I work part-time as an external evaluator for a university in Karachi. It’s heartening to see that quality of education is still quite low. Or so it seems by evaluating all those exams. In my opinion, the best way to make students learn is by letting them think and analyze the concepts, instead of spoon feeding them with the theory and making them memorize it. Students should be able to make use of the concepts under the right circumstances. There is no use of learning the material when you don’t know how to use it. So, exams should be made in such a way that students can prove that they can use what they’ve learnt instead of testing their memory. Of all that the exams that I’ve evaluated so far, most of them don’t follow that principle. They emphasize on testing how well students have memorized the text, instead of giving them scenarios and expect them to solve the given problems using the concepts learned from the course. As a result, I have to go through sheets of text filled up by dozens of students. Sometimes it feels as if I am reading a newspaper over and over again.
Trouble is, only a very small fraction of people in education, be it primary, secondary or tertiary, are aware of, or adept at, the concept of Instructional Design.
I’m in HRD and i have to say that i’ve been won over by it. Having specific knowledge and behavioural ‘outcomes’ even before you get into course design adds so much more value to the entire learning experience.
But as you say, it is a sad state of affairs here indeed.
Kay.
Well, it’s time to act. We all know how things should be and what’s wrong, etc. etc. We have been saying these things for more than 50 years now.