Gaping holes: Make classrooms interactive: educators

Researchers highlight gaps in teaching techniques, suggest remedial measures.

ISLAMABAD:

Questioning the decadent teaching standards speakers at a conference said that engaging students in the classrooms is a big challenge for the academics.

Inaugurating the conference, Fatima Jinnah Women University (FJWU) Vice Chancellor (VC) Samina Amin said the current system is textbook-focused and teacher-centred, where students remain passive listeners.

The three-day conference titled “Engaging the Learner: Rethinking Education” concluded at the FJWU campus on Wednesday. Some 50 researches presented papers at the conference that was organised by the Education Department of FJWU in collaboration with the Higher Education Commission.

“Learning is not the name of any degree. It’s an attitude. It’s how we react to situations,” said the VC.

Speakers during last session said that such events not only provide theoretical and practical framework to the students but also help them effectively address the emerging challenges in the education sector.

Telling is not teaching and listening is not learning, which is always assumed in general. “You should know where you want to go and you need to have a vision” said Amin while addressing the students.

“Poor teaching leads to poor learning,” said Kohat University of Science and Technology assistant professor Ishtiaq Hussain during his presentation which studied the students’ learning behaviours at the elementary level.

Shaista Bibi, a PhD student at the University of Sydney, said that use of technology can change the way the students behave in the classroom.

The presenters discussed their researches under six themes: how to learn, approach to learning, approach to teaching, learner and learning environment, application of technology in education and rethinking education.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 13^th, 2014.