Agile In Teaching Learning Process

Agile: In teaching learning process V. V. Kamat Goa University [email_address]

Agenda
Why agile in Education?
Motivation for Agile framework in Education
Best practices in teaching-learning process
Proposed Agile Manifesto in education
Conclusion
Q & A

Software development Game
Key Actors in the Game
Programmer / Developer
Customer / Client
Collaboration result in Software
Developer Customer Software Collaborate

Some Familiar Questions?
Has developer understood what the real requirement of the client is?
Is there a collaboration between developer and client?
What is the quality of the software?
How reliable is the software quality?
What is the feedback mechanism?
How often bugs are fixed?

Game teacher-teacher
Key Actors in the Game
(All casts chosen are from software industry)
Teacher
Cast: “programmer / developer”
Student
Cast: “software service / product”
Employer
Cast: “customer / client”

Where is the Collaboration? Developer Teacher / Institution Employer Customer Software Student Collaborate √ Collaborate?

Ask similar Questions in new Role
Has teacher/institution understood what the real requirement of the industry is?
What is the quality of the student?
How reliable is the student quality?
What is the feedback mechanism?
How often changes are made to course content?
Is there a collaboration between institution and industry?

Present Scenario
In curriculum design, industry inputs are often missing
Academic programs are rigid and uses waterfall process model in delivery
Most academic programs are fixed time, fixed cost and fixed scope projects
Change is a bureaucratic process and on an average cycle time is 3-4 years

Present Scenario cont…
Students graduate with little practical skills, no idea of industry expectations
There is over emphasis on what can be taught than what need to be taught
There is over compartmentalization of education and no time for integration
Instead, industry has found its own quick fix solutions

Frustration!
Industry
They don’t understand what we want
Academia
They don’t know what our problems are
Student
Confused, eager to join industry only to get more confused
There is lot of duplication of efforts, waste of time & resources, is anybody listening?

Blame Game
Industry
Institutions teach things that are not relevant
Marks in the exam is no proof of actual skills
Institutions teach as if all students are going to be researchers
Institutions are bureaucratic, they are tightly controlled bodies and averse to change
. . .

Blame Game cont…
Academia
We teach fundamentals, platform specific skills is not our forte
We expect industry participation if they want better output
We are paid peanuts, what better can you expect
Our environments are not inspiring, come and work here then talk

Blame doesn’t fix the bug
Understand the process of education
Three key processes in education are
Teaching (Teacher and Support staff )
Evaluation (Examination and Marking)
Administration (Infrastructure and systems)
IT can play a major role in managing these processes, but that’s a different topic…
The quality of the education product is directly related to quality of these 3 processes

… where have we come from and where we want to go…
Its important to understand the current practices if you want to improve
Are these proverbs making sense?
If you don’t know where you are going, any road will do - Chinese proverb
If you don’t know where you are, map won’t help - Humphrey’s corollary

Current Evaluation Practices
Focus is on scoring marks then knowing
Essay type questions lack application
Lack of trust in teacher and the system
External examiner adds agony to process
Lack of transparency adds air of suspicion
Rule based then student friendly
Everybody suffers but afraid to change

Current Teaching Practices
Engaging class is important but what is taught, how it is taught only students know
Accountability is often limited to attendance
Lot of teacher time is spent on mundane jobs, leaving little time to learn new things
There is no incentive for good teaching or to learn new things
Chalk & talk has no scope for reusability

Current Status of a Teacher
Teacher is costly but neglected resource
Teaching career often opted not by choice
Teacher lacks motivation and suffers from low self-esteem
Current contract appointments lacks vision
Good teachers are hard to come by
Stereo type teacher fails to enthuse
Lack of opportunities lead to obsolescence

Current Administrative Woes
Procedures are more important then outcome
Excessive worry about misuse before use
All assumed guilty till proved innocent
Accountability at times confused to accounts
To administration all teachers look the same
Control mindset disabling than enabling
Compliance scores over Competence
System encourages/propagates mediocrity
System converts assets into liability

Current Trend in Education
Cost of education is rising
Classroom size is becoming bigger
Education is being looked as an investment
Higher education is getting privatized
Student has become a customer
Knowledge and skills becoming important
Quality certification is gaining importance
Education has become a serious business

