Comparison of face-to-face vs online teaching

I use laptops and IT applications in classroom teaching every day; in conducting the lesson, as well as my students doing research and assignments online and uploading their PPT slides for presentation . Even exams are conducted online. In fact, if a student doesn't bring laptop to the classroom, he/she is not allowed to sit and do his work (there is a resource centre from where he can borrow one). During the semester we also teach online for one week where students do not come to the college; rather they learn from their homes( just to prepare ourselves of any emergencies!). Today I wish to discuss about these two modes of teaching.

There are some basic differences between face-to-face (F2F) and online teaching. Let us look into some characteristics of these two.

F2F teaching is in real time, dynamic and highly interactive. We as teachers are able to see our students, look at their body language while they respond to us, and notice their emotional state, and gauge their level of understanding. Accordingly, we can adjust our responses. One of the main issues of today’s highly wired students is how to engage them, away from their distractions, and increase their attention span on the lesson. This may be better monitored and guided in F2F lesson, as a measure of their focused effort (by introducing some activities related to the lesson). Also honing their skills in teamwork, active participation in class discussion and debates, and the opportunity of on-the-spot clarification of doubts with us are more realistic in F2F teaching than online.

On the other hand, online teaching provides more flexibility in terms of time and place as students need not come to the college. This aspect becomes very important if classes can’t be conducted in college due to some emergencies like MERS, etc. So students can choose to look into the lesson while having dinner at the coffee shop, and respond to the discussion forum at midnight (assuming that it is asynchronous mode of online teaching). Since no one is looking, some of the less-responsive or shy students can now express themselves more freely in discussion forum, without getting intimidated by ‘loud ones’. They can write their ideas or opinions or answer the questions posed by us without getting anxious, and taking their own sweet time!

In summary, each type of teaching has its own strengths and weaknesses. Depending on the situation, availability of resources in the college, as well as ease of accessibility of these resources to the students outside the college, either of these can be used. While online teaching provides more flexibility (in time and place) to the students as well as to the teachers, it requires different set of methods to conduct the lesson, gauge students’ progress and give them feedback. So we as teachers need to learn newer ways to engage them meaningfully, know them without meeting F2F, and respond to their queries any time of the day! As for F2F teaching, we have to be mindful of our verbal language, body language and emotions so as not to hurt any students’ sentiments in classroom, chances of which are lower in online lessons. Also F2F lessons become mandatory for those subjects where labs or some sort of demonstrations are required.

Value of Grit and Deliberate Practice

Some of my students seem to take easy way for their learning in the classroom, when they don't take down notes, and may not be fully attentive as they have 'false security' of relying on online resources. To make the matters worse, many of them become sulky and indifferent when asked to practice some concepts a few times. They feel that they have read once, and they have downloaded some material from the Web, it is enough! They prepare their Power point presentation, and upload it; slides look fine. But the problem starts when they start presenting their slides. They tend to read the text, and when asked to explain in their words, they stumble. When asked a question related to the projected slide, even then also, they have difficulty in giving a satisfactory answer. The root cause of this problem is lack of clear understanding or grasp on the concepts which can be attributed to their lack of grit and enough practice. This reminds me of my own experience as a student when I was returned one assignment to do it again.

I was in the first year of my honors degree in Life Sciences(somewhere in 1976), and the module was Human Embryology. My professor was very strict, with both the submission time of the assignments as well as its quality. I had been a conscientious student, and hence submitted my assignment before time, and had done my best. However, Prof called me in the next class and returned my assignment, where he had crossed it and written, "Do again". This was the first time, and may be the last time, that I had such a remark. I was totally shocked. Later when I asked my Prof what I needed to do to make it OK, he pointed some mistakes in the drawings of embryos. These were some very fine details, which I had missed as I didn't know their significance. He asked me to redraw, though he mentioned that my explanations were fine.

That reminds me of grit and deliberate practice which Dr Angela Duckworth talks about in her research papers on character development. Although drawing those finer details about the embryos looked rather tedious at that time, and I had to do that a couple of times, before it was approved, I could see the significance of that later. Those details conveyed how the development of the embryo was progressing, and what types of cells were involved in that. So it was not just a mere drawing, but an important part of the answer. That experience made me more aware of deliberate practice, and feedback from Prof was very important to make sure practice was leading to the right outcome. In that sense, I honed grit as my character strength and continued doing practice till mistakes became lesser and lesser, and I got the mastery over the concepts. In fact, by the end of the semester, I was guiding my classmates on how to draw properly!

In short, grit means determination to improve or doing better next time, which is very important character strength for learning. But without deliberate practice, grit is of not much use. We need to practice again and again, with a view to improve and come up to the expected outcome. Then we will have sense of achievement and satisfaction!

Bill Gates' advice to students

I came across a speech which Bill Gates gave at a High School in U.S. which was very apt for the students, so I shared it with my class today. In this he talks about eleven things students do not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

I strongly feel that this should be posted in every school so that kids all over the world can read and digest these wise words. Love him or hate him , Bill Gates sure hits the nail on the head with this!

