Rajat Saigal :: Blog

I was challenged to provide 10 facts about learning that are scientifically proven and interesting for teachers. The problem I had was whittling it down to ten!

 

So here goes:

1. Spaced practice
Perhaps the most significant fact we know about learning, yet it is almost completely ignored by the 'curse of the course and classroom'. We learn through practice, little and often. Ebbinghaus proved it in 1885, and almost everyone in the learning profession has studiously ignored it for well over a century. Demster reported this sad state of affairs in American Psychologist (The Spacing Effect: A Case Study in the Failure to Apply the Results of Psychological Research, 1988). We forget things quickly and that the most effective way to prevent this forgetting is to practice at spaced intervals over time. Knowledge is easy to learn but hard to retain. Forget this and you condemn yourself to, at best to unnecessary effort in learning, at worst failing to learn much at all – the true story behind most learning effort.

2. Cognitive overload
This well know phenomenon is extremely common in teaching and training. A lack of understanding about how memory works leads to a lack of preparation of material in terms of size, order and engagement, leading to weak encoding, a lack of deep processing then poor retention and recall. Almost all courses are too long, present material in the wrong way and lead to unnecessary forgetting. Simplify to prevent cognitive overload.

3. Chunking
Perhaps the easiest and simplest piece of learning theory to put into practice. Chunking means being sensitive to the limitation of working memory. Less is more in learning and distilling, rather than enhancing, elaborating and creating lots of distracting noise, is a virtue in teaching. Unfortunately the ‘song and dance’ act in the classroom is often cacophonous.

4. Order
The order you learn things is critical to how they will be stored and recalled, yet education and training continues to jumble and confuse content. This is critical in language learning, science, maths and indeed, every subject. Learn things in the wrong order and you’ll end up having to unlearn.

5. Episodic and semantic memory
Once you understand that the things we learn are stored differently, i.e. we have different types of memory, then you’ll be more sensitive to the necessary differences in teaching. We still have far too much reliance on text (semantic) for subjects that need a visual (episodic) approach. You see this everywhere, from text heavy PowerPoints to whiteboards, manuals and hand-outs.

6. Psychological attention
Learning does not take place without psychological attention, so setting up classrooms and scenarios that inhibit attention, or distract from learning, is massively counter-productive. I fear that much so called ‘collaborative learning’ falls into this trap. Cramming 30 plus teenagers into a small, airless classroom is no way to encourage attention. There are at least 30 other human distractions, the windows and daydreaming to content with. The bottom line is that most learning is best done on your own or one-to-one.

7. Context
We know that recall is enhanced by learning in the physical context in which one is expected to perform. Yet most teaching is done in alien environments – classrooms ad training centres. We have plenty of proof that work-placed learning needs to be massively increased and non-contextual classroom teaching decreased.

8. Learn by doing
From William James and John Dewy through to Kolb and Schank, we’ve had a torrent of theory showing that we learn lots by doing, yet much teaching and training is locked into a over-theoretical, knowledge and not skills, model. There is a barely a subject around in schools ad training that wouldn’t benefit from a boost in experiential learning.

9. Understand ‘peer’ groups
The work of Judith Harris (The Nurture Assumption) will change the whole way you look at parenting and teaching. Her revolutioary scientific work showed that most books on parenting and teaching overestimate the influence of parents and teachers, and under-estimate the role of genetics and peer pressure. There are some real and practical steps one can take to avoid the obvious traps. These are largely ignored in education and training. Read the book.

10. Murder the myths
This is perhaps the most useful piece of scientific advice for teachers and trainers – dump the snakeoil techniques. These include learning styles, playing music while you learn, Brain Gym, left-right brain theories, NLP, stating the objectives at the start of a course…the list goes on.

Conclusion
Many teaching practices are in direct opposition to the psychology of learning. When it comes to education and training, the professions have doggedly chosen unproven pedagogy over prove psychology. This is why so little progress has been made, and why huge amounts of extra funding leads to such razor thin, marginal improvement. There are literally dozes of proven findings in the science of experimental psychology that are largely ignored. This is what the Bristol study I referred to in my Paxman piece is so worrying.

 

Awesome video featuring Michael and Daler in Britain's got talent....

 

Neeraj Trivedi is an unlikely role model for the thousands of young teenagers who're preparing to take their Indian Institute of Management exams.

Search for "fresh management graduates + entrepreneurs" on Google and an Indian website for start-ups is likely to pop up as the first result.

The site, www.startups.in, profiles the likes of Trivedi, true, but it's unlikely to set the hearts of a few hundreds who've set their sights on corporate jobs, beating for him. Trivedi, an alumni of IIM-Lucknow, works for the non-government organisation Pratham.

