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Abstracts
Keynote Lecture - "Learning to Fish: Students, Teachers, and Lifelong Learning"
Invited Lecture - "Defining Higher Education in the 21st Century"
Invited Lecture - "The Social-Academic Functions of Academic Staff"
Learning to Fish: Students, Teachers, and Lifelong Learning
Professor James Wilkinson, Harvard University
It seems obvious that lifelong learning should be one of the principal outcomes of university education. Once trained, our students should be able to sustain their intellectual growth after graduation. Since the subjects they have studied will continue to expand and alter, their knowledge of those subjects must expand and alter as well. The true test of university education, one might say, is not how well students perform in class, but how well they perform in the world. The term "transfer of learning" is often used to gauge just such performance.
Yet traditional teaching methods often militate against lifelong learning and impede transfer of skills. They depend for their efficacy on both the presence of a teacher and an incentive system within the university. They teach material in a context inseparable from the university setting. The challenge of lifelong learning is to make it possible for students to learn outside that setting, while using tools they have acquired within. While the knowledge content of intellectual disciplines will change over time, student learning skills should not lose their efficacy once students have left the precincts of the classroom.
How can we define the difference between what we might term "university learning" and "lifelong learning"? I believe the principal difference can be defined as that between simple transmission and inquiry-based teaching. Transmission offers students the fruits of research. Inquiry initiates them into the actual methods of research. There is an old saying that if you give someone a fish, you feed him for a day; if you teach him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. Similarly, if we transmit knowledge to students, we feed them while they remain in the classroom. If we teach them how to do research and acquire knowledge on their own, we feed them for life.
Five steps must occur before students understand material in a way which would conform to a research model of learning: (1) curiosity (the "need to know"); (2) questioning; (3) hypotheses based on the questions; (4) information gathered in response to the hypotheses; and (5) a conclusion (hypothesis confirmed or refuted by the information). Traditional teaching eliminates the first three steps and begins with (4), the transmission of information. To prepare students for lifelong learning, we therefore need to emphasize the first three steps, especially (2), questioning. The art of asking questions, of being curious and mentally alive, informs research and, indeed, all creative activities. It is also susceptible to being taught. Education for lifelong learning needs to take as a primary goal education in asking questions.
Education for lifelong learning also needs to focus on rewards. While at university, of course, the reward structure is present and obvious - grades, citations, diplomas, and the less official but equally important informal support of faculty and colleagues. Lifelong learning, however, implies an internal source of reward. Here again, inquiry or research provides an alternative model. For just as the researcher gains pleasure from the process of inquiry, and thus is able to pursue studies long after leaving the classroom, so a lifelong learner must enjoy the process as well as the outcome. Here the concept of metacognition - being aware of how we learn as we learn - can direct our efforts at training students for lifelong learning. If we can enable them to monitor their own learning while at university, to know what they do not know and to take pleasure in expanding their knowledge, then they can more easily supply the faculty role for themselves after graduation.
Thinking about lifelong learning as an outcome of university education requires above all a shift in perspective. Many of its key elements already exist. Some of us practice research within sight of our students; others encourage metacognitive skills. What remains is to do these things purposively and systematically with an increased understanding of their importance. We need to take the long view that skills are as important as content, and that the ability to perform well outside the classroom is the crucial test of a successful education. We need to know that our students have become their own teachers. We need to know for certain that long after they have left the classroom, they will still be able to fish.