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2: The world doesn't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: They called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were: So before you save the rain-forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. *This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. (Do that on your own time.)

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

If you can read this...thank a Teacher.
And for life and everything else you have...thank God!

So above 11 rules quite sum up the philosophy of life in clear words!

The Power of Gratitude

Today is my husband's birthday, and to celebrate the occasion, my daughter had booked a table in a very nice restaurant. We just returned home after having a lovely dinner, having spent almost two hours enjoying the company of our dear ones. As I write this, I am filled with gratitude, for all the wonderful people I have around me, and for all the wonderful things they do!

I have devised my own methods of increasing gratitude in my life, to be thankful for what all I have. One simple way is to spend a few minutes quietly with myself, usually in the evening, and think of a few things I am thankful for, and also think about a few people(may be one or many) I am thankful to have in my life. I try to do this every day, and instead of repeating the same persons, I try to think of more people and things to be grateful for, thus expanding my arena.

After recognizing the people to whom I am grateful in my life, I try somehow to convey my feelings to them. Whether it is through a short note, or verbal compliment, or cooking something of their choice, I express my thankfulness to them. This makes their lives happier, and as their faces light up with a smile I also feel happier. This may sound too simple, but it can have a big impact on someone's day, week or even life!

While recognizing other people's efforts and expressing our gratitude to them, we often forget ourselves. We are also important and valuable! So during quiet reflection, I also reflect on things that I can be thankful for about myself. It could be that I finally got done with that boring or difficult task I had been procrastinating on, or I lent a listening ear to my daughter's hard day at work. Self-gratitude does not have to be about big achievements only. I could simply be thankful for my good sense of humor, or volunteering my time and efforts, or even doing my exercise regularly.

So power of gratitude is huge, and its effects are far-reaching. We just have to start feeling it, and then express it as often as we can. You will be amazed by the results!

We decide to get angry

All of us get angry, and some of us get angry more often than others. We usually blame it on other people's behavior or the situation. But is it truly so? Let's see how we get angry.

Just reflect on who we get angry with! Most of the times we get angry with someone younger to us in age like our children or siblings, or someone working for us like our helpers, employees, etc. What about our boss or seniors in the office, or elders at home? We usually don't get angry at them or rather, I should say, we can't afford to get angry with them, otherwise consequences will be serious. So even though we may be unhappy with them, we repress our feelings. Same goes with strangers-- our irritation or frustration with strangers is for much shorter than with known people. So it looks like that the closer we are to a person, more angry we tend to get with that person. That may also explain why at times we 'explode' at our parents than our teachers-- we take them for granted, but are afraid of the teachers.

So next time when you get angry, don't say that it just happened, and you couldn't control it. It is actually in our hands to get angry or not, with somebody. Of course, it is very difficult to control our anger, or minimize it. But if we become aware of our responses, and act after considering all the consequences of our actions, then incidences of outbursts will surely reduce.

Today is my sister's birthday

Today is my sister's birthday. I have one sister, Deepa, who is two years younger to me. My sister and I are very close. We completely trust and help each other. I can talk any thing with her and know it is just between us. I can share my innermost thoughts with her, and know that she is not going to laugh or criticize me for it. We share a very strong bond and she is my best friend.

In my times of need, she is always there, even before I ask her for help. When my daughters were small, they were very much loved and cared for, by her. So is still the case; her affection and care and concern has multiplied over time, though they are grown-up and working now.

In her own life, she has a successful career, besides having raised a caring and wonderful son. She is a woman of strong determination, grit and empathy, and has overcome whatever difficulties came in her life, with a smiling face and perseverance. I am blessed to have such a sister. Below are some lines I 'stole' from some unknown author which truly depict what I feel about her.

I just want to let you know
You mean the world to me
Only a heart as dear as yours
Would give so unselfishly

The many things you've done
All the times that you were there
Help me know deep down inside
How much you really care

Even though I might not say
I appreciate all you do
Richly blessed is how I feel
Having a sister just like you, Deepa!

It's all about your attitude

Whenever my students bring their problems to me, I find that there are some common issues which need to be addressed. Whether they are confused over which modules to choose for the next semester, or what they wish to do after they graduate, or even some personal problems, their main problem is related to their attitude. Let us see why I say so.

Many times my students complain about the course being not their first choice, or a particular module being very difficult, so they wish to change it. But I suggest,"Before you change your course or module, you need to address your attitude. You see, if you don't work on changing it now, when you move to another course or college, you will also be bringing your attitudinal baggage. In other words, if you think life is terrible where you are, it will be terrible wherever you go because life is what you make of it."

It's all about attitude. Irving Berlin(1888-1989) expressed this idea well when he wrote," Life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it." In other words, life is ten percent what happens to us and ninety percent how we respond to it. So, it is not our current position that counts, but our current disposition that matters, as attitude is everything. We need to set our priorities right.

