Buzzing MSIT news.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Friday, February 23, 2007
Why Problem based Learning.
Why Problem-Based Learning? Why Change the Way We Teach? What worked in the classroom a decade (or two or three) ago, however, will no longer suffice for the simple reason that past approaches fail to develop the full battery of skills and abilities desired in a contemporary college graduate.
In June of 1994, a Wingspread Conference brought together state and federal policymakers, and leaders from the corporate, philanthropic, higher education, and accreditation communities to discuss quality in undergraduate education. This conference was sponsored by the Education Commission of the States (ECS), the Johnson Foundation, the National Governors' Association, and the National Conference of State Legislatures. The discussion that took place was based on the assertion that substantial improvement in American undergraduate education is needed to prepare students to function successfully in current business and industrial environments.
The Conference developed the following list of important characteristics of quality performance of college and university graduates (Wingspread, 1994):
* High-level skills in communication, computation, technological literacy, and information retrieval to enable individuals to gain and apply new knowledge and skills as needed
* The ability to arrive at informed judgments-that is, to effectively define problems, gather and evaluate information related to those problems, and develop solutions
* The ability to function in a global community through the possession of a range of attitudes and dispositions including flexibility and adaptability, ease with diversity, motivation and persistence (for example, being a self-starter), ethical and civil behavior, creativity and resourcefulness, and the ability to work with others, especially in team settings
* Technical competence in a given field
* Demonstrated ability to deploy all of the previous characteristics to address specific problems in complex, real-world settings, in which the development of workable solutions is required
Survey results (Czujko, 1994) of all physics baccalaureates who were employed in either the private sector or government/national labs confirmed the Wingspread Conference conclusions. With approximately 80 percent response to the question, "What skills have you found to be the most useful in your work?", problem-solving, interpersonal skills, technical writing, and management skills were cited (greater than 60 percent) over physics knowledge.
More recently, the Carnegie Foundation's report, Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America's Research Universities (1998) stated that "traditional lectures and note-taking were created for a time when books were scarce and costly and lecturing to large numbers of students was an efficient means of transferring knowledge."
Lecturing is still efficient and has persisted as the traditional teaching method largely because it is familiar, easy, and how we learned. It does little, however, to foster the development of process skills to complement content knowledge.There are teaching practices, however, that do foster such skill development without forsaking content.
Quoting John Dewey's observation that "true learning is based on discovery guided by mentoring rather than the transmission of knowledge," (Boyer, 1998, p. 15) the Boyer report urged universities to Šfacilitate inquiry in such contexts as the library, the laboratory, the computer, and the studio, with the expectation that senior learners, that is, professors, will be students' companions and guidesŠ.
The research university's ability to create such an integrated education will produce a particular kind of individual, one equipped with a spirit of inquiry and a zest for problem solving; one possessed of the skill in communication that is the hallmark of clear thinking as well as mastery of language; one informed by a rich and diverse experience.
It is that kind of individual that will provide the scientific, technological, academic, political, and creative leadership for the next century. (Boyer, 1998)Student-centered, inquiry-based instruction, particularly problem-based learning, falls right into line with this philosophy; indeed, the Boyer Commission pointed to the PBL efforts at the University of Delaware as one example of how to help students reach the important goals highlighted in the report.
What is Problem-based learning?We believe that problem-based learning (PBL) provides a forum in which these essential skills will be developed. The basic principle supporting the concept of PBL is older than formal education itself; namely, learning is initiated by a posed problem, query, or puzzle that the learner wants to solve (Boud & Feletti, 1991).
In the problem-based approach, complex, real-world problems are used to motivate students to identify and research the concepts and principles they need to know to work through those problems. Students work in small learning teams, bringing together collective skills at acquiring, communication, and integrating information.
Problem-based instruction addresses directly many of the recommended and desirable outcomes of an undergraduate education: specifically, the ability to do the following:
* Think critically and be able to analyze and solve complex, real-world problems
* Find, evaluate, and use appropriate learning resources
* Work cooperatively in teams and small groups
* Demonstrate versatile and effective communication skills, both verbal and written
* Use content knowledge and intellectual skills acquired at the university to become continual learners.
The PBL Cycle in the sciences traces its roots to the medical school setting where small groups of intellectually mature, highly motivated medical students work in small groups with a dedicated faculty tutor to learn basic science concepts in the context of actual clinical cases.