Yet, Trivedi is no longer the exception among IIM graduates. Every year, as over 1,800 students pass out of the hallowed walls of India's premier management institutes, at least a few are choosing to stay away from the big bucks placement offers that their peers take for granted.

A few of those, as is evident from www.startups.in, are turning entrepreneurs, some like Trivedi are turning to NGOs because "desh ke liye kuch karna hain  (I have to do something for the country)", as he says.

When Trivedi passed out of his alma mater in 2007, his deliberate career choice - he says he is probably earning just 30 per cent of what his fellow-grads make - couldn't have left his family unhappier. "Sitamarhi [a small district on the Bihar-Nepal border]," he admits, "may not be the most exciting location, but at least it provides me with inner satisfaction."

Like him, Deepak Dhamija, a graduate from IIM-Calcutta, opted to stay away from summer placements to work for Basics, an organisation in Vidarbha engaged in providing micro-finance to farmers. In B-school parlance, they now call this phenomenon OOPS (out of placement season).

Once, a placement dropout might have been considered maverick, but today their number is swelling as Ankur Gattani and Aditya Kumar, both from IIM-Calcutta, Hemant Bansal from IIM-Lucknow, Ankit Mathur, Satvik Upadhyaya and Nirmal Kumar from IIM-Ahmedabad, Dhruv Bhushan and Anubhav Jain from IIM-Indore set their own course to go chasing their dreams.

What's egging these youngsters on? What's causing the burst of entrepreneurial spurt in the campuses of these red-bricked management schools as they've turned to alternate options within the social sector, on online portals, in manufacturing units, or in consulting arms?

Why have these youngsters spurned tempting offers from the corporate world (and earned parental disapproval) to either start their own ventures, or listen to the drumbeats of their hearts?

Inspired by the likes of Trivedi and Dhamija, Aditya Kumar, a first-year-student at IIM-Calcutta, will intern this summer at an NGO called Solace in Assam's Kamrup district. His motivation? "In Assam and other North-eastern states, insurgency, terrorism and violence are major problems, as a result of which other burning issues are neglected."

The consequence has been a lack of development in the region. "Solace is an initiative to look at neglected aspects such as rural distress, lack of education and child labour," Kumar explains.

While a few are committed to ironing out social disparities, several more are testing the unchartered waters of start-ups and entrepreneurship. "It makes more sense to start my own venture and apply the B-school management techniques I've learnt in my own company rather than follow someone else's orders," says Hemant Bansal. Bansal is planning a manufacturing unit in the national capital region that will employ 50-100 workers to begin with.

If entrepreneurship was once a dirty word that conjured up images of personal greed, for IIM-Ahmedabad's Nirmal Kumar it represents a personal opportunity. He could have been one among those young bright graduates to bag stunning offers from major corporate houses.

Instead, he chose to start his own outdoor advertising company. The idea struck when he observed the thousands of passengers who were forced to spend time at railway stations where such hoardings had the best chance of catching their attention.

"There is a lack of innovation in the outdoor media and most people are losing out on customers' attention because they are not willing to move away from traditional media," he explains. "By setting up innovative advertisement boards and devices, an advertiser can get the best reinforcement for his product."

It wasn't innovation but numbers that inspired Ankit Mathur and Satvik Upadhyaya of IIM-Ahmedabad, Neha Juneja of the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi, and a fourth partner to launch an online portal, www.aisapaisa.com, to provide simple access to credible and relevant information to retail investors on futures trading.

Elsewhere, Dhruv Bhushan and Anubhav Jain of IIM-Indore have already launched their online venture - a book building website called www.ourownbook.com. It's quite incredible, actually. The site provides its readers with a storyline that needs to be developed. Once the plot is complete, the story will be considered for print.

The site has already had 50,000 hits and 200 members have registered. Says Bhushan, "From completing a story, we plan to move into writing short stories, biographies and even films." So far, Bhushan and Jain have funded the venture through their own savings, but a massive expansion plan will require a fresh flow of funds.

Ankur Gattani, the only student from IIM-Calcutta's 2006-08 batch to opt out of the final placements, has initiated a portal called www.lifeinlines.com, and is the founder and CEO of Onelife Knowledge Services.

Currently in the test-run phase, the portal is being managed by Apex Division, an offshore software outsourcing company specialising in web design and development.

Is the money easy to find? Hardly. Even the confident Nirmal Kumar did not have it easy when it came to launching his outdoor advertising idea at Ahmedabad. Finance was his biggest constraint, and his humble background meant there was nothing to fall back on should he fail to find the initial capital.

