SOCRATES ON EDUCATION

To be well educated is a goal that many people aspire to, but especially so if they are parents and they wish to provide what is best for their children. It is quite interesting that most people when asked what a good education is, generally respond with answers that can be summed up as “the collection of a great number of facts in one’s head”… Learning seems to be equated with memorisation of bits and pieces of information. A “smart” person is one that people see as rattling off hundreds of facts (often trivial) and “factoids”. Which needless to say is rather sad!
 
Others may equate “education” with some lofty activity confined in an ivory tower and engaged in by gowned academics who invariably are balding and wear glasses (amazing also how many people equate wearing glasses with being “brainy”, but that’s another matter…). These university types are far removed from the real world and engage in research and teaching, commonly are absent-minded and disengaged from everyday cares and concerns. They are a fount of knowledge and ostensibly “well-educated”.
 
My dictionary defines the word “educate” as:

educate |ˈejəˌkāt| verb [ with obj. ]

Give intellectual, moral, and social instruction to (someone, especially a child), typically at a school or university: She was educated at a boarding school.
• Provide or pay for instruction for (one’s child), especially at a school.
• Give (someone) training in or information on a particular field: The need to educate people to conserve water | A plan to educate the young on the dangers of drug-taking.
ORIGIN: Late Middle English: From Latin educat- ‘led out,’ from the verb educare, related to educere ‘lead out’.
 

Many of us that work in education reflect frequently on the above definition and try to understand our role in the system whereby we provide the context within our students can learn. As an educator I have tried to limit my teaching role and rather provide an environment in which students can learn in a manner that is best suited for them personally. Frequently I find that I am learning as much as they are, while facilitating their learning. Education is an exercise in clear thinking and an enabling of the learners to do the right thing. Good teaching is a facilitation of learning and the best learning comes from self-discovery of one’s own ignorance, the more one learns. As Socrates remarked: “I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.”
 
I have often thought of education, teaching and learning through the analogy of a banquet. I as the educator am the cook and host. I provide on the banquet table a selection of healthful, fresh, nutritious and attractive dishes. I ensure that they are served at their best so as to tempt my guests. It is up to them to come in, look at the feast and fill their plate with a balanced, nutritious and well-serving meal…
 
It may be worthy to consider what Socrates answered when he was asked what a good education was. His response didn’t mention at all the accumulation of facts, but rather it hinged on behaviour. He regarded “well-educated people” as those who:

• Actively control difficult situations rather than being controlled by them
• Deal with and face all events with logic and courage
• Are honest and fair in all of their dealings with other people
• Face difficult situations, and interact with unpleasant people, in a well-intentioned and pleasant manner
• Keep a check on their personal desires and control their self-indulgences
• Are not overcome by their defeats and ill-luck; and finally (and perhaps most importantly),
• Have not been spoilt by their successes and fame.

Greek philosopher Socrates was tried, convicted, and executed in Athens, Greece, in 399 B.C. In the case of Socrates, the legal proceedings began when Meletus, a poet, delivered an oral summons to Socrates in the presence of witnesses. The summons required Socrates to appear before the legal magistrate, King Archon to answer charges of impiety and corrupting the young. The preliminary hearing before the magistrate at the Royal Stoa began with the reading of the written charge by Meletus. Socrates answered the charge. The magistrate questioned both Meletus and Socrates, then gave both the accuser and defendant an opportunity to question each other. Having found merit in the accusation against Socrates, the magistrate drew up formal charges.
 
The document containing the charges against Socrates survived until at least the second century C.E. Diogenes Laertius reports the charges as recorded in the now-lost document: “This indictment and affidavit is sworn by Meletus, the son of Meletus of Pitthos, against Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus of Alopece: Socrates is guilty of refusing to recognise the gods recognized by the state, and of introducing new divinities. He is also guilty of corrupting the young. The penalty demanded is death.”
 
Socrates spent his final hours in a cell in the Athens gaol. The ruins of the gaol remain today. The hemlock that ended his life did not do so quickly or painlessly, but rather by producing a gradual paralysis of the central nervous system. The trial of Socrates, produced the first martyr for free speech. As I. F. Stone observed, just as Jesus Christ needed the cross to fulfil his mission, Socrates needed his hemlock to fulfil his (image above is “The Death of Socrates” by Jacques-Louis David - 1787).
 
I have blogged about this today as I had an interesting discussion yesterday with a fellow academic and his views differed from my own, and from Socrates’. He did have a bit of a swollen head and his self-importance prevented him from acknowledging something that was obvious to some observers of the conversation. What do you think? Do you agree with Socrates’ views of a well-educated person?

WORDS AND COMMUNICATION

Communication is a thorny topic. The most eloquent, intelligent, rational and verbose amongst us may have trouble with it even when trying to converse with someone who is sitting across the table from us. How much more difficult does it become when we are limited by time constraints, distance, the medium of the electronic message and of course any underlying language limitations! It may become even more complicated if one is trying to be tactful, diplomatic or discreet. Frequently, we must rely on the written message alone, and this may become less clear and more convoluted through loss of intonation, facial expression, gesture, other body language… The opportunity for misunderstandings increases a thousand-fold.
 