The process of problem-based instruction (Boud & Feletti, 1997) follows:
* Students are presented with a problem (case, research paper, videotape, for example). Students working in permanent groups organize their ideas and previous knowledge related to the problem and attempt to define the broad nature of the problem.
* Throughout discussion, students pose questions called "learning issues" that delineate aspects of the problem that they do not understand. These learning issues are recorded by the group and help generate and focus discussion. Students are continually encourage to define what they know and-more importantly-what they don't know.
* Students rank, in order of importance, the learning issues generated in the session. They decide which questions will be followed up by the whole group and which issues can be assigned to individuals, who later teach the rest of the group. Students and instructor also discuss what resources will be needed to research the learning issues and where they could be found.
* When students reconvene, they explore the previous learning issues, integrating their new knowledge into the context of the problem. Students are also encouraged to summarize their knowledge and connect new concepts to old ones.
They continue to define new learning issues as they progress through the problem. Students soon see that learning is an ongoing process and that there will always be (even for the teacher) learning issues to be explored.
PBL fosters the ability to identify the information needed for a particular application, where and how to seek that information, how to organize that information in a meaningful conceptual framework, and how to communicate that information to others. Use of cooperative working groups fosters the development of learning communities in all classrooms, enhancing student achievement (Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 1991).
Students who learn concepts in the context in which they will be used more likely to retain that knowledge and apply it appropriately (Albanese & Mitchell, 1993). They will also recognize that knowledge transcends artificial boundaries since problem-based instruction highlights interconnections between disciplines and the integration of concepts.
___________________
M.A. & Mitchell, S. (1993). Problem-based learning: A review of literature on its outcomes and implementation issues. Academic Medicine, 68, 52-81.
Boud, D., & Feletti, G. (1997) The challenge of problem-based learning (2nd ed.). London: Kogan Page.
Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Smith, K. A. (1991). Cooperative learning: Increasing college faculty instructional productivity. (ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 4). Washington, DC: George Washington University.
In June of 1994, a Wingspread Conference brought together state and federal policymakers, and leaders from the corporate, philanthropic, higher education, and accreditation communities to discuss quality in undergraduate education. This conference was sponsored by the Education Commission of the States (ECS), the Johnson Foundation, the National Governors' Association, and the National Conference of State Legislatures. The discussion that took place was based on the assertion that substantial improvement in American undergraduate education is needed to prepare students to function successfully in current business and industrial environments.
The Conference developed the following list of important characteristics of quality performance of college and university graduates (Wingspread, 1994):
* High-level skills in communication, computation, technological literacy, and information retrieval to enable individuals to gain and apply new knowledge and skills as needed
* The ability to arrive at informed judgments-that is, to effectively define problems, gather and evaluate information related to those problems, and develop solutions
* The ability to function in a global community through the possession of a range of attitudes and dispositions including flexibility and adaptability, ease with diversity, motivation and persistence (for example, being a self-starter), ethical and civil behavior, creativity and resourcefulness, and the ability to work with others, especially in team settings
* Technical competence in a given field
* Demonstrated ability to deploy all of the previous characteristics to address specific problems in complex, real-world settings, in which the development of workable solutions is required
Survey results (Czujko, 1994) of all physics baccalaureates who were employed in either the private sector or government/national labs confirmed the Wingspread Conference conclusions. With approximately 80 percent response to the question, "What skills have you found to be the most useful in your work?", problem-solving, interpersonal skills, technical writing, and management skills were cited (greater than 60 percent) over physics knowledge.
More recently, the Carnegie Foundation's report, Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America's Research Universities (1998) stated that "traditional lectures and note-taking were created for a time when books were scarce and costly and lecturing to large numbers of students was an efficient means of transferring knowledge."
Lecturing is still efficient and has persisted as the traditional teaching method largely because it is familiar, easy, and how we learned. It does little, however, to foster the development of process skills to complement content knowledge.There are teaching practices, however, that do foster such skill development without forsaking content.
Quoting John Dewey's observation that "true learning is based on discovery guided by mentoring rather than the transmission of knowledge," (Boyer, 1998, p. 15) the Boyer report urged universities to Šfacilitate inquiry in such contexts as the library, the laboratory, the computer, and the studio, with the expectation that senior learners, that is, professors, will be students' companions and guidesŠ.