Current Trend in Business
Continuous quality improvement
Better quality at cheaper price
Life time of a product cycle is shrinking
Focus is on productivity
Leaner the better
Concentrate on core competence and
Outsource the rest

Lessons for Educationist
Continuously add value to programs
Balance quality, quantity and cost
Life time of a degree is shrinking
Teacher / Student productivity is important
Establish a niche in specific areas
Hire few good teachers and admin staff
Outsource the rest through contracts

Is Education going ISO way ?
Many academic institutions are vying for ISO 2001: 9000 certification
Many processes (more paper work) are getting introduced into institutions
Mindless adoption of processes may prove expensive and may not serve the purpose
Accountability of a teacher is important but it needs to be defined properly

Agile Framework
Can be applied in each of these areas
Teaching
Evaluation
Administration
What are the best practices?

Do not reinvent the wheel
Use internet resources judiciously
Download – Modify – Reuse the content but acknowledge the source
Content has its own life cycle and it needs to be improved over deliveries
Overhead projectors are better but LCD projectors are the best

Manage classroom time effectively
Offline preparation of slides gives more time for student interaction
Distribute slides but avoid dictating notes
Give teaching & evaluation plan in advance but keep it agile
Internet based assignment can bring excitement and curiosity to learn the latest
Changing teacher role – from sage on the stage to guide by the side

Take feedback often
Student is evaluated once in a while, teacher is evaluated everyday
Written feedback acts as a deterrent and can be used constructively to build peer pressure
Simple eye contact often does the magic
Evaluation itself could be a good feedback
There is no one way to teach, each student learns differently

Interact with Local Industry
Benefits
Practical problems
Project ideas
Technology trends
Give student project based on open source
Projects from scratch are often scraped
Adopt 80-20 rule in teaching a course
80% academic - 20% industry inputs
“ Pappu” story

Best practices in Evaluation?
Evaluate objectively & subjectively
Each objective question is like Unit Test
Each Unit Test can identify potential bug
Test paper to cover the syllabus
Grading to be flexible to accommodate difficulty level of question paper

Evaluate often
Evaluation is the only way to know how much student has understood or misunderstood
Earlier you detect misunderstanding, easier it is to fix it
“Stitch in time saves nine”
Evaluation only determines what student doesn't know and not what student knows

Evaluate objectively & subjectively
Objective evaluation takes more effort than subjective evaluation
Subjective evaluation takes more time than objective evaluation
Evaluation & certification are two different things and each has its own merit
Evaluation is best done by the teacher and certification is best done by the third party

Relative grading is the best
Integrity of the teacher is utmost important
Handles difficulty level of the question paper
Empowers the teacher in the classroom
Brings in transparency & accountability
Trust the teacher and they become trustworthy
Academic audit is the best deterrent

Food for thought!
Each student learns differently than why all students should pass in same time?
What is the competence of a student who has scored 40% marks in an exam?
How much does a student learn in the class?
How do we move from just-in-case to just-in-time delivery model?

Case Study: Our MCA Experience
100% internal evaluation except the labs
External lab component helps in peer review
Projects are qualitatively graded
CPI provides continuous feedback on student performance
Students provide mid-semester and end-semester feedback

MCA Examination
Low ceremony process
No appointment of
Chairman examination, Paper setter, Supervisor,
Block supervisor, Attendant, Understudy…
No 3 manuscript submission business
No coding – decoding of answer papers
No numbering on the benches
Students get see all evaluated papers

Agile Agenda in Education
Agile manifesto in Education
Teachers and Students over Administration and Infrastructure
Competence and Collaboration over Compliance and Competition
Employability and Responding to market demands over syllabus and marks
Attitude and Learning skills over Aptitude and formal degree

Conclusion
There is an urgent need to apply agile framework to education system before it goes ISO way
Lightweight process framework like Agile is recommended to educational setup
Our experience shows that it is very much possible to put these practices in use provided there is will and commitment

Questions? Thank You!

Agile In Teaching Learning Process

by Naresh Jain on Oct 28, 2008

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