St Exupéry said: “Words are the source of misunderstandings”, and yet words are also our only weapon against misunderstandings. How do we resolve situations where our words have been misconstrued? By using more words! Resolution of communication breakdown needs simple words, honesty and a genuine sense of wanting to clear up confusion or perceived ill-will. However, the situation becomes more complex when words simply fail us. One may talk plainly, communicating lucidly what is in one’s mind, but the recipient of that information may pass the words through a personal filter that is tinged with any colour of the perceptional or emotional rainbow, and thus construe a meaning completely different to that of the originator of the message.
 
A frame of reference is important when we are communicating and the social and psychological environment of the communicating persons need be kept in mind as well. The simple word “love” can be uttered in such a bewildering variety of contexts that it can become bogged in a quagmire of communication breakdown. We love our spouse, love our parents, love our children. We love pizza, love our country, love our friends, love going on holidays. We love playing games, we can score love in tennis, we can meet the love of our life, we make love, fall in love, fall out of love. We can call our partner “Love”, but the woman at the corner shop can ironically call us “Love” also. Context matters!
 
Communication can be purposefully made difficult. We may choose to be deceptive in what we say or write. “No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.” Said Henry B. Adams. Words can be a fortress we hide in, words can be the fog that obscures our actions, words can be our defence or our offence. Words can be daggers that are thrust to wound and hurt maliciously. Words can be uttered in a facile way so that they flatter and fawn. Compliments and cajolery, blarney or sweet-talk, propaganda, can all get in the way of true communication. Rumi advises us: “Know that a word suddenly shot from the tongue is like an arrow shot from the bow. Son, that arrow won't turn back on its way; you must dam the torrent at its source.”
 
In work environments the failures of communication are manifold. We write our emails, publish our communiqués, draw our labelled diagrams and we are the originators of much published material that the world can see. Just like any other form of communication, our work-related written material can create misunderstandings and can have consequences that range from the amusing to the dire. What we write about and how we choose to do it, can have an immense effect on other people that may be quite dramatic. What we choose to write about can heal or hurt, amuse or anger, attract or repel, inflame or influence, excite empathy or indifference. Our words can be balsam or poison. Or at the very least soporific!
 
I speak plainly, and communicate what I think and feel. If I choose to write about something, I do it because I want to and because I need to. My tact is genuine, for I do not wish to hurt anyone’s feelings. If I am misconstrued, it is has not been my intention to be so. If what I say seems obscure, words are there to be used, so please ask for an explanation. If I can resolve misunderstandings, I will almost certainly do so.

TEACHING & LEARNING AT UNIVERSITY

I was lucky to have been brought up by a family that values education. Beginning with my grandparents, then my parents, my uncles and aunts, even our family friends, they all extolled the virtues of a good education. I grew up in a household where to be educated was the rule. It was never questioned that I should do anything else but progress through school, enter University and then possibly continue on by studying further. My love affair with education, which was aided and abetted by my family, was supported by my own love of learning and the end result was that I became a dyed in the wool academic, never far from education and the pursuit of learning.
 
In the society I grew up in, education was not only respected, but put on a pedestal as the solution to that society’s many ills. A university education assured one of a certain social status, a good job, and a tacit understanding that one’s efforts would not be in vain but that they would contribute to the social good and resolve the problems that beset the country. Times have changed… Now the unemployment queues are full of university graduates, many of them with several postgraduate degrees!
 
I guess I am showing my age and my nationality to a certain extent, as views on education (particularly university education) have changed, especially now that I am in a country where the ability to make as much money in as short a period of time as possible is seen as the real measure of success – education be damned. To be called an academic in Australia carries with it a stigma, I sometimes think...
 
Being educated in Australia and finishing my degrees here, but also after working for many years in academia, has disabused me of some of my romantic notions about education as being the panacea for all the ills of the world. Nevertheless my experiences in tertiary education have convinced me that tertiary education can be a transformative, life-changing experience. The ways in which one’s mind can be opened and the breadth of one’s existence can be expanded are astounding.
 
Major Australian universities in the “Group of Eight” (our Australian version of the Ivy League) are committed to several important activities: Tertiary education in the undergraduate and graduate arenas, cutting edge creativity and thought leadership in the arts and sciences, professional education and world-class research. All of these activities are essential assets and the best of our universities are up there with the best universities in the rest of the world. But all is not well in Camelot. Universities also have problems, even if they are in the top tier, or perhaps because they are in the top tier.
 
Why does is does it cost so much to attend a university and spend such a great deal of money in order to be educated nowadays? Why do universities always demand more and more money from the government (and increasingly from their students also)? Why do universities try and attract more and more international students, who pay higher tuition fees? Are universities financially responsible and do they operate on a good business model? Are universities as scrupulous and accountable as they ought to be? Do our august universities concentrate too much on research and postgraduate education to the detriment of the undergraduate courses? Are universities truly independent and are their staff able to operate in the spirit of true academic freedom, that is, freedom of speech and enquiry? It is such questions that have been debated for decades and have created tensions between academia and our broader society.
 