Problem-Based Learning In Medical Education: The McMaster Initiative And Experience Over More Than Three Decades
Professor David Kwan, Mcmaster University
The concept of problem-based learning/teaching, generally referred to as PBL, currently practiced in medical education in many medical institutions in the US (25%) and Canada (50%), originated at McMaster University about 40 years ago when a new medical Faculty was being planned. During its evolution over more than 3 decades since the 1st intake of medical students in 1969, PBL at McMaster has been subject to continuing experimentation, assessment and improvement to achieve today's worldwide recognition of its success in the education and training of medical professionals. However, skepticism, bias and controversy against PBL still prevail in many medical institutes and among teachers, particularly in regions where conventional didactic teaching is a norm in higher education and where research in medical education is only next to none. PBL is a concept of learning much more than a method of learning. PBL is based on common sense in professional adult learning much more than new methodology in instructional rote learning. PBL presents itself in many faces in Institutes currently adopting PBL curriculum resulting in various "clones", probably because of constrains in resources, educational policies, compromise with resistance within the faculty to curriculum changes or even ignorance. In the PBL originated from McMaster University, students take the management of learning into their own hands (student-centered learning and self-directed learning). Teachers facilitate the "learning process" instead of infusing/dictating the "knowledge content". The health-care problems are the basis for "active learning" rather than the template solely for "problem-solving". Conventional examinations with emphasis solely on the "quantity" of knowledge content are largely eliminated and replaced by continuing assessment with equal focus on the "quality" of learning process. The learning approach is the "in-time" approach (you learn those when you would need to use them) rather than the "in-case" approach (you learn those in case you might need them). The learning environment is "community-based" rather than class-room based". Students have early clinical/patient exposure and participate in community health-care activities as early as within the first month of entering medical school. Another important component of the PBL learning environment at McMaster University is the "small-group tutorials" with an average group size of less than 7 including the tutor. Without the small-group discussions (to be distinguished from small-class didactic teaching in some conventional clinical tutorials), the true spirit of PBL of McMaster philosophy (as outlined above) will be very difficult, if not impossible, to reach its full educational potential.
Defining Higher Education in the 21st Century
Professor Chong Chi Tat, National University of Singapore
The dawn of the twenty-first century is seen as one where world economy is very much integrated and knowledge-based. Countries compete for talent and those that succeed emerge as winners. Talent is but only raw material. Its nurturing and development are the crucial tasks of a university. This paper discusses the role the National University of Singapore can and should play in and outside the country, and discusses some of the problems and issues in teaching and learning it faces in assuming that role.
The Social-Academic Functions of Academic Staff
Professor Hang Chang Chieh, National University of Singapore
Academic staff in good research-intensive universities are often urged to follow the model of a scholar-teacher. This requires the academic staff to engage in up-to-date research so that they can teach authoritatively, inspire students to develop interests in the subject and to challenge them intellectually. Other important "social" functions of academic staff which are increasingly relevant to educational goals, however, have not received sufficient attention to-date. A glance at the university goals, including those in the most prestigious universities in the world, would confirm that the softer aspect of university education should be given due emphasis although it is much harder to quantify. Such educational goals include effective student counselling in order to influence their positive attitude towards independent, life-long learning and in inspiring them to pursue challenging careers.
The social-academic functions have become more critical as academic institutions abandon the outmoded 'teacher as a sage' to embrace the 'teacher as a guide/facilitator' model. The teachers will seek to create an environment in which students would discover the key to knowledge for themselves. In addition to emotional support, the teachers will need to deal with the diversity of concerns, learning styles, backgrounds and talents among students. They will also need to be facilitators for team building and collaborative learning. A more comprehensive model is that of "Problem-based Learning" pioneered by the medical profession and increasingly being emulated by the engineering and other professions. In a small group setting, the teacher could also help students identify their strengths and interests and subsequently set goals and "customise" their education to achieve these goals. All these scenarios will extend beyond undergraduate education to postgraduate education and life-long education of graduates.
In the professional disciplines, another increasingly evident social-academic function of scholar-teachers is due to their well respected status in the professional community. Teachers are a community's representatives for the young and for others who seek recognition as a practising member of that community. The teachers can show students the ways of the community and the practices and skills needed to function in the community. Examples of such communities include those of specialists, consultants, academia, researchers and business. With professionals changing jobs more frequently and with the need for life-long learning in the 21st century knowledge-based economy, successful scholar-teachers will find themselves well sought after as life-long career mentors and allies for professional social networks.