agile practices in higher education: a case study
TRANSCRIPT
Agile Practices in Higher Education: A Case Study
Venkatesh Kamat
Goa University
Outline
• Motivation for Agile framework in Education
• Proposed Agile Manifesto in education
• Case Study
• Conclusion
• Q & A
19th Feb 2012 2Agile India 2012
Software development Game
Key Actors in the Game– Programmer / Developer – Customer / Client– Collaboration results in Software
DeveloperCustomerSoftware
Collaborate
19th Feb 2012 3Agile India 2012
Education Game
Key Actors in the Game– Teacher / Institute– Employer / Industry– Student
Teacher / InstitutionEmployer / IndustryStudent
Collaborate?
19th Feb 2012 4Agile India 2012
Present Scenario
• Academic programs are rigid and uses waterfall process model in delivery
• Most academic programs are fixed time, fixed cost and fixed scope projects
• Change is a bureaucratic process and on an average cycle time is 3-4 years
• There is over emphasis on what can be taught than what need to be taught
19th Feb 2012 5Agile India 2012
Present Scenario cont…
• Students graduate with little practical skills, no idea of industry expectations
• There is over compartmentalization of education and no time for integration
• Instead of resolving the problem, industry has found its own quick fix solutions
19th Feb 2012 6Agile India 2012
Frustration!
• Industry– They don’t understand what we want
• Academia– They don’t know what our problems are
• Student– Confused, eager to join industry only to get
more confused
• There is lot of duplication of efforts, waste of time & resources, is anybody listening?
19th Feb 2012 7Agile India 2012
Blame Game – Industry View
• Institutions teach things that are not relevant
• Marks in the exam is no proof of actual skills
• Institutions teach as if all students are going to be researchers
• Institutions are bureaucratic, they are tightly controlled bodies and averse to change
• and so on . . .
19th Feb 2012 8Agile India 2012
Blame Game - Academic View
• We teach fundamentals, platform specific skills is not our forte
• We expect industry participation if they want better output
• We are paid peanuts, what better can you expect?
• Our environments are not inspiring, come and work here then talk
19th Feb 2012 9Agile India 2012
Blame game doesn’t fix the bug
• Understand the process of education
• Three key processes in education are– Teaching– Evaluation – Administration
• The quality of education is directly related to quality of these 3 processes
19th Feb 2012 10Agile India 2012
Current Trend in Education• Cost of education is rising
• Classroom size is becoming bigger
• Conventional classroom teaching ineffective
• Education is being looked upon as investment
• Education has become a serious business
19th Feb 2012 11Agile India 2012
Current Profile – Student
• Limited attention span
• Well informed, well versed with technology
• Visually oriented
• Impatient, eager to experiment
• Finds stereotype teaching boring
19th Feb 2012 12Agile India 2012
Current Teaching/Evaluation Practices
• Engaging class is important but …
• Accountability is limited to attendance
• Lot of teacher time spent on mundane jobs
• Chalk & talk has no scope for reusability
• Focus is on scoring marks then knowing
• Essay type questions lack application
19th Feb 2012 13Agile India 2012
Current Administrative Woes
• Procedures more important then outcome • Excessive worry about misuse before use• Control mindset disabling than enabling• Compliance scores over Competence• System encourages/propagates mediocrity• Lack of trust in teacher and the system • System converts assets into liability
19th Feb 2012 14Agile India 2012
Agile manifesto in Education
• Teachers and Students over Administration and Infrastructure
• Competence and Collaboration over Compliance and Competition
• Employability and Marketability over Syllabus and Marks
• Attitude and Learning skills over Aptitude and formal degree
19th Feb 2012 15Agile India 2012
What skills are important?
• Problem solving skills are more important rather than rote learning
• Classroom control through engagement is more important rather than discipline
• Ability to ask right question is more important rather than knowing all answers
• Formulating a problem is more important rather than solving it in gory detail
19th Feb 2012 16Agile India 2012
Change in attitude - Teacher
• Figure of authority to a facilitator– Sage on the stage to guide by the side
• Know it all to let me know– Open to new ideas of teaching-learning
• Innovative in order to be effective– Explore opportunities to use new technologies
19th Feb 2012 17Agile India 2012
Do not reinvent the wheel
• Use internet resources judiciously
• Download – Modify – Reuse but…
• Content has its own life cycle
• Use technology effectively for engagement
19th Feb 2012 18Agile India 2012
Take feedback often
• Student is evaluated once in a while, but teacher is evaluated everyday
• Evaluation is the only way to know how much student has misunderstood
• Evaluation only determines what student doesn't know and not what student knows
• Earlier you detect the misunderstanding, easier it is to fix it
19th Feb 2012 19Agile India 2012
Food for thought!
• Each student learns differently than why all students should pass in same time?
• What is the competence of a student who has scored 40% marks in an exam?
• Why each teacher should prepare her own lecture content?
• How do we move from just-in-case to just-in-time delivery model?
19th Feb 2012 20Agile India 2012
Case Study - PGDCET
• 500 ICT school teachers being trained
• Teachers spread across 350+ schools
• Training conducted across 11 colleges
• Master trainers – to prepare content
• College teachers – to deliver the material
• All interactions hosted through Moodle – Learning Management System (LMS)
19th Feb 2012 21Agile India 2012
Conclusion
• Technologies are necessary to address the problem of – Lack of experienced teacher – Scalability – Effective & Efficient delivery
• But technology is not a substitute for good teaching
19th Feb 2012 22Agile India 2012
Conclusion
• There is an urgent need to apply agile framework to education system before it goes through heavy process orientation
• Lightweight process framework like Agile is recommended to educational setup
• Our experience shows that it is very much possible to put these practices in use provided there is will and commitment
19th Feb 2012 23Agile India 2012
Q & A?
Thank You!