What exactly do I mean by a good attitude? It means that when one takes pride in oneself, and resolves that no matter what he does, he will always do it to the best of his ability, and do it with pride. Enthusiasm is a natural byproduct of a commitment to excellence. In case of my students, I ask them to become the best students they can possibly become. If they are doing their best, how can they be bored or uninterested? I ask them to change their attitude so that they stop whining and start winning.

Another characteristic of people with good attitude is that they always look for and find the good, rather than looking for what is 'bad' about their situation. If we cannot appreciate what we have now, how can we appreciate what we will have in future? Yet another attribute of positive thinkers is their empowering language. For example, instead of saying," I HAVE TO study so much for this module,"(which makes one feel like a victim), they would say,"I CHOOSE TO work hard on this module to achieve better grades,"(which makes one feel in control of life). As we develop a positive attitude, it will sustain us under all circumstances, and we will finally realize what happiness is all about.

A common mistake we often commit is to live in the future, fantasizing about a better life. By all means, we should set goals and make plans; but once we have taken the necessary steps to reach our goals, we need to live in the present. As the saying goes, nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.

In short, a great attitude does much more than turn on the lights in our worlds. It seems to magically connect us to all sorts of fascinating opportunities that were somehow absent before the attitudinal change!

Resume virtues vs eulogy virtues

All of us seem to have many virtues like honesty, kindness, curiosity, being responsible, hard working, etc. We may have some virtues more than others, but still majority of us don't look happy! You will find very few people around you who seem to radiate an inner light. Such people make you feel happy and valued. You can see them looking after other people and as they do so, their laughter is infectious and their manner is infused with gratitude.They are not thinking about what wonderful work they are doing. In fact, they are not thinking about themselves at all. When you meet such a person it brightens your whole day. Do you wish to be such a person?

Let's see how we can become such a person who seems deeply good and listens well, and has generosity of spirit. Actually, virtues can be divided into two types, the resume virtues and the eulogy virtues. The resume virtues are the skills you bring to the workplace like leadership, teamwork, diligence, etc. The eulogy virtues are the ones that are talked about at your funeral — whether you were kind, brave, honest or faithful, or were you capable of deep love?

Now we all know that the eulogy virtues are more important than the resume ones. But our culture and our educational systems spend so much time on teaching the skills and strategies we need for career success that we are hardly left with any time to imbibe the qualities we need to radiate that sort of inner light. Most of us are clearer on how to build an external career than on how to build an inner character.

But if we live for external achievements, years pass and the deepest parts of us go unexplored and unstructured. It becomes easy to slip into a self-satisfying moral mediocrity. We start grading ourselves on a forgiving curve. We start thinking as long as we are not obviously hurting anybody and people seem to like us, we must be O.K. But we are living with an unconscious boredom, separated from the deepest meaning of life and the highest moral joys. Gradually, a humiliating gap opens between our actual self and our desired self, between us and those shining souls we sometimes meet.

So if we want to be a bit more like those people, we will have to work harder to save our own soul. We will have to have the sort of moral adventures that produce that kind of goodness. We will have to be better at balancing our lives. We will have to increase the role of eulogy virtues in daily interactions, while still maintaining the resume virtues we learnt in school and colleges! Then we will also be able to radiate that inner light which comforts everyone whosoever it shines on!

Effects of cupcakes on brain

The other day when I entered the classroom in the morning, I noticed a big box of cupcakes on one of the tables(usually I see McDonald's breakfast meals with some students). When I asked about that box, I was told that it was to celebrate one student's birthday(which I also joined later on!). While eating that cupcake, I was reminded of a news item which had appeared about two years ago in the newspaper. That covered the research done on how eating cupcakes or cake in general affects the brain.

Cupcakes are cute, quaint and colourful – and have become the trendy treat for most of us with a sweet tooth. But they may not be quite as harmless as they appear. The butter and the sugar in the fluffy sponges make them as addictive as cocaine or nicotine, research suggests. Nora Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse in the U.S., said: ‘We are finding tremendous overlap between drugs in the brain and food in the brain.’

Scientists in U.S. found that when obese people and compulsive eaters were shown pictures of their favourite sugary and fatty foods, a decision-making area of the brain called the orbital frontal cortex experiences a surge of dopamine. The same area is activated when cocaine addicts are shown a bag of white power. In another research, allowing rats to binge on bacon, sausage, icing and chocolate also caused ‘very, very striking’ changes to the brain as evident from its scan(EEG), similar to those seen with cocaine and heroin.

The research suggests that symptoms like delirious hallucinations, fuzzy thinking, shorter attention span and forgetfulness attributed to hard drug use are also becoming apparent in people addicted to sugary and fatty foods. However major corporations of processed foods that could be implicated by such research findings say that there is nothing wrong with their processed food and drink products if consumed in moderation!

Now we have to make the choice: whether we add to the profits of these big manufacturers of processed foods and slowly become addicted to their products similar to hard drugs' addiction, and live through the consequences, or wean ourselves from these unhealthy products, and start enjoying a healthier and longer life!

Life in the 1500s

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn’t just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odour. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married!

Baths in 1500s consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children, last of all the babies.

Sounds strange, but it was like this back then!