In the last year or two, it seems that tertiary education has been thrust willy-nilly into a rack and forced into a situation of great stress. This is perhaps the most disruptive time in the entire history of tertiary education. The internet and its widespread, highly scalable use globally as well as the growing popularity of online education as a viable alternative to on-campus education has been a catalyst for this. The appearance of the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) into the tertiary education landscape with the consequent opportunity for students to have access to free tertiary level online study was the slap in the face that awakened universities from their complacency and forced them to ask some soul-searching questions.
 
A student these days has many options regarding study – whether they choose to go to a physical university or not. In this rapidly changing environment becoming well educated need not be equated necessarily with being admitted to a “Group of Eight” university and paying inordinate amounts of cash to study. Flexible and global education solutions at different levels geared towards any individual are now readily available at a fraction of the cost (or free). Ultimately this empowers the learner who can make an informed decision and take responsibility for their own learning.
 
The question that arises out of this concerns the credibility, validity and validation of the education programs on offer. What is their quality, what is the ability for the learning achieved to be authenticated in a secure way, and primarily perhaps, whether or not the overall online experience is engaging, interesting and motivating enough for the learner accessing learning through the internet – i.e. the “onlinearity” of the offering.
 
Onlinearity being: The appropriateness and judicious choice of technology, good learning design and pedagogy, suitability of course material and learning objects, reliable delivery platform and media - in order to run an engaging, effective, quality online course.
 
As more and more reputable tertiary educational institutions worldwide get online, not only the public and employers are seeing these means of becoming educated at an appropriate level as a viable option. Government and some of our more conservative universities are beginning to entertain the notion that a student should expect a quality educational experience in blended and fully online modes. The costs of doing online education well are not insignificant, but one has to balance that with the cost of having students on campus and providing them with suitable facilities for quality face-to-face learning.
 
The bottom line is that quality educational experiences, whatever their mode of student engagement, require adequate investment and considerable resources. Whether face-to-face, fully online or blended, in order to teach well you require passionate, interested and engaged teachers who have the facilities, professional development opportunities and access to technology to develop innovative programs that facilitate student learning. The real question is whether universities are willing to allow this to happen by devoting adequate resources to develop good learning and teaching, but also reward good teachers in the same manner that good researchers are rewarded in terms of career advancement, promotion and status.

SCRIPTA MANENT

Nearly all of us still use email on a daily basis and it has become an indispensable tool in our communication armamentarium. Email is not only used in business, but also as a means of communication in education, and also for personal and social purposes. Despite the social media revolution, email still gets used, a lot!
 
Although email is useful and can achieve much, it can also become a two-edged sword, especially if it is used indiscriminately and unwisely. The ancient Romans used to remark: “Verba volant, scripta manent”. Translated literally, it means “spoken words fly away, written words remain”. It is originally derived from a speech of Caius Titus in the Roman Senate, who said it wishing to drive home the point that spoken words might easily be forgotten, but written documents can always be produced and be the conclusive evidence in public matters. This is a pointed reference to the reliability of written records, on which agreements should be based, rather than a conversation, which can never be agreed upon as an accurate record of what was actually said, if the two sides involved have a different recollection or interpretation of it.
 
However, the written word also carries a sting in its tail, as something hastily written in the heat of the moment, under stress, or in frustration and anger, and sent to someone via email can cause much harm. The ease with which we communicate nowadays via email, SMS, Twitter, Facebook or even through blogging has made us a little unwary. What we write remains behind as a record and we can be held accountable to it. A quick note written down hurriedly can give a completely different message to the one intended. Especially as the written word is deficient in terms of facial expression, vocal tone, gesture, and further clarification if your interlocutor expresses their inability to fathom what you are saying or what exactly what you mean.
 
How many celebrities (with the world’s eye on them) have had serious problems with something they published on Twitter or Facebook? How many stories do we hear of very public apologies and retractions of the thoughtless comments that were written unwisely or in haste? There are numerous occasions where something written has created huge issues not only for the writers, but also for the people referred to in the communication… Written words are powerful weapons, and in untrained hands or in the hands of the unwary, can injure as severely as sharp swords. More so than verbal invective, a written attack is there to hurt the recipient continuously and can come back to haunt the writer, who may have repented writing the offensive missive at a later stage.
 
I have often felt a need to reply immediately to an email I have received which incenses me or insults me or assumes that I am an idiot. How often have I sat down and responded in like tone or language! However, I always do so in “draft” mode. I never send the reply immediately. I sit on it for a variable period of time, read it, re-read it, change it, reshape it, and more often than not, delete the draft without ever sending it. The draft has served its purpose. I have vented my anger, rid myself of the poison and then, when I am suitably composed and having considered the matter from all angles, I rewrite the reply in a more sedate tone and in a more logical frame of mind. The heat has dissipated and in the coolness of good sense I reply in a fair and logical manner, without repeating the offence of offending the offender.
 
