Prof. T. V. Rao
Many organizations are
these days talking about Online Education. MOOCs seem to be quite popular. I
like to share some of my thoughts on this for Asian minds.
I have been personally
associated with developing programmed instruction material much before the IT
and other technological developments of recent times. I was trained and
certified in Self- Instructional
material in 1968-69 by NCERT at the beginning of my carrier. We have trained
number of trainers in organizations like State Bank of India in late sixties. I
also developed programmed Instructional materials for topics research methods.
A large part of the self-instructional material being developed today is based
on B F Skinner's work on learning theories (The art of teaching and science of
Learning) and “Teaching Machines”.
However we did not
pursue this method much in those days, as after some time it was felt that
self-instructional material are for subjects like Science and Mathematics-as a
lot of complex information has to be broken down and presented in a simple way
for people to understand. It was felt humanities and social sciences don't need
such self instructional material as they are not concepts and equations to
follow. At times it was also felt that programmed instruction is meant for less
intelligent people with comprehension challenges.
However, late eighties
and nineties have popularized the auto-instructional or self-learning material
thanks to the need for multiplying IT professionals of different kinds. So,
online education with self-instructional material has become popular with IT
professionals in the last decade and a half. Many IT companies started buying
packages of on line materials to teach soft skills like negotiation
communication, leadership, sales etc. Other organizations followed due its
low cost and conveniences for the learner both in terms of the pace and venue.
In the early 80s, Professor
Udai Pareek and I wrote a book on Education Methods including distance
education and reviewed experiences of various countries and suggested some
methodologies. It was published as a ‘Handbook of training for education
managers” in 1982 by UNESCO, Bangkok and later republished by Macmillan in
India (http://jainbookagency.com/booksearch.aspx?aname=Prof.%20Udai%20Pareek%20&%20Prof.%20T.V.Rao).
With the many advantages
found in auto instructional materials it has become popular atleast in many of
the developed countries. Now it is also spreading to other countries like
India, China, Malaysia, Thailand etc. However they are yet to become popular
like other skills based classroom exercises.
When I was associated
with the IGNOU Board, we made efforts to start diploma programs. At the Academy
of HRD in Ahmadabad we started a diploma in HRD through distance learning. It
was a grand success. It had the following components:
- · Each course was divided into small units of 15 to 20 modules.
- · Each candidate had to learn one module per week at his workplace.
- · Each module had a question based exercise and an application based activity which the candidate had to complete and mail to AHRD. For example for a module on performance planning the candidate should answer a few questions and also take an exercise giving a performance plan of his own work or the work of one of his juniors.
- · We conducted contact sessions at the end of the modules at the convenient place of learners.
After I started TVRLS in
1996, we used a similar technology in offering a three to four month based
distance learning cum contact sessions. For example our certificates in
Competency Mapping, Assessment and development centers, 360 Degree feedback,
HRD Audit
Performance management
etc. all had the following components:
- 1. Distance education by mailed material
- 2. Exercises to be done while reading the material and mailing to instructors
- 3. Contact sessions, and
- 4. Project work.
We found that knowledge
can be passed on online or by other distance education mode but skills can be
better developed only during contact programs. Learning from each other in a dynamic
way and from the Instructor are critical. Instructors or facilitators carry a
lot of experience with them which they can’t always put in a print or ppt form.
Some experiences get shared with emotions better in contact. Hence we decided
to offer online programs with a difference- incorporating emotions and
experience sharing which we think is more suitable for Asian learners.
Thus, with the
popularity of on line learning materials and with a view to reach a larger
number of people we decided to try OLEPs with a difference at TVRLS. (see: http://www.tvrls.com/online_education.php)
Experience our OLEPs
with a difference:
1. 1. A facilitator to present content and
handle participant queries on the web.
2. 2. Use of multiple delivery methods: We
will be conducting webinar presentations using Ppt and will also be mailing the
participants supplementary reading material.
3. 3. Only 25 participants in each batch
to ensure individual attention and better quality learning.
4. 4. Our instructors are highly
experienced with more than two decades of corporate and academic experience and
have authored several books, papers and are board members on various
organization councils. Dr. Rao and many of his esteemed colleagues from reputed
B-schools like IIM-A, XLRI, ISB will be a part of the team.
5. 5. The programs will be offered at 3
levels: Knowledge, Skill (through contact workshop) and Application (through
project work)
The panel discussion on 14th March suggested interactive on line programs to be a good method to be tried out in Asia. Their views will be on you tube soon..
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