Fortunately for him, an angel investor provided the push with Rs 20 lakh. "The response has been phenomenal and the venture will now be taken forward to four more stations in Gujarat, for which I am in talks with the Western Railways. I am also looking for a similar tie-up with the Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation," he says.

For the promoters of aisapaisa.com, money was never a concern. They knew the venture did not require a huge amount of capital since the information would be sourced and analysed by them.  Pooling in the money earned from their summer internships and collecting some from their families, the four decided on a unique model.

"We do not want to confuse the visitor on our website so we will not be accepting advertisements, and are confident of earning revenues through the services we provide," says Juneja. The venture has already procured a tie-up with a news channel and the National Stock Exchange for information.

"Other than live news that trickles in from the news channel, we will also provide market forecasts, market data, analysis of the day's stock movements and other self-analysed data on a minute-to minute basis every day," she says.

Upadhyaya insists that opting out of the placements wasn't a big deal considering they now have a chance to do what they love doing - trade on futures and help other retail investors do the same. The entrepreneurs are looking to emulate the Facebook social networking model of functioning where equity is offered at the right time. On the anvil are new modules to help the retail investor and a website in Hindi.

At the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, Sanjana Rao and Pradeep Machieni have collected investments worth $150,000 for their nanotechnology company and are looking at raising another $10 million over the next couple of years.

On the other hand, thanks to a booming family business, Hemant Bansal of IIM-Lucknow does not feel threatened by a lack of funds. "I am looking for a private/equity investor while I plan to put in 20-30 per cent of the money. Even if I don't, I am sure I can manage the initial investment," he hazards.

These stories aren't entirely new to India's premium management institutes. In previous years too, students have displayed their appetite for taking business risks. Last year, Sreeram Vaidya-nathan decided to set up an entertainment lounge in Bangalore called Brewhaha. And even as he battles attrition, the quintessential manager is already planning six more Brewhahas across Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai.

Four IIM-A students last year started their own online venture, tenaday.co.in, to provide coaching for the CAT examination, which is the gateway to the IIMs and other, similar institutions.

"Management lessons help you take risks and build confidence levels," says another student at IIM-Kozhikode whose breakaway career includes making a directorial debut and launching his own film company.

Brave words, especially when ma and pa back home fail to understand the compulsions that egg these placement dropouts on. The result is a lonely life, especially when one's peers seem to rise effortlessly up the corporate ladder. "Sometimes I am filled with doubts," confesses Nirmal Kumar.

"But when I think about the future, I'm sure no other job will match my professional growth." Perhaps he should paint these words like a slogan on his outdoor hoardings - for he's hoping that when it comes to summer internships for the next batch of students, they'll turn to him rather than the multinationals to catch some of his contagious entrepreneurial spirit.

The man who wants to create a McDonald's-style chain of Indian-Chinese food insists there's a subtle difference between improvising and massacring a cuisine.

A little over four years ago, when Ashish Kapur quit his job as an engineer with GE, packed his bags and came back home from America, his parents were appalled. "No one in my family had been an entrepreneur till then, not even working in the private sector, everyone had been in government service," he says.

Worse, Kapur was to meet his prospective in-laws, out-of-work, sans even the economic security that family money can provide. "My wife married me when I was jobless," he chuckles, clearly savouring his tale as much as the crispy pork spring rolls on our table. Within three months of that eventful day, however, Kapur was in business, quite literally.

The first Yo! China outlet was on its feet in Delhi, all bright and shiny and dare we say plastic-y (in a McDonald's sort of way, clearly an inspiration). And Kapur was well on his way to creating a pan-Indian brand that would aspire to parallel the Big Mac - only it would serve up the "aspirational" Indian-Chinese to the aam janta; manchurian, chilli chicken, cliches and cornflour, (but also the relatively unheard of dim sums, of which the company has gone on to sell more than 10 million pieces in its four years, I am told ) packaged as contemporary fast food for everyone from the average Joe at the BPO to the multiplex-goer to a small-towner in Patna, where a Yo! China "store" has just opened, making it the only branded food outlet in that city.

Spice Route, the superb restaurant at the Imperial, New Delhi, has not been the first choice for this lunch. Ashish Kapur has, as expected, suggested, that we meet at his flagship Yo! China store. He tells me (later) that he eats there four times a week, takes his wife and kid out to the same and conducts business such as this out of its premises, and that he "honestly" does not feel the need to go anywhere else for Chinese food.

The cuisine is clearly his favourite but when he asks, "What is the difference between Yo! China and this (Spice Route)?" quite rhetorically, as if the answer could be nothing but "no difference", I almost choke on the water I am sipping.