The research university's ability to create such an integrated education will produce a particular kind of individual, one equipped with a spirit of inquiry and a zest for problem solving; one possessed of the skill in communication that is the hallmark of clear thinking as well as mastery of language; one informed by a rich and diverse experience.
It is that kind of individual that will provide the scientific, technological, academic, political, and creative leadership for the next century. (Boyer, 1998)Student-centered, inquiry-based instruction, particularly problem-based learning, falls right into line with this philosophy; indeed, the Boyer Commission pointed to the PBL efforts at the University of Delaware as one example of how to help students reach the important goals highlighted in the report.
What is Problem-based learning?We believe that problem-based learning (PBL) provides a forum in which these essential skills will be developed. The basic principle supporting the concept of PBL is older than formal education itself; namely, learning is initiated by a posed problem, query, or puzzle that the learner wants to solve (Boud & Feletti, 1991).
In the problem-based approach, complex, real-world problems are used to motivate students to identify and research the concepts and principles they need to know to work through those problems. Students work in small learning teams, bringing together collective skills at acquiring, communication, and integrating information.
Problem-based instruction addresses directly many of the recommended and desirable outcomes of an undergraduate education: specifically, the ability to do the following:
* Think critically and be able to analyze and solve complex, real-world problems
* Find, evaluate, and use appropriate learning resources
* Work cooperatively in teams and small groups
* Demonstrate versatile and effective communication skills, both verbal and written
* Use content knowledge and intellectual skills acquired at the university to become continual learners.
The PBL Cycle in the sciences traces its roots to the medical school setting where small groups of intellectually mature, highly motivated medical students work in small groups with a dedicated faculty tutor to learn basic science concepts in the context of actual clinical cases.
The process of problem-based instruction (Boud & Feletti, 1997) follows:
* Students are presented with a problem (case, research paper, videotape, for example). Students working in permanent groups organize their ideas and previous knowledge related to the problem and attempt to define the broad nature of the problem.
* Throughout discussion, students pose questions called "learning issues" that delineate aspects of the problem that they do not understand. These learning issues are recorded by the group and help generate and focus discussion. Students are continually encourage to define what they know and-more importantly-what they don't know.
* Students rank, in order of importance, the learning issues generated in the session. They decide which questions will be followed up by the whole group and which issues can be assigned to individuals, who later teach the rest of the group. Students and instructor also discuss what resources will be needed to research the learning issues and where they could be found.
* When students reconvene, they explore the previous learning issues, integrating their new knowledge into the context of the problem. Students are also encouraged to summarize their knowledge and connect new concepts to old ones.
They continue to define new learning issues as they progress through the problem. Students soon see that learning is an ongoing process and that there will always be (even for the teacher) learning issues to be explored.
PBL fosters the ability to identify the information needed for a particular application, where and how to seek that information, how to organize that information in a meaningful conceptual framework, and how to communicate that information to others. Use of cooperative working groups fosters the development of learning communities in all classrooms, enhancing student achievement (Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 1991).
Students who learn concepts in the context in which they will be used more likely to retain that knowledge and apply it appropriately (Albanese & Mitchell, 1993). They will also recognize that knowledge transcends artificial boundaries since problem-based instruction highlights interconnections between disciplines and the integration of concepts.
___________________
M.A. & Mitchell, S. (1993). Problem-based learning: A review of literature on its outcomes and implementation issues. Academic Medicine, 68, 52-81.
Boud, D., & Feletti, G. (1997) The challenge of problem-based learning (2nd ed.). London: Kogan Page.
Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Smith, K. A. (1991). Cooperative learning: Increasing college faculty instructional productivity. (ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 4). Washington, DC: George Washington University.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Google Maps for MSIT/Gurukulam Monitoring
http://www.cammap.net/ provides a geographical view of webcams located in US using Google maps. It allows you to zoom-in, select a particular web-cam and allows you to peep-into the real-world through the web-cam.
It would be nice to see a monitoring system for MSIT and Gurukulam labs spread throughout AP, and to see what's happening in any of these labs by just clicking on Google-Maps.
It would be nice to see a monitoring system for MSIT and Gurukulam labs spread throughout AP, and to see what's happening in any of these labs by just clicking on Google-Maps.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Collaboration tools on Skype 3.0
Skype 3.0 and the extra addons embedded in it makes collaboration lot easier.