In other cases I write something on paper, seal it in an envelope addressed to myself (this is important!) put it in a drawer and come back to it later, the next day being preferable. When I see the envelope with my name on it, I open it pretending its contents were not written by me, but by someone else – a close colleague, a family member or my partner. I try and read the letter through new eyes, trying to imagine the feelings of these people might experience if they read this letter. I invariably feel embarrassed. On some occasions where I have not torn the letter up immediately, I have felt the need to burn it as tearing it up I did not deem to be destruction enough for it!
 
We have to be even more careful when communicating to a large number of people (how careful are we when we click on the dreaded ‘reply all’ button?), or to people outside of our immediate sphere of acquaintance. Professionalism, courtesy, leadership and good sense should prevail in all of our communications, but especially so in our written communications, which persist, can be produced at a later stage and generally haunt us…
 
Catharsis is a powerful feeling. We all need it, we all feel better after it has worked its magic on us. Writing a hasty response to a vituperative email or letter can prove to produce an even more virulent and damaging effect than the original communication did. However, writing such a response can be cathartic. Just don’t send the blooming thing!

CAREERS

Attending Career Adviser Seminars is always an interesting experience as one gets to talk directly to career advisers from high schools and one has the opportunity of giving them a good background in what courses are available for students. The main purpose of events such as these is to inform and update the career counsellors in secondary schools who need to have a good broad knowledge of the careers available to students and the courses that exist out there. This helps to guide the students into jobs that interest them and inspire them. This is all important at the present where new jobs are being constructed and one can expect students of today to graduate and work in a job that did not exist at the time of their student years.
 
It is extremely important for everyone to choose a discipline of study that interests them, and thus leads to a related career area. We spend so much of our life working that unless we work at something that is interesting, fulfilling, engaging and satisfying, we can quickly become miserable. It is usually the people who hate their job that produce the worst quality work and have the highest rates of absenteeism and sick leave. It is also these people that will tend to move around from job to job with great frequency, or even end up as chronically unemployed and unemployable.
 
I have always enjoyed my work and I believe someone gives their best performance at work if they are genuinely interested in what they are doing. This leads to engagement and a natural tendency for one to strive and excel in what they do day after day. I have certainly looked forward to getting to work every morning and no matter how full or how busy my workday is, at its end I can honestly say that I have enjoyed it, even though I may be tired. Sure enough there may be one or two unpleasant incidents here and there, every now and then, but that is part and parcel of life, not just work. On the other hand, the moment a job does not satisfy me, and I no longer enjoy it, I resign. This has only happened twice in my career, and I have not regretted those decisions I made to leave those jobs that soured.
 
Students that are beginning their studies at tertiary level nowadays are widely different to students when I was at University. We are finding more and more that we need to educate in a way that produces graduates who are flexible, adaptable and able to keep up with the changing times. Graduates need to respond to the evolving demands of the workplace, which needs people who can respond in the changing world rapidly. We need special, specialised and flexible workers who can bring a sense of curiosity, understanding, knowledge, experience, compassion and joyfulness to the work that they do. This is only possible when someone does what they love and they love what they do.
 
This is extremely important in a world which is becoming smaller and where globalisation is breaking down barriers, allowing people to not only move around and work on one continent today, another continent tomorrow; but also allows people to work remotely. Outsourcing and employing people that work on the other side of the world is something that is commonplace now and it appears that no industry is immune from this. We are able to automate more work with computers and software and to transmit that work anywhere in the world so that it can be done more efficiently or cheaply thanks to the technology. The smaller the world gets, the more essential it is for people to do what they love, because more and more jobs are going to be automated or outsourced in this brave new world.
 
One of the skills that I want our graduating students to have mastered is having learned how to learn. That will be really important if they want to be effective in the workplace as jobs will change faster and faster in the globalised world. The best way to learn how to learn is to love learning. Students remember their favourite teachers at University although they may not remember much anymore of what they taught. They remember the teachers because they certainly remember enjoying learning from them. Students appreciate how these special teachers taught, because what they did was to equip students with the ability to be a life-long learner who are enabled to adapt and stay special or specialised in a changing world.
 
There is great responsibility in being an educator. Teachers have the ability to reshape, influence, impact and control their students. They can guide, inspire, transform and shape the lives of their charges. On the negative side, educators can also brainwash, intimidate, prejudice and pressure students. As a teacher, one must remain objective, fair, transparent and helpful, while allowing the student to grow and explore and learn under their own personal conditions and desiderata. Learning to learn and loving what they learn is the best way to achieve a good education, and consequently, a satisfying career.

CONFERENCE ENLIGHTENMENT

I attended an educational conference this week and I must say that it left me quite excited and brimming full of ideas. I participated both as a speaker and as a member of a panel that stimulated an interactive discussion with the attendees. However, I also enjoyed my function as an engaged audience member, who contributed to the general discussion. The group was relatively small, but this perhaps contributed to the success of the conference as there was active engagement of all participants.
 

The conference was an excellent opportunity for networking, for contributing to an ideas fest and for also being made aware of developments in our sector across Australia and the rest of the world. Overall, if chosen well, such conference activities can revitalise an academic’s stagnant mental marshes and will serve as a powerful creator of currents of intellectual activity.
 