Then, he adds, "If you say, 'ambience', I would have no issue. But if you say, 'food', I don't buy that." I try to gently point out that there is a (huge) difference between what we'll be eating here and the Yo! China fare I've sampled earlier (and only once not regretted) and jump into a huge discussion on cuisines, their migration, authenticity, organised food retail in India ("350 million people multiplied by three meals a day equals an opportunity of a billion meals") and so on.

This is a discussion that will finally end in Kapur conceding that yes, consistency can be a problem in a chain operation the size of Yo! China, that yes, he's actively tackling it, and that yes, his menu needs revision "very soon" since Indians have developed more sophistication in these four years than chilli chicken dunked in huge amounts of "gravy" would suggest. He invites me to future food tastings and it is a conciliatory note that we manage to strike. But first, the order.

"Let's order chilli chicken?" Kapur says, quite dead-pan. And then seeing my grin says, "You'd be surprised at how many people would still order that even in restaurants such as these." I acknowledge the truth of the matter but the Spice Route, which does a fine act of balancing the creativity of its chef (the redoubtable Veena Arora) with populism, does not have declasse dishes such as the above.

Not to be outdone, Kapur asks the waiter, "So, what do you have that's closest to chilli chicken?" The waiter must have heard that one before because he's quick to point out Kai Phirk Thai Dum, Thai-style, stir-fried chicken that turns out to be quite excellent.

Digging into it, I ask Kapur whether he gets upset at all when people deride Indian-Chinese that he's so successfully peddling (40 outlets, 12 cities, ambitious plans of taking Yo! China global in a McDonald's like fashion since there are no truly "global Chinese food chains").

He philosophises, "There's a difference between improvising and massacring a cuisine." By his complicated logic, massacring would involve the likes of sending ketchup sachets with, say, take-away pizza (or spring rolls?).

"Some Indian chains did that in the beginning. But you would notice Pizza Hut never does that," he says. "We also have a responsibility of educating customers, after all." Improvising, on the other hand, could mean a "sambhar cooked in a north Indian home" that may taste nothing like the original but would still find takers.

That's the equivalent of manchurian, invented in India and American chopsuey as we know it, neither American nor Chinese. It's a thin divide and Kapur clearly sees himself on the right side.

Our main course has arrived - in a break from Chinese, this is minced chicken with basil (Thai) and coconut-flavoured fish (south Indian). Kapur, still in a ponderous mood, says "Coconut is one of those difficult flavours." The other is garlic. What he means is that there is less mass acceptance for such flavours in his line of work (local sensitivities mean that there is a Jain-Chinese Yo! China outlet in Ahmedabad) and thus dishes obviously need to be tailored accordingly.

He admits that Chinese chefs whom he hires from the Mainland or centres such as Hong Kong are shocked by such tailoring required to suit Indian palates. "On the other hand, the world of food is increasingly getting globalised," he points out, "I was at a restaurant in Hong Kong, for instance, where they were serving naan with authentic Chinese food!"

Besides, Indian-Chinese is clearly the flavour of the moment. "We may deride it but the world over, people are consciously looking for its flavours." His dream of growing a McDonald's style chain in the next few years clearly has potential.

What's more, with Matrix India having recently invested in the company, the growth plan to take the brand "everywhere, anytime"- to airports, leisure complexes, home delivery (the fastest growing segment in food retail) - is well underway.

But such ambition can be punishing. Kapur sighs at the 14-18 hour days he needs to put in, says that his wife has banned all newspapers from his house on Sundays, and he certainly misses his days in America when his time was indeed his own.

"I didn't even have my boss' mobile phone number. People respected your leisure time and if something was to be discussed, it would be in office." In India, obviously, things don't work the same way and the biggest myth, Kapur says, is the fact that labour is cheap here because "for every one person who is supposed to work, you need to hire two more to ensure that!"

Our lunch is almost at an end now. The forks have been pushed away. Kapur, ever the gentleman, offers to pay. When I decline, he says, "Oh! But would you mind if I packed (the leftovers) and took this?" That's to give to the beggars on Delhi's roads and traffic stops. I nod.

As we step out, our guest touchingly confides a stray thought. "Once I gave some Thai red curry to a man on the street but wonder later whether he liked the flavour." We don't know if he did. On the other hand, the promised new flavours at Yo! China may find larger approval.

