The process of evolution does not follow an optimisation protocol to minimise or maximise a single cost function. And it is this which leads to the limitless variety in living systems that we see all around us. Plants, insects, bacteria, viruses, animals and humans, all belong to this one big family of living organisms, but are so different from each other. Each has its own trajectory of evolution and they all share a common goal, i.e. to live and grow! Interestingly, this immense variety that we see among living systems also exists within the human family too. Even humans living under very similar circumstances often turn out to be so different from each other. For example, although Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhonsle are sisters and famous singers, their style of music is so different from each other! Just see your own siblings and cousins. Very rarely will you find someone who is just like you. As far as we know, this is a unique human trait and not shared by any other living organisms. Should not this very important feature of the human species be factored in while designing our education system? Obviously, yes!
If we agree, then it is natural to ask if it is really possible to redesign our education system to take this human diversity into account?
Physical interaction between the teacher and the student has been a strong feature of our education system around the globe since time immemorial. We, of course, know the story of Eklavya who learnt his lessons from his Guru without any physical interaction, but thats an exception rather than the rule. A physical interaction between the teacher and student certainly has huge advantages, mainly because teaching is not just an exchange of information, but the transmission of certain human values and a deeper understanding of the world around us. However, despite its huge advantages, this model is not scaleable. If a teacher has 10 students, it is possible for him/her to factor in the diversity among students, and design independent learning paths for all 10 students depending on their learning preferences and intellectual level. And this is indeed what was done in the ancient Indian Gurukuls. However, as the human population grew, there was a growing need for standardisation and all students started being served the same curriculum without taking into account their unique cognitive traits. This was inevitable since it is not humanly possible for a single teacher to customise the teaching material for large number of students. Another huge problem with offline education is that the number of high quality teachers has not grown proportional to the number of students. So, currently in India, we have a few pockets of excellence amidst a sea of mediocrity! This is not at all a healthy situation since it leads to huge inequalities. And it is here that online education comes into the scene and offers a way to address both these shortcomings of offline education. It is important to note that online education certainly cannot replace offline education, rather a healthy and evolving partnership between the two can solve most of the problems that currently plague our education system.
Online education offers personal customisation mainly through two channels. Firstly, the definition of a teacher who can offer an online course is no longer restricted to people who are formally recruited for this purpose by schools and colleges. People from the industry, social workers and even housewives, with the relevant background and expertise are free to offer online courses and teach them in their own unique style. And secondly, in online education, one can have flexible time frames in which a course has to be completed. This is not possible in offline education since proper teaching schedules have to be followed in order to maintain order. However, once a lecture is available online, students can watch it at their own pace without adversely affecting the whole class. And of course, since in online education, there is no requirement of physical class space, any number of students can enrol for a given online course, thereby solving the problem of low availability of good quality teachers. And of course, this offers a great advantage to students from poorer socio-economic backgrounds since they get access to the best educational material without having to outperform their luckier brethren in extremely competitive exams like IIT-JEE.
How is teaching online different from teaching in a physical classroom?
Teaching online essentially requires recording of lectures or lessons, and uploading them on a public platform. This can be done in two ways. One is to record the lecture while you are actually teaching a class. And another is to record the lesson separately. Both have their own advantages, however, it is generally seen that the latter is more effective for online learning and helps in creating a better connect between the student and the teacher. Initially it may feel awkward for teachers to just look at the camera and talk, but one gets used to it over time. Another important difference between offline and online teaching is the duration of each lesson. In offline teaching, generally the classes are of 1hr duration. However, it is well known that students nowadays have very short attention spans. And so for online lessons, it is recommended that the lessons be shorter and not more than 20 mins in duration. Breaking a 60min lecture into 15-20min modules helps the learners by allowing them to focus on one concept at a time, and avoid being zoned out with too many ideas at a time. And in order to increase retentivity of the lesson, it is generally advised to have a short quiz at the end of each lesson.
Another possibility is to conduct live classes, where the students are connected online while the teacher is teaching. This definitely works well for a relatively small class and if all students have very high speed internet connection. Otherwise, its better to share pre-recorded lessons and quizzes/assignments with the students, collect questions/doubts using a Google form, and have a live session with them to discuss these doubts. Organising the live session through YouTube LiveStream avoids bandwidth issues since all students are then connected through YouTube and there is no increase in network pressure on any individual. YouTube LiveStream is free to use and very easy to set up.
It is important to note here that online education is not just restricted to offering formal courses and conducting formal exams online. One could simply record educational material and upload for informal learning. This is perhaps the most important feature of online education, that it is not necessarily tied to a formal degree requirement. There is a great need for educators all around the world to record lessons on important topics in interesting ways (even in regional languages) and make it available on various public platforms.
