how they cope with failure, what inspires them, and how their love for art supercedes everything, including money.
Another course for businesswomen offered by Kalyani Gandhi, Professor, IIM, Bangalore, uses dance as a confidence-building tool. “Students have used Yakshagaana and fusion dance forms for themes like empowerment,”says Kalyani.
While the field of management lends itself to creative learning and teaching, there have been innovative methods emplpyed in engineering and mathematics too.
At IIIT, Bangalore, students and Professor GNS Prasanna, have developed a novel way of playing chess, called inverse chess or i-chess. Players play the game backwards: they start with a few pieces and get all the pieces back. Explains Prasanna,“You play backwards instead of forwards.The game is constructive, not destructive, because your end result involves getting as many pieces back as possible.” While the game is fun, it involves math, programming, reasoning, logic and analytical thinking.
Similarly, Rajendra Joshi from International Academy for Creative Teaching speaks of a snakes and ladders game that was created for computer engineering students, and how students of civil engineering in Chennai have devised a board game that helps them in the revision of hydroelectric projects.
As you can see from the examples above, while the US and UK are forerunners in innovative teaching methods, India is not lagging behind either. So, the question of whether teaching and learning should still be considered boring, is purely rhetorical not to mention, obsolete.
geetha.rao@timesgroup.com

Participants in the management game Chankaya 2008 organised by LMA and AIMA in Amity University

TOI Article

Gauging precise age of universe

Kenneth Chang

The universe is 13.73 billion years old, give or take 120 million years, astronomers said last week. That age, based on precision measurements of the oldest light in the universe, agrees with results announced in 2006. Two additional years of data from a Nasa satellite known as the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe have narrowed the uncertainty by tens of millions of years.
“Everything is tightening up and giving us better and better precision all the time,” said Charles L Bennett, a professor of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University and the leader of the group analyzing the data. “It’s actually significantly better than previous results. There is all kinds of richness in the data.”
About 380,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe cooled enough for protons and electrons to combine into hydrogen atoms. That released a burst of light, which over the billions of years since has cooled to a bath of microwaves pervading the cosmos.
Yet there are slight variations in the background, which the Nasa satellite has been measuring since 2001. Those variations have given evidence supporting an idea known as cosmic inflation, a rapid expansion of the universe in the first trillionth of a trillionth of a second of its existence.
The new set of data is precise enough to differentiate between various proposed models of inflation. “Some of them are now completely ruled out, some of them are hanging at the edge and some of them are perfectly fine,” Dr Bennett said. “We are sorting between these things.”
Astronomers can also now see strong evidence for the universe being awash in almost massless subatomic particles known as neutrinos. This sea of primordial neutrinos created in the Big Bang was expected.
“The new result is that it’s not consistent with zero anymore,” said Edward L Wright, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles. As more years of data are gathered, Dr Bennett said, astronomers may even be able to deduce new unusual types of neutrinos that have so far not been detected in particle accelerators. NYT NEWS SERVICE

Robo Mania!

Assembling a giant robot in space

Cape Canaveral (Florida): Astronauts bound for orbit this week will dabble in science fiction, assembling a “monstrous” two-armed space station robot that will rise like Frankenstein from its transport bed.
Putting together Dextre, the robot, will be one of the main jobs for the seven Endeavour astronauts, who are scheduled to blast off in the wee hours of Tuesday, less than three weeks after the last shuttle flight.
They’re also delivering the first piece of Japan’s massive Kibo space station lab, a floatin closet for storing tools, experiments and spare parts. For the first time, each of the five major international space station partners will own a piece of the real estate.
At 16 days, the mission will be Nasa’s longest space station trip ever and will include five spacewalks, the most ever performed while a shuttle is docked there. Three of those spacewalks will feature Dextre, which is sure to steal the show.
With 11-foot arms, a shoulder span of nearly 8 feet and a height of 12 feet, the Canadian Space Agency’s Dextre — short for dexterous and pronounced like Dexter — is more than a little intimidating, at least for astronaut Garrett Reisman.
“Now I wouldn’t go as far to say that we’re worried it’s going to go run amok and take over the space station or turn evil or anything because we all know how it’s operated and it doesn’t have a lot of its own intelligence,” Reisman said.
“But I’ll tell you something ... He’s enormous and to see him with his giant arms, it is a little scary. It’s a little monstrous, it is.” Dextre will be flying up aboard Endeavour in pieces, and it will be up to a team of spacewalking astronauts to assemble the 1542kg robot and attach it to the space station. AP

SPACE MONSTER: This illustration by The Canadian Space Agency displays ‘Dextre’, a 'monstrous' two-armed space station robot that will be assembled by astronauts

Rebuilding the human race from scratch!