Here are a few features that can be useful for your projects and courses at MSIT -
1. Application Sharing - You can now show demos of your projects to mentors located far away
2. Desktop sharing - If applications was not enough, share the entire desktop
3. Call Recording - You can record conversations with team-mates / mentors for future use
4. Whiteboard - Can use and demonstrate your point on a shared whiteboard.
Please download the latest skype 3.0 and "Do More" than just conversations.
http://www.skype.com/download/skype/windows/helloagain.html
Here are a few features that can be useful for your projects and courses at MSIT -
1. Application Sharing - You can now show demos of your projects to mentors located far away
2. Desktop sharing - If applications was not enough, share the entire desktop
3. Call Recording - You can record conversations with team-mates / mentors for future use
4. Whiteboard - Can use and demonstrate your point on a shared whiteboard.
Please download the latest skype 3.0 and "Do More" than just conversations.
http://www.skype.com/download
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Collaborative Tools
http://docs.google.com provides a mechanism of sharing doc and excel files among the team members of a project and also to perform collaborative work across the learning centers. We could use google-docs for all course/project reports and for combining teams from various learning centers.
http://www2.blogger.com allows posting a topic and receiving comments. We could create http://msitsoftskills.blogspot.com and allow the students to post their 1-page writing assignment. The soft skills mentor can comment on them and it would also be easy to do a peer-reviewing by others. Using msitsoftskills.blogspot we can also involve mentors (remotely and probably larger in number) to provide comments on the writing assignments in a short time.
http://calendar.google.com allows sharing the calendars and thus could include MSIT almanac, course's start-end date, holiday lists etc.
http://vyew.com is about sharing the desktop and the screen for making remote presentations using PDF, PPTs etc. It is browser based, and also provides tools to draw and annotate on the screen during presentation (which is viewed/shared on the other side). Speech-Lab, IIIT and CMU have been using this tool for remote presentations on what they call wednesday-meetings. http://www.gotomeeting.com is another such tool.
pls feel free add some more ....
http://www2.blogger.com allows posting a topic and receiving comments. We could create http://msitsoftskills.blogspot.com and allow the students to post their 1-page writing assignment. The soft skills mentor can comment on them and it would also be easy to do a peer-reviewing by others. Using msitsoftskills.blogspot we can also involve mentors (remotely and probably larger in number) to provide comments on the writing assignments in a short time.
http://calendar.google.com allows sharing the calendars and thus could include MSIT almanac, course's start-end date, holiday lists etc.
http://vyew.com is about sharing the desktop and the screen for making remote presentations using PDF, PPTs etc. It is browser based, and also provides tools to draw and annotate on the screen during presentation (which is viewed/shared on the other side). Speech-Lab, IIIT and CMU have been using this tool for remote presentations on what they call wednesday-meetings. http://www.gotomeeting.com is another such tool.
pls feel free add some more ....
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Google Research
Google research seems to have picked a set of videos on a wide range of research and technical issues seemingly relevant to most of us. Pls find them at Google's Research Videos
If you are further interested you can also look at Google's Research Publications.
If you are further interested you can also look at Google's Research Publications.
MSIT-Curriculum
This is a proposal to integrate Search-Engine story into MSIT curriculum.
In the II-Mini students are posed with the problem to build THIS (The Hindu Information System) and thus learn and implement algorithms and data-structures.
From the III Mini, students learn several aspects such as UI, DB etc, which can applied to THIS - thus THIS could act as linking story across the several minis.
Following are a few points top-off my head weaving THIS over several minis.
We can have the courses with the toy-problems specific to each course, but THIS could be the actual-project where they are supposed to implement many of these concepts during the last 1-2 days of each week.
In the II-Mini students are posed with the problem to build THIS (The Hindu Information System) and thus learn and implement algorithms and data-structures.
From the III Mini, students learn several aspects such as UI, DB etc, which can applied to THIS - thus THIS could act as linking story across the several minis.
Following are a few points top-off my head weaving THIS over several minis.
We can have the courses with the toy-problems specific to each course, but THIS could be the actual-project where they are supposed to implement many of these concepts during the last 1-2 days of each week.
- II Mini:
- Algos. and DS for THIS
- III Mini:
- User Interface (application to THIS)
- Computer Graphics (?)