How do I record my lectures or lessons?
Many academic institutions nowadays have a professional recording setup which could be used for this purpose. However, it is also possible to do high quality recording at home just by using your laptop/tablet and freely available recording software (eg. QuickTime). On a laptop, you could prepare slides and then go through them while recording your voice explanation. A tablet offers the additional advantage of writing stuff, which is especially helpful while explaining mathematical concepts. There are also digital pens available which can be connected to a laptop.
One disadvantage of free recording software is that using these one can either record the screen or the video of the speaker at a time, but not both simultaneously. However, if you wish to record both, which surely enhances the learning experience, then you need to use paid software like Camtasia. This is used by NPTEL for its recording and editing, and works very well. Here is an example of a talk on "Biology and AI" recorded and edited using Camtasia.
One may say that there are already so many great online videos available on many topics by eminent global experts on the topic, and so why do we need to again record the same material? The point is that each person has his/her own distinct teaching style, which is likely to work for a limited number of students. Teaching is a lot about establishing a personal connect with the students. So, it is very much possible that students, especially in India, may prefer watching the videos of a teacher from Bhubaneswar or Bhopal, instead of someone from Boston or London.
How do I make my online videos interesting for the students?
One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. ‘Which road do I take?’ she asked. ‘Where do you want to go?’ was his response. ‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered. ‘Then,’ said the cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.’ ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
The goal of education is not entertainment. However, this surely does not mean that boredom is a teacher's ultimate goal. The point is that lectures or lessons delivered by the teacher should primarily aim at fulfilling the goal of education. Anything more is just a bonus. And the goal of education is to maximise learning. If the students are entertained in the process, nothing wrong with it. But aiming for entertainment can be quite misleading.
So then, what does it mean to maximise learning? First and foremost aspect of learning is clarity about the basic principles of the subject. So, the first goal of any lecture is to deliver the material in as clear a manner as possible so that the students can properly understand the basic concepts without getting unnecessarily confused. The second aspect is retentivity of the lesson. This is a very important issue nowadays since students are often so distracted that they very soon forget whatever has been taught to them. Many students don't remember what was covered in the previous class, let alone the previous week or the previous semester! In these times, ensuring retentivity is a huge task. One way to do it is to relate the subject being taught to examples that students encounter in their everyday lives. A better connection of the topic/concept with our daily lives helps in enhancing memory of the topic/concept. The third aspect is the end goal of the lecture, and here there are two possibilities. One could either be to teach in a way so as to enhance curiosity and take the students towards a research-like direction. Another is to teach in a way so as to enhance a particular skill and problem solving ability in a restricted domain. The adopted method of teaching depends a lot on which of these two end goals one wishes to pursue. Of course, it is very much possible to also aim for varying degrees of overlap between these two directions.
Beyond this, a lot obviously depends on the choice of words, voice quality and overall body language of the teacher. If the students feel comfortable in the presence of the teacher, the learnability is very likely to increase. There is also a great need to offer online courses in various regional languages since many students may not be very comfortable with English. One such course on "Signals & Systems" was offered in Hindi through NPTEL.
How do I conduct exams online?
If you are offering your course through an official online education organisation like NPTEL, edX, Coursera, etc., then they have their own mechanism of conducting online exams. However, if you wish to offer the online course on your own, then I strongly recommend using the platform called Examineer, developed at IISER Bhopal, which offers a very well designed interface for this purpose. In this Examineer portal, you can also randomise the numerical values of the questions and do many other interesting things, which are usually not possible on conventional online platforms. Examineer platform also offers the possibility of organising online Workshops on relevant topics. One such online Workshop on Machine Learning was organised recently using Examineer.
One may say that the disadvantage of online exams is that they have to be objective in nature and mostly reliant on MCQs and fill in the blanks, unlike offline exams where one can give subjective descriptive questions as well. This is a valid criticism, but its important to remember that we are talking about online education in the context of large number of students taking the same course. In this situation, it is almost impossible to properly evaluate descriptive answers to subjective questions in an unbiased manner. Also, it is possible to intelligently design objective questions so that students are made to think hard, and cannot just answer questions by using shortcuts.
How do I evaluate my online teaching process?
Thats a very complicated issue! Since the goal of education is not entertainment, evaluation of teaching cannot be done through a popularity contest. However, it is very important to collect feedback from students through an anonymous form and intelligently analyse the inputs received. I personally believe that if we look at the received feedback with honesty and an open mind, we will ourselves get to know whether we are doing a good job or not.
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