IF TOMORROW COMES, HEAD FOR THE MOON

Keeping Earth’s secrets in a ‘Doomsday ark’ on Moon

Maurice Chittenden

If civilization is wiped out on Earth, salvation may come from space. Plans are being drawn up for a “Doomsday ark” on the moon containing the essentials of life and civilisation, to be activated in the event of earth being devastated by a giant asteroid or nuclear war.
Construction of a lunar information bank, discussed at a conference in Strasbourg last month, would provide survivors on Earth with a remote-access toolkit to rebuild the human race.
A basic version of the ark would contain hard discs holding information such as DNA sequences and instructions for metal smelting or planting crops. It would be buried in a vault just under the lunar surface and transmitters would send the data to heavily protected receivers on earth. If no receivers survived, the ark would continue transmitting the information until new ones could be built.
The vault could later be extended to include natural material including microbes, animal embryos and plant seeds and even cultural relics such as surplus items from museum stores.
As a first step to discovering whether living organisms could survive, European Space Agency scientists are hoping to experiment with growing tulips on the moon within the next decade.
According to Bernard Foing, chief scientist at the agency’s research department, the first flowers — tulips or arabidopsis, a plant widely used in research — could be grown in 2012 or 2015.
“Eventually, it will be necessary to have a kind of Noah’s ark there, a diversity of species from the biosphere,” said Foing.
Tulips are ideal because they can be frozen, transported long distances and grown with little nourishment. Combined with algae, an enclosed artificial atmosphere and chemically enhanced lunar soil, they could form the basis of an ecosystem.
The first experiments would be carried out in transparent biospheres containing a mix of gases to mimic the earth’s atmosphere. Carbon dioxide given off by the decomposing plants would be mopped up by the algae, which would generate oxygen through photosynthesis.
The databank would initially be run by robots and linked to earth by radio transmissions. Scientists hope to put a manned station on the moon before the end of the century.
The databank would need to be buried under rock to protect it from the extreme temperatures, radiation and vacuum on the moon. It would be run partly on solar power. The scientists envisage placing the first experimental databank on the moon no later than 2020 and it could have a lifespan of 30 years. The full archive would be launched by 2035.
The information would be held in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish and would be linked by transmitter to 4,000 “Earth repositories” that would provide shelter, food, a water supply for survivors. SUNDAY TIMES

A car that folds for parking - Welcome to the Future!

MIT Scientists Design Vehicle That Folds At The Press Of A Button

Cambridge (Massachusetts):
Wouldn’t it be nice to drive a car into town without worrying about finding a parking space?
Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have devised just such a vehicle, a futuristic “City Car” that could even drive itself.
Once at your destination, the vehicle’s computers would, at the press of a button, look for a parking spot behind others like itself, then fold roughly in half so you could stack it there as you would a shopping cart. “We have reinvented urban mobility,” said Bill Mitchell, a professor in architecture and director of the project at an MIT think tank in Cambridge, just outside Boston.
The vehicle hasn’t yet been built. But a miniature mock-up version has gone on display at a campus museum, and there are plans to build a full-scale model this spring.
The dozen or so engineers and architects on Mitchell’s team are confident their computer-generated work is on target.
They feel their golf cart-sized vehicle could provide a novel solution to the chronic traffic congestion afflicting cities across the United States, Europe and Asia — not to mention pollution and energy use, since it would run on a rechargeable battery, the researchers say. On the drawing board, their two-seater is roughly half the size of a typical compact automobile and a little smaller than the Smart car made by Mercedes-Benz.
“It’s a virtual computer on wheels,” said Franco Vairani, designer of the vehicle’s foldable frame, which he predicts will shrink the car to as little as an eighth the space needed to park the average car. While parked, it would hook up to an electricity grid for recharging, he added.
Hundreds could be stacked around a city and “you would just go and swipe your (credit) card and take the first one available and drive away,” Vairani said, seated by his computerized drawing board. People wouldn’t have to worry about where to park their cars in town and automobiles would take up less urban space, leaving more room for parks and walkways, he added.
Peter Schmitt, a team engineer, says the car would have independently powered robotic wheels and be controlled using a computerized drive-by-wire system with a button or joystick. REUTERS

SMALL WONDER: MIT student Franco Vairani looks over models of the ‘City Car’, a collapsible battery-powered car he designed for his thesis