 

Anoothi Vishal | May 06, 2008

http://www.rediff.com/

 

Today Sony researchers in Tokyo unveiled a digital SLR component that's actually drool-worthy: a CMOS sensor the size of 35mm film that registers 24.81 effective megapixels—close to 26 million total. It's also built for speed with an all-pixel scan time of 6 frames per second, in 12-bit color. Sony isn't about to pop it in one of its Alpha models, at least not as far as we can tell. In fact, Nikon would be a more likely customer for this sucker when it ships this summer, the better to compete with Canon's $8,000 EOS-1Ds Mark III DSLR, which has its own 21.1-megapixel full-frame CMOS. (Those pro guys really like it when their sensors are the same size as the film they used to use.) Now, who ever said the megapixel race was over? Cuz they're wrong. Press release after the jump. [sony]

Sony Develops 35mm full size CMOS Image Sensor with 24.81 Effective Mega pixel resolution and extremely high signal conversion speed for use in Digital SLR Cameras

~ All-pixel scan mode of 6.3 frame/s ~

Tokyo, Japan - Sony Corporation today announced the development of a 35mm full size (diagonal:43.3mm/Type 2.7) 24.81 effective megapixel, ultra-high speed high image quality CMOS image sensor designed to meet the increasing requirement for rapid image capture and advanced picture quality within digital SLR cameras.

Development background
In recent years, the demand for digital SLR cameras featuring high resolution and wide graduation ranges capable of capturing every detail of the subject matter has continued to increase, particularly among high-end amateur users. Additionally, the increasing user requirement to shoot from the same focal length and angle as 35mm film cameras using interchangeable lenses has led to significant interest in the development of 35mm, full size CMOS image sensors.

However, there are a number of technical challenges to developing full (large) size image sensors, such as the propagation delay caused by using extended power circuitry and signal lines, and the difficulty of maintaining uniform sensitivity and signal saturation across the surface of the screen.

Furthermore, because current semiconductor exposure systems are unable to cover the entire chip surface of 35mm full size CMOS image sensors, multiple exposures are required. This results in the difficulty of accurately controlling exposure variance and matching circuit patterns.

Advantages of this device
The newly developed CMOS image sensor combines unique circuit design technology with Sony's advanced fabrication expertise, including a system of joining multiple exposed patterns together and advanced planarization for minimizing fluctuation, to realize 35mm, full size, 24.81 effective megapixel resolution. Sony's"Column-Parallel A/D Conversion Technique"also provides each column within the sensor with its own A/D converter, minimizing image degradation caused by the noise that arises during analog processing while at the same time delivering an extremely high signal conversion speed.

The enhanced image quality generated by the sensor's 24.81 effective megapixel resolution, wide range of graduation expression achieved by its full size broad dynamic range, and the low noise, high resolution, ultra-responsive performance provided by Sony's Column-Parallel A/D Conversion technique enable it to meet the ever-increasing requirements within high performance digital SLR cameras.

Sony will target for mass production of this CMOS image sensor within this year.

＜Major features＞
１）High picture quality in 35mm full size image sensor with 24.81M effective pixels
２）"Column-Parallel A/D Conversion method" achieves high S/N and high-speed imaging
・CDS/PGA(24dB)Circuit （PGA: Programmable Gain Amplifier）
・12bit-AD Converter on chip
・Diversified readout mode
・All-pixel scan mode 6.3 frame/s (12bit)
・Window readout
３）High-speed digital output（12 channel parallel LVDS output）

＜Device Structure＞
Image size Diagonal width 43.3mm (Type 2.7)
Total number of pixels 6236(H) x 4124(V) approx. 25.72M pixels
Number of effective pixels 6104(H) x 4064(V) approx.24.81M pixels
Number of active pixels 6096(H) x 4056(V) approx.24.73M pixels
Chip size 41.0mm (H) x 31.9 mm (V)
Unit cell size 5.94μm (H) x 5.94μm (V)

From: http://gizmodo.com/

MacBook Air the thinnest laptop by apple

here have a look

http://www.apple.com/education/ 

It appears that we will be seeing the long awaited Google Phone sooner than we originally thought. This has been a long running saga where the original stories began to break about the phone, followed swiftly by all the rumors about what it may do, what it cannot do and so on, until it reaches the point where we all wonder if this is really ever going to happen at all. So what has the Google phone got in store for us?Rumours are that the Google phone will be using the Texas instrument 3G phone platform, and will of course have Gmail, Gtalk, Google Maps and anything else that is available with a “G” in front of it, so lets hope that it is great! There has been little information regarding the networks that the phone will be available to. According to many sources the phones must be nearing a launch date, as the manufacturers Taiwan based phone maker High Tech Computer are said to be preparing for the first shipments by the end of this year, 2007. This means that there will be a build up to a massive launch in early 2008!