The reason conferences are such a good scholarly activity is that they bring under the one roof people that share similar ideas, interests, jobs, contacts. Attendees are in a receptive frame of mind and at the right time and place. The bringing together of so many people under the same roof where they actively engage with one another and exchange ideas is conducive to active thinking, generation of new ideas, learning and exploration of brave new territory. They are safe environments for discourse, thinking out loud and provoking people with some left field concepts and intellectual challenges. It is a good environment for oneself to be challenged and provoked!
 

The theme the conference was Teaching and Learning Innovation in the Tertiary Sector and how we can utilise the technology to ensure that we achieve better training and teaching outcomes. I was pleasantly surprised to see how much good work is being done in Australia at the present time by some very passionate and dedicated academics, teachers and technology support personnel. The speakers were Australian  and knowledgeable, experienced and engaging.
 

The challenge for all such conference attendees is to go back and try to process all the information they have been exposed to, sort through what is interesting, relevant and do-able in one’s own institution and then gather up enough momentum in order to implement the new ideas in a format that is of direct relevance to them and their institution. The crystallisation of an idea for a project often comes to someone after such conferences and it is a chance for achieving some positive change within the organisation so as to achieve better educational outcomes. This new idea will be incubated and if the time is right and the right people are around, a project will be hatched.
 

In cases like these, one needs a leader but much more importantly passionate followers. Good leaders cannot act in isolation, they need followers who will be stimulated to carry forward the leader’s vision and realise it in actual terms. Good followers will gather up enough critical mass in order to move the new ideas from the realm of the notional into the corral of the tangible.
 

People are prepared to follow leaders that can inspire and create a comfortable atmosphere where creativity can flourish, where the change can come about in the most positive manner. Followers need to be treated as equals by the leader and will reject intimidation or manipulation. They will want to be recognised as an important part of the project that the team is involved in. The first follower who embraces what the leader proposes also shows leadership and can act as a powerful ally for the leader so as to involve more of the team into forming a cohesive group that shares a vision and aims at the same goal. It is such an environment that will generate innovative thinking and original solutions to problems that have vexed everyone for some time.
 

The leader will be able to contextualise the project and direct the team’s efforts into effecting the change that the project is engaged in. The purpose of leadership is to create and promote change. Leaders are the driving force of this change and need to be able to support the need for change with a good story. Followers will have questions and a leader must have logical, cogent, sensible answers that satisfy the followers.
 

The leader empowers the followers by providing information, advice, inspiration, acknowledgement and the mapping out of the journey ahead. The followers will then understand the need for change, share the vision and begin to innovate and function as an interdependent team. Such followers develop judgment and initiative, becoming better contributors. They are able to succeed even without continuous supervision and leadership, while gaining independence and become good leaders themselves.

CHANGE

Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher, said amongst other things that “Change alone is unchanging and the only constant in life”. By this of course he meant that change is inevitable and we should expect it to happen constantly and relentlessly. Change can occur slowly and thus be managed more easily, but often change can occur with dramatic rapidity and be quite widespread, which catches many unwary people off guard and this can have a disruptive influence not only on one’s working life, but also for one’s home life. The effects of change are not only intellectual and emotional, but also physical. The number of people that show symptoms of a physical disease after their emotional and intellectual stability has been seriously compromised is not insignificant.
 

Fear, anxiety, frustration, despair, anger and excitement are all feelings experienced by people affected by change. It is essential to recognise it is the change that is causing these emotions, not other people. If we centre our response to the change on people, we can lose perspective and lose control. It is essential to remain calm, logical and analytical about the change that is happening in our life. Understanding what exactly is happening and what the change entails is the first way of coping with it. If we understand change, we start to control our response to it. Analysing the situation may show that the change is not what we thought about initially and that a much less exuberant and less emotional approach is needed.
 

After getting over the initial shock and when we understand what the change is about, it is then that we can begin to actively take control. We can think of what we successfully did in the past and try the same strategies that worked then. When we think of the changes that we initiated in our own life to effect positive transformations in the way we work, live or even ways that we spend our leisure time, we can cope more effectively with the change that is imposed on us by others. It is also important to realise just how much change we allow ourselves to go through – we can control our destiny: Even if it is something as fundamental as changing our duties or our responsibilities, for example.
 

It is essential when coping with change to find a mentor that we trust. It can be a colleague, a family member or a peer. They can give advice, ask important (and sometimes blunt and painful!) questions, challenge our rationale and think through with us the reason for our actions. Mentors are usually not close friends but people whom we trust to be honest with us and are able to force us to be honest with ourselves. A mentor can help refine our strategy, offer suggestions as to the choices that we have available to us (often many of these we may not have considered ourselves). Choices are important as they can help us control the outcome of the change.
 

Change often challenges our skill base and it is important in any case to continue to learn new things every day. Knowledge, new skills, increasing experience and new expertise in what we do will allow us to cope with change much more easily. Flexibility of attitude and ability to deal with new scenarios – i.e. change – is something that an expanding skill base makes us more adept at when handling all sorts of crises, including dramatic change.
 