LESSONS ON SOUL-SEARCHING - TOI

Red Bengal turns to religious value edu

Govt Colleges Invite Gurus For Lectures On Ethics

Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey | TNN

Kolkata: In Marxist Bengal, it’s monks—and not cadres—who are shaping young minds now.
Many government colleges in the city have started inviting religious figures to lecture students on morals and ethics. And, if things go according to plan, value education will become a permanent fixture of college curricula.
“Students these days think only about their careers and care too little for their surroundings and society. They don’t have a sense of belonging either. This is a dangerous trend as they will go on to become leaders in the future,” said Sanghamitra Mukherjee, principal of Lady Brabourne College.
It is to address these concerns that the authorities have decided to introduce value education in colleges. They feel it is not enough to just study, pass exams and bag jobs. It is equally important for students to have a firm grounding in ethics.
The move has quietly buried the age-old tradition of having strictly non-religious curricula in government colleges. For instance, Lady Brabourne is getting monks from the Ramakrishna Mission on Mondays to speak on Swami Vivekananda’s teachings. Swami Suparnananda, principal of RKM Narendrapur, will tell students how Swami Vivekananda wanted traditional values—correct behaviour and the codes of duty towards others and the nation—to be deeply entrenched in the youth, especially students. Some lectures will be delivered by Swami Chitropananda of the RKM Institute of Culture.
“We have to teach students about responsible behaviour. Hence the move to organize value education sessions,” said Mukherjee.
Bethune College, too, has started value education classes. These sessions are part of the college’s quarterly routine and it is mandatory for every first-year student, irrespective of her subject, to attend them.
Already, 22 such lectures have been held. The most important of these—the Bethune College lecture—was delivered by Swami Atmapriyananda, principal of RKM Belur University. He spoke on ethics and values.
Presidency College has just received Rs 1,00,000 to organize seminars and lectures on topics that interest students. The college administration has decided to have quite a few of these on value education. “While we all know the difference between good and evil, it helps if experts come and talk to us and remind us about our responsibilities. There is tremendous pressure on each student to perform and this, some times, affects their ethical judgement. Value education would be of great help to them,” said principal Sanjib Ghosh.

ACADEMIC FREEDOM - TOI article

City college to allow mixing of streams

Hemali Chhapia I TNN

Mumbai: Never would have former Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) chairman K Kasturirangan imagined that he could dabble in a little bit of economics along with physics. But thousands who will follow him into Ruia College in the coming years are likely to have the chance to do so. The college is planning to launch a credit-based curriculum after it gets autonomy.
The coming academic year could see three city institutions receive the autonomous tag—Ruia College, St Xavier’s College and Sardar Patel College of Engineering. While the last two have submitted proposals to the University of Mumbai seeking academic freedom, Ruia is busy revising its proposal.
The Matunga-based institution, which had applied for autonomy to the university for its postgraduate courses around three years ago, recently took back its application for a revision. The college plans to submit a fresh application for full academic autonomy—for both undergraduate and postgraduate courses—by the coming month.
Principal Suhas Pednekar said they were “reworking the application seeking autonomy so that the college has the freedom to introduce credit-based courses, as also to review and revise the syllabi every year’’. Started in 1937, Ruia has for long been one of the best institutions for collegiate science in the city. Former students speak of spending long hours in the institution’s postgraduate study and research centre, which has over 1.5 lakh books and journals.
Set up by the S P Mandali, Ruia was among the first institutions to start a Marathi unit to help students cope with English teaching and learning after their Marathi-medium schooling. Moreover, keeping with the times, the institution has changed its facade to a more modern-looking building with wi-fi enabled halls too.
With academic autonomy, said Pednekar, his institution is looking at working with other universities—domestic and international—to redesign courses and review teaching methods and assessment patterns. “Autonomy will give a lot of flexibility in designing syllabi and conducting examinations. We want to introduce a credit-based system to enable students to mix courses in arts and science as also to replace the single-exam system with continuous assessment,’’ added Pednekar.
Sardar Patel College of Engineering, set up by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in 1962, and St Xavier’s College have also applied for autonomy. University vice-chancellor Vijay Khole said, “All three
proposals are likely to be placed before the next academic council for approval of academic autonomy.’’
Autonomy will give these institutions the freedom to design their own curricula, hold exams, work with experts from other universities, redesign their assessment patterns and bring about several other academic changes.
On the other hand, according to the state’s rules on autonomy, every autonomous college will be governed by an 11-member board, of which merely five will come from the college and the rest will be representatives of the state government and university and other experts.