The medical school classes start at 8.30 am in the morning. Whoosh!
If our classes started at 8.30 in the morning, neither the teacher nor the students would be present. I learnt this the hard way. I think once I made a time table such that the 4th or the 2nd semester student started their day at 10 in the morning. There were no classes at 9.00am. As usual, I like to get the classes done and over with, I had the first class. So I went to the class at 10 am and guess what? No student was present! They sauntered in, some rushed in breathless, well past 10 in the morning. Nothing can be done! You can scold them, cajole them, plead with them, tell them to be punctual. Nothing works. The Indian Standard time says half hour past the scheduled hour and that is what they would adhere to. Finally, I learnt the bitter truth. What ever I do, the students are going to be late. Sometimes I tell them that they cannot enter the class but even that does not help!
The medical course is being seriously revamped. Of course they are spoon fed but that is not the point. The point is that there is a conscious effort made to improve the teaching methodology and course content.
Well, we too did a serious effort to revamp our teaching. After one year of deliberations, we restructured things. On paper it is very nice. In practice? Well, most of us cannot be bothered to change the way we teach, the kind of questions we ask, or the course content. So everything remains same.
I usually ask analytical questions in my exam. I want to know whether the students can analyze the data and whether they can design experiments. After all they are going to be scientists. However, some of the faculty members have been asking me to stop asking analytical questions. They feel it is too tough for the students. I try to explain to the concerned faculties that students can think if you allow them to. It is only when we tell them to regurgitate whatever they have learnt that they stop using their brains. Of course it does not wash with them. They keep telling me to stop asking analytical questions.
Maybe they are right. Maybe the questions are too tough. I do not know. The feedback I get from most of my students is that they enjoy these questions. Of course it is tough for some of them but then if they are going to do M.Sc and then PhD, they have to learn sometime to start thinking.
Actually, that is not the real reason I give such questions. Honestly speaking, I never know how to evaluate the essay type questions and the short notes. Am I supposed to go by the length? Am I supposed to be impressed by their ability to memorize? Am I supposed to marvel at their ability to write so much in such short time? What am I supposed to do?
1 comment:
Hmm, reminds me of the time that I took the UGC NET exam to qualify to teach at Indian universities. First, I was stunned to discover that you could opt to take the test in a sub-sub-branch of Economics, many of which were totally unknown to me. I chose Mathematical Economics: that seemed the safest as I thought at least I would not have to write some silly essays.
I was stunned to see that in a question paper of ten questions or so on Mathematical Economics, only two or so actually involved some Mathematics. The rest were all of the type of "write short notes on ..." or "write an essay on ..."! So once I was done with the mathematics (something taking about 10 minutes), I was left with nothing to do. There was a massive chunk of marks reserved for writing an essay on the Indian five-year plans - and this in the era when the five-year plans had been effectively dismantled.
So, if you have teachers qualifying to teach by writing such stupid exams, then what do you expect them to do other than teach their students the same way?
Tailpiece: I failed the exam the first time, wrote it a second time and told Appa that I was sure to fail this time too but I would not write this stupid exam again. To my shock, I passed. I took my friends out to dinner to "celebrate" on condition that they would not remind me of this exam and my shame (at passing) ever again.
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