After thinking through the change, considering our options and determining the way that we wish to respond to the change, it is important to plan ahead. We should start with small steps, consider the short-term goals, then progress to bigger steps and longer-term goals. If one of these planned moves fails, it is important that we do not get discouraged and we should persevere. Losing a battle doesn’t mean we shall lose the war. We should regroup and replan and try again. At the same time it is important to celebrate our successes. We should so while looking back at where we have come from, what we have achieved and how our plan of action is progressing.
 

Change is inevitable and change is positive if it is done with good reason. How we cope with it is very much a personal matter and our choices in dealing with it, as well as our plan of action to deal with it, will determine our successful negotiation of all the transformations that change brings about, and succeeding in making the change positive for us.

ASSESSMENT

Assessment in education is something that generates a great deal of discussion, or even some heated debates. Educators have a remarkably broad view regarding what constitutes assessment and how it fits into the educational framework. For certain types of education (e.g. VET training), assessment is well defined and has to fit into a set of criteria relating to the competency of a student in carrying out certain tasks after specific training. With higher education, assessment becomes a more interesting proposition.
 
Even today one can find enshrined in educational institutions assessments that have changed remarkably little from traditional assessment tasks that are hundreds of years old. The university “essay”, for example, that has to be completed within a strictly controlled time span (60, or 90 minutes) in a particular place (an examination hall, under invigilation) is still subscribed to with great gusto by many departments of universities around the world. The well-defined “thesis”, which can be part of the assessment, or indeed all of the final assessment of a higher degree is still standard practice and has to abide by certain “rules” in how it is presented.
 
Assessment is very important part of what we do and we should have a clear idea as to what we are trying to achieve whenever we are assessing students. Innovative assessment practice is part of excellence in teaching and learning, and this is something that we should be thinking a lot about. I summarise below some common forms of general types assessment, though this is not an exhaustive list. It is a start.
 
1. Formative Assessment
An important factor determining learning effectiveness is the quality of the feedback students receive on their performance while they are learning. Assessment that is conducted to provide students with feedback on their performance but does not contribute to their final grade is known as formative assessment. To be effective, formative assessment should be conducted throughout the teaching period beginning at an early stage. Feedback to students should include suggestions on how performance might be improved. Formative assessment also provides teaching staff with valuable feedback on what students are learning and how effectively they are teaching.
 
2. Summative Assessment
The main reason summative assessment is carried out is to provide students, academic staff, the institution and employers with evidence of the extent to which students have achieved intended learning outcomes. To fulfil this purpose summative assessment must be valid and reliable as well as being systematically recorded and communicated. The summative assessment is reflected in the “grades” that appear on a student’s transcript of results and this can have important consequences, as the Grade Point Average (GPA) is calculated using these. The GPA is an internationally recognised calculation used to find the average result of all grades achieved for a student’s course of study. The GPA helps tertiary providers compare student results with those of other students, and assists prospective employers interpret a given student’s results.
 
3. Self-Assessment and Peer Assessment
Assessment practices of academic staff may include opportunities for students to develop the skills of self-assessment, which is an important outcome of professional education and a key skill for lifelong and independent learning. Students can be encouraged to assess their own performance, and that of their peers, and to compare their own perceptions of that performance with the judgements made by academic staff and by their peers.

Students can gain a great deal from self-assessment and peer assessment, and quite often the criteria they use are quite stringent. Peer-assessment, if used appropriately can provide students with great learning opportunities as they can be engaged in the learning and assessment process very readily if it their peers that are involved in these.

4. Authentic Assessment
“Authentic” has a specific meaning in the context of assessment, especially in professional contexts associated with the subject or discipline. To be authentic, assessment tasks should be seen by students to be challenging, interesting and meaningful, and where possible should be related to real-life applications. Authentic assessment has the capacity to provide students with motivation to engage actively in the learning process.
 
5. Program Assessment
The aggregated results of assessment of individual student learning provide the institution, Government and other stakeholders, including the professions, with evidence on the effectiveness of academic programs at unit, course or program level. This aspect of assessment may be referred to as program assessment. The institutional role of assessment requires that assessment outcomes are recorded in a form that allows comparison between results for the same unit over time, among different units in the same institution and among similar units at other institutions. Program assessment should be conducted on a regular basis and be linked to planning processes involving curriculum and resources.
 
6. Criterion and Norm-referenced Assessment
Criterion-referenced assessment involves the assessment of student performance against pre-determined criteria related to the learning outcomes of the unit. Norm-referenced assessment assesses student performance against the performance of other students. A criterion-referenced approach to assessment policy and practice is advocated.
 
With criterion-referenced assessment, the criteria by which work is to be judged are made explicit and the grade awarded is intended to directly reflect how well the student has met the criteria. Within a purely criterion referenced assessment system, students are not judged in comparison to each other, every student might achieve the highest grade or none might.
 
In contrast, with normative assessment, grades are awarded based on a predetermined distribution. The most common form of normative assessment, sometimes called ‘grading on the curve’ or ‘bell curve marking’, assumes grades are distributed according to a standard distribution curve. Certain proportions of each grade are awarded, for example, one third each passes and credit passes, one sixth each distinctions and high distinctions. This means that each student’s grade on the unit is determined in part by how well other students on the unit do.
 
