Topic 3

T3 COMPARING LEARNING CULTURES

Learning has changed over the last few decades very drastically. I feel lucky to be a part of this change in this context as earlier I was teaching with the old methodology.  

Old methodology was teacher centered, and lecture based. I remembered when I was in my school the same methods were used, students were not allowed to ask many questions, they were only allowed if the teacher permitted. Corporal punishment was very common. Students were afraid of teachers. Curriculum used to be designed as memory based learