Teaching Students to Learn How to Learn: Lifelong Learning in High-Technology, Higher-Education - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

1 / 8
About This Presentation
Title:

Teaching Students to Learn How to Learn: Lifelong Learning in High-Technology, Higher-Education

Description:

Teaching Students to Learn How to Learn: Lifelong Learning in High-Technology, Higher-Education Speaker Presentation Indo-US Workshop on Effective Teaching at the ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

Number of Views:130
Avg rating:3.0/5.0
Slides: 9
Provided by: Sumit8
Category:

less

Transcript and Presenter's Notes

Title: Teaching Students to Learn How to Learn: Lifelong Learning in High-Technology, Higher-Education


1
Teaching Students to Learn How to Learn
Lifelong Learning in High-Technology,
Higher-Education
Speaker Presentation Indo-US Workshop on
Effective Teaching at the College/University
Level (IUWETCUL 11) February 10-12, 2011, IIIT
Delhi (Dwarka, Sector III), India
Prof. Sumit Ghosh sumit.ghosh_at_ieee.org Computer
Science Department University of Texas
2
Tradition of Higher Education in the US
  • In the past, genuine teachers were few,
    idealistic, wouldnt teach anyone they deemed
    unworthy and unethical, sort of elitist model
  • Then, US led a new model formal, open-to-all,
    public education system
  • Starting in the early 1900s, universities started
    to emerge, eventually leading to the extensive
    higher-education infrastructure that we see
    today.
  • For past 70 years, students would routinely
    enroll in higher education programs, obtain
    diplomas upon graduation, then find useful
    employment
  • Occasionally, a specific area (Aerospace industry
    in 1970s) would fall out of favor, government
    step in with funds to provide training in a new
    emerging, high-tech area.
  • At the highest level of higher-educational
    evolution, Bell Labs Research, IBM Research,
    Xerox PARC, GE Schenectady CRD expose select
    individuals to leading science and technology
    they would create next generation ideas. Ex.
    transistor, computer, laser, C, Unix, LAN,
    parallel processors, etc.
  • Clearly, with the nature of high-tech higher
    education so complex, self-learning must have
    been rendered obsolete. So why are we discussing
    this issue?

3
Why is Learning How to Learn, Important?
  • Explore three needs/reasons/perspectives/trends
  • First, an urgent need
  • Sovereign debt crises worldwide, education on the
    chopping block in US, UK, Italy, Spain, France,
    Baltic states, Germany, Egypt
  • What are the nations leaders thinking? At best,
    they are confused whether higher education will
    bring back the economy at worst, they never
    understood the role of higher education.
  • Private universities trimming budgets state
    universities facing unprecedented and massive
    budget cuts. University of California, University
    of Arizona systems already instituted furloughs.
  • Near-zero hiring of junior faculty senior
    professors will be encouraged to retire
  • With skeleton faculty, students wont be able to
    complete programs easily
  • Worse, difficult to find competent professors to
    teach the subtle scientific, mathematical,
    computational, and engineering skills that are
    inherent in high-technology. A crisis is coming.
  • High-tech education indispensable to obtaining
    high-paying jobs
  • Those who have mastered self-learning/self-teachin
    g will have a clear edge
  • Look at Industry, the supposed bedrock of our
    industrial age
  • Giant industrial companies such as GE, Verizon,
    and others have been secretly bailed out by the
    US Federal Reserve to the tune of billions of
    dollars. They are failing and the evidence is
    undeniable. Something is seriously wrong.

4
Why is Learning How to Learn, Important? (Contd)
  • Explore three needs/reasons/perspectives
  • Second, a growing trend
  • In the past, an individual worked for a single
    company, lifelong
  • Today (circa 2005), an average CSE engineer
    changes jobs 17 times
  • Employer no longer finds degree from elite
    institution worth beyond a few years
  • Diploma from elite institution no longer
    guaranteed ticket to lifelong good career
  • Degree can help land a good first, second job
    definitely not tenth job. How one uses ones
    knowledge to solve never-before-seen problems
    becomes key
  • Traditional knowledge imparted in traditional way
    is no longer relevant
  • A talented and motivated person with a degree
    from a less known school can surpass a person
    with degree from an elite institution
  • Typical elite schools charge 200,000 for 4-year
    program less well-known school costs 40,000
  • Today, US students carry unprecedented debt (5
    trillion), which cannot be discharged in
    bankruptcy court interest on unpaid debt keeps
    accumulating
  • Per NY Times (Jan 2011), top law schools (U
    Chicago, Columbia) have altered student grades to
    make them appear superior students in the current
    era of very high unemployment. Why? Is it that
    they are unsure of the education they are
    imparting in their programs?
  • By 2045, average life expectancy will be 125.
    People will be healthy, mental faculties intact,
    work until their 90s. Clearly, people will pursue
    multiple careers in their lifetimes.

5
Why is Learning How to Learn, Important? (Contd)
  • Explore three needs/reasons/perspectives
  • Third, a longer-term need
  • Helps one grow independently, migrate to new jobs
    and careers, and remain fulfilled lifelong,
    without becoming excessively dependent on the
    security of retirement (Lawyer becomes surgeon at
    age 70?)
  • Foster tremendous burst of creativity, which will
    cause society, nation, and civilization to leap
    forward
  • Per history, virtually, all great minds were
    self-taught, examples including Ramanujan,
    Leonardo da Vinci, Lincoln, and others.
  • Inference learning how to learn will become the
    most important paradigm, not only for surviving
    but thriving.

6
What Went Wrong?
  • US embarked on mass-scale education, for the
    greater good
  • Noble intent but flawed implementation. Worked
    good for 70 years and we have mistakenly started
    to think that this paradigm had been in practice
    forever
  • True education is one-on-one. Why? Every
    individual is endowed by Nature with unique
    capabilities and limitations
  • A genuine teacher, driven by spontaneous
    compassion, reaches out to each students
    education blind spots and illuminates them.
    Confucius story!
  • A mass-scale education, where faculty teaches
    30-200 students, is flawed.
  • This is a business model, driven by immediate
    profitability
  • Education is not about bottom line but underlies
    the future of our very existence. Without
    education, we will wage wars and destroy
    ourselves.
  • My belief we may have unwittingly created
    mindless drones to run factories, VLSI
    fabrication-lines, and software mill-factories
    however, they are incapable of thinking, forget
    innovation
  • We havent done justice to the individual person.
    Thus, this approach is not sustainable over the
    long run.
  • What is happening to US, UK, Japan, and Europe
    today, namely massive layoffs, will come to
    India, soon
  • Flawed implementation have given rise to an
    entitlement mentality spend money, get diploma,
    deserve high-paying job
  • Lost is the truth that the true purpose of
    education is to serve humanity in ones unique
    ways

7
Proposed Approaches
  • Students find it hard to self-learn because we
    spoon feed them
  • Knowledge is doubling every 2.5 years so, push
    knowledge down the students throats
  • Immediate instructor evaluation reflects a sense
    of impatience, short-term view, and immediate
    regurgitation.
  • No consideration that knowledge takes time to
    gestate and will express itself years into the
    future.
  • No understanding of long-term nature of Nature.
    Civilization is intended to run for millions of
    years
  • Ironically, we are condemning our students to
    obsolescence and stagnancy, fast
  • Story of US Liberty ships and ship building
    skills what happens to the individual? At
    issue is whether the nation as a whole is
    important or the laid-off individuals anguish
    and frustration is of any concern. While this is
    a matter of perspective, the US Constitution
    clearly considers the individuals right to
    pursue happiness supreme and holds the individual
    above all groups, organizations, and
    governments.
  • Knowledge of fundamental principles is changing,
    technology is changing even faster.
  • Old Chinese saying Only a fool knows for sure
    what he is doing a wise man keeps on guessing
  • Richard Feynman (Nobel Laureate in Physics)
    writes, We are constantly guessing Nature
  • In my research experience, everything is evolving
    helically you just have to have eyes to see it
  • Need a worldwide debate characteristics of
    teachers, teaching/learning mechanisms to help
    students cultivate self-learning while pursuing
    regular course material and books and other
    resources
  • Examples of Alfred Nobels dynamite invention and
    unfair termination of Julie Dodd.

8
Conclusions
  • To Prof. Sharan and all my teachers at IIT
    Kanpur, please accept my gratitude for opening my
    eyes and for teaching me how to learn.
  • I am convinced that the nation, which correctly
    implements learning how to learn, will become
    the next Great Economic Region.

Questions/Suggestions/Comments sumit.ghosh_at_ieee.or
g
Write a Comment
User Comments (0)
About PowerShow.com