7. Continuous Assessment (Progressive Assessment)
Continuous assessment documents a student’s progress throughout a course of study rather than exclusively by examination at the end of it. This can be a powerful technique as it makes the student (and the instructor) aware of how the student is comprehending and learning the subject matter as they progress through the course of study. Feedback given to the student after the assessment tasks can be a valuable stimulant for further enquiry and can get the student to channel their energy in learning in areas they are weaker in.
 
Innovative Assessment
Both conservative forms of assessment and innovative forms of assessment can fall within one or more of the general types presented above. Progressive academics will consider the learning outcomes of a particular unit of study and think innovatively about the type of assessment that will demonstrate a student’s learning most effectively – and demonstrate it not only to the instructors but also to the students themselves. As we “chunk” teaching and present material in innovative ways, we may also chunk assessment in a more manageable way, and perhaps embed it as part of the course, such as tests, papers, projects, or portfolios.
 
We can utilise new technology to help us assess students and use it in a way that discourages cheating and highlights plagiarism. Assessment tasks can be linked to various learning analytics parameters and can provide valuable real time feedback to students (and instructors!). Learning analytics can also allow comparison of results and provide an easier mechanism for moderation of assessment.
 
How do you assess your students? Is a review of your assessment practices in order? Who moderates your assessments? What mechanisms do you have in place for appeals against assessment decisions?

eBOOKS

I recently attended a presentation by one of the major science publishers, which presented a platform for accessing e-texts and e-resources. It was quite interesting to see what is now being done in terms of making textbooks available on electronic platforms with some added, media-rich resources that bring the content to life. This of course means that in the near future the physical printed textbook may become redundant, as interactive and custom-designed learning resources are made available to students.

This is especially important in tertiary education where new research and developments make the physical printed textbook out of date almost as soon as it is published. An e-Book has the advantage of being easily updated and revised, with the latest material being immediately added to the electronic edition, which is constantly updated every time the reader logs into the publisher’s site. The other advantage is that the material can be brought to life with animations, sound files, videos, interactive formative assessments, access to hyperlinked material on the web, wikis, blogs, etc, etc.

Another bonus is that that these e-Books are not as “rigid” as a printed text. An instructor can be quite creative when putting together learning resources for use in class. For example if I, as an instructor, wish to use Chapters 1, 3, 5 and 6 from one textbook, Chapter 2 and 3 from another and Chapters 11, 13 and 14 from yet another, I can construct my own bespoke “recommended reading text” through this anthologising process, so that my students get the learning text resources that correspond best with the specific curricular needs of any given subject area. This customisation of an e-Book to suit a particular subject in a given course and its integration with other learning resources available to students in order to create a customised personal learning space will increase the learning opportunities for students.

As we move towards more flexible and more engaging educational resources, it is important to consider the collaborative learning opportunities that can be used effectively in a classroom and personal learning space environment. The instructor becomes a facilitator of learning and provides opportunities for the class and individual students so that they construct their own tailor-made environment in which learning can occur. The use of wikis is one such example of collaborative learning opportunities, but also self-selection of the learning resources that each student can personally garner, allows each learner to individualise their own personal library of resources that best help them to learn from.

The physical book of course will not disappear completely as there will always be bibliophiles amongst us that revel in the book and its physical presence in our hands. Whatever technology may come, there will always be books, less of them maybe, but one would hope that they will represent the best of what is available in terms of publishing and careful, beautiful and well-prepared editions.

LECTURES & LECTURE NOTES

Our students attend classes (more or less), take notes (more or less), read their recommended textbooks (more or less), go to laboratory classes, do their exercises, write their laboratory reports, work through their assignments, do their tests, pass their examinations and they are educated. Or so we hope! The student body is not uniform and the learning styles, study habits and modes of acquisition of knowledge vary widely. Hence the spread of marks at the end of semester when we have finished assessing a particular subject, even if all of our students have theoretically received the same “education”.

The sensitive educator provides a banquet of teaching from which each student can partake a (hopefully) nutritious meal of learning. Who is to tell us as educators what brain foods we are to provide at our banquet such that the dishes there are not only appealing but also highly nutritious? Humour my analogy a little further… In amongst the tasty morsels that look wonderful and taste delicious, enticing one to eat them, we must include the basic nutrients for a healthy diet, while eschewing the harmful junk.

The situation is complicated nowadays with all of the learning resources that are available. The humble textbook is still around, but has been supplemented by eBooks, internet resources, more sophisticated classroom presentations, manuals, CDs, DVDs, laboratory and clinic exercises that incorporate virtual experiments and patients. A formidable menu of choices for the educator, who may well be overwhelmed by its wide variety.
 

And yet, how often is it that we hear from the students: “What do I need to know to pass the exam?” or “Are my lecture notes enough to pass?” or “Give me a list of things to study for the exam.” Learning may well be driven by fear of the final assessment. The lecture is still seen by students as the primary way in which deliver information to them that is the most relevant for the learning outcomes we set for them at the beginning of the class. Academics at university are still wedded to the “lecture” as the be all and end all of teaching. The lecture, which unfortunately in many ways has not changed for hundreds of years.

It is not unusual therefore that lecture notes become the primary source of material for pre-exam revision. A student may know how to take good lecture notes, but more often than not, good note-taking skills are very rare. No wonder students often demand lecture notes from their instructor. For me personally, this has never worked. I need to take my own notes, even if I am provided with full notes (no doubt this is the case with many other people). However, I appreciate that others require notes as provided by the lecturer, which they rubricate, highlight, and expand, thus using them effectively as learning tools. Still others, will take the lecture notes provided and sit back in the lecture passively listening (at best), not even bothering to jot down a point that the lecturer is making that is not on the notes. Others still (hopefully a small minority) will rely on the notes given and not even turn up to the lecture, however engaging this may be and whatever extra information the lecturer may add to the presentation that is not included in the notes...

How do we deal with this issue of learning materials? What do we provide and what do we not? I full well realise that different subjects may have different needs and requirements, but do we set minimum requirements by which all of our teachers have to abide? Do we set a maximum ceiling? (We do not want to spoon-feed, do we? These are tertiary students we teach!). What about the quality of the material? Copyright issues? What about the textbook? Or even, the dreaded PowerPoint slide printouts that lecturers are often guilty of reading from, verbatim?

“Education is a kind of continuing dialogue, and a dialogue assumes, in the nature of the case, different points of view.” Robert Hutchins (1899 – 1977)

What do you think? How do we engage students in this dialogue?

(The illustration is from a fourteenth-century manuscript and shows Henry of Germany delivering a lecture to university students in Bologna.  Artist: Laurentius de Voltolina; "Liber ethicorum des Henricus de Alemannia"; Kupferstichkabinett SMPK, Berlin/Staatliche Museen Preussiischer Kulturbesitz, Min. 1233)

EDUCATION

Education is widely regarded as something that all people should have, something all should experience and consequently derive benefit from. While hardly none would disagree with this, the model that is used to educate people at various levels of schooling gives rise to great debate. Different models of education, widely varying in their approach coexist side by side and are more or less effective. Public and privately funded educational systems have their supporters and opponents and each has its merits and pitfalls.

Preschool and primary school education is regarded as the foundation-building stage, in which basic skills in literacy and numeracy are acquired. The child at this level develops not only the intellectual skills needed to deal with the influx of new fundamental information, but also the motor skills required in the process of writing legibly, social skills that underpin a harmonious co-existence with other people and the beginnings of higher mentative processes, such as those that are needed for ethical/moral discrimination, artistic and musical appreciation, etc.

Secondary schooling allows for the development of acquisition of broader knowledge in the humanities and sciences. Language and art, history and literature, physical and biological sciences are introduced at suitable levels throughout the school career and training in independent critical thinking processes begins, with logical and analytical skills being honed, especially so in the later years of this educative process. The character development that was begun in primary school is fine-tuned here. Secondary students have to deal with a large variety of issues, including the obvious biological one of puberty that will impinge on their learning.

Tertiary level education involves the student in a journey of self-discovery where thoughts and mentative processes can be examined in detail, where more complex information is not only passively acquired, but where it is analysed, critically evaluated and reprocessed. The world versus the self are contrasted and the student will need to deal with the conflicts that arise therefrom. The tertiary study experience should act as the springboard for original thinking and problem-solving in unfamiliar situations, and should result in creative intellectual activity, and in organised and logical thought.

Having worked as an academic at many Universities has given me an immense sense of responsibility towards students, colleagues and the community. I have always upheld a certain standard of educational experience in a system that has come under a great deal of pressure and stress in the last few years. We have survived various forms of reorganisation, rationalisation and changes of management. We have redesigned the curricula, updated programs and courses, and have had to cope with several changes in the way the students are selected for admission. To be an academic in such an environment is extremely labour-intensive and often frustrating, but at the same time it is infinitely rewarding. One certainly does not persist in being an academic for the pay involved!

One of my concerns in recent years is the declining academic standard of the average university student. The question arises of why this should be so, even if one is aware of the increasing pressures of government, society and family to push more secondary students into the tertiary sector, rather than directly into the workforce. I suspect that the basic problem arises in secondary and primary school level. There are students in secondary schools that have basic literacy and numeracy skill deficiencies. The wife of one of my colleagues teaches in a secondary school (admittedly, it is in a lower socioeconomic class suburb), but she maintains that even children born here, from families of native speakers of English, have immense trouble with basic reading and writing skills. She complains that when these children come to high school from primary school, some of them can barely read and write.

We live in a society that is increasingly reliant on technology. A society that will depend more and more on an educated population in order to cope with the information revolution that has changed our lives dramatically in the last couple of decades. We require specialised, analytical, quick-thinking, problem-solving educated people in our society and yet we find that we have rather poor raw material in our universities to work with. How can such a problem be resolved? I would like to explore several paths to its solution and I welcome your input!