- IVMini:
- Databases for THIS (inverted index files in THIS could be stored/retrieved using databases)
- Advance Programming (perl/phyton for text processing andnatural language query in THIS)
- V Mini:
- Data Mining (Text categorization, Query expansion in THIS)
- Computer Networks (Client - Server Implementation for THIS)
- VI Min:
- Practicum
- II Year, I Mini:
- SE Foundation (Design aspects for THIS)
Saturday, December 23, 2006
CMU-Portugal Research Exchange PhD Program
CMU and Portugal universities have started a research exchange PhD program in Language Technologies (www.lti.cs.cmu.edu) Click Here for full details.
"The Language Technologies Institute (LTI) of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) offers a dual degree Ph.D. Program in Language and Information Technologies in cooperation with Portuguese Universities. ...."
"Each Ph.D. student will receive a dual degree from LTI and the selected Portuguese University, being co-supervised by one advisor from each institute, and spending approximately half of the 5-year doctoral program at each institute. Most of the academic part willtake place at LTI, during the first 2 years, where most of the required 8 courses will be taken, with a proper balance of focus areas (Linguistic, Computer Science, Statistical/Learning, Task Orientation). The remaining 3 years of the doctoral program will be dedicated to research, mostly spent at the Portuguese institute, with one or two visits to CMU per year."
.... Since 2003, there exists research exchange program between MSIT-CMU, IIIT-CMU and other institutions such as Upenn through which many research scholars at IIIT and mentors at MSIT have visited CMU.
"The Language Technologies Institute (LTI) of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) offers a dual degree Ph.D. Program in Language and Information Technologies in cooperation with Portuguese Universities. ...."
"Each Ph.D. student will receive a dual degree from LTI and the selected Portuguese University, being co-supervised by one advisor from each institute, and spending approximately half of the 5-year doctoral program at each institute. Most of the academic part willtake place at LTI, during the first 2 years, where most of the required 8 courses will be taken, with a proper balance of focus areas (Linguistic, Computer Science, Statistical/Learning, Task Orientation). The remaining 3 years of the doctoral program will be dedicated to research, mostly spent at the Portuguese institute, with one or two visits to CMU per year."
.... Since 2003, there exists research exchange program between MSIT-CMU, IIIT-CMU and other institutions such as Upenn through which many research scholars at IIIT and mentors at MSIT have visited CMU.
MSITBUZZ
Being MSITians we definitely need a time and space for ourselves where we can share the pride, prejudices, up&downs, success and failures, joys, happiness related to daily/routine/rare/special events of MSIT.
At one point or the other everyone of us thought of expressing our opinions/views on various activities related to MSIT - which we believe could be beneficial to the whole of MSIT society and MSITians.
I believe we can do it now in a free BUT RESPONSIBLE fashion. Following the big show success of various issues being discussed on http://iiitbuzz.blogspot.com/ (IIIT Blog), we have created http://msitbuzz.blogspot.com.
More importantly I believe this blog can act as forum to express ourselves - what it takes to be an MSITian, how/why/what we are different from other, what are the special events that are happening this week, next week, our courses, achievements, projects etc.
Please start contributing to this blog to express ourselves, however, please note that it is YOUR blog, the whole world would watch, and it is important to express BUT IN A RESPONSIBLE WAY.
Please send an email to kishore.prahallad@gmail.com if you think you want to be one of the authors in this blog (start a new topic/post), else please feel free to comment on the posts.
Good Luck.
Best Regards
Kishore Prahallad
(kishore.prahallad@gmail.com)
At one point or the other everyone of us thought of expressing our opinions/views on various activities related to MSIT - which we believe could be beneficial to the whole of MSIT society and MSITians.
I believe we can do it now in a free BUT RESPONSIBLE fashion. Following the big show success of various issues being discussed on http://iiitbuzz.blogspot.com/ (IIIT Blog), we have created http://msitbuzz.blogspot.com.
More importantly I believe this blog can act as forum to express ourselves - what it takes to be an MSITian, how/why/what we are different from other, what are the special events that are happening this week, next week, our courses, achievements, projects etc.
Please start contributing to this blog to express ourselves, however, please note that it is YOUR blog, the whole world would watch, and it is important to express BUT IN A RESPONSIBLE WAY.
Please send an email to kishore.prahallad@gmail.com if you think you want to be one of the authors in this blog (start a new topic/post), else please feel free to comment on the posts.
Good Luck.
Best Regards
Kishore Prahallad
(kishore.prahallad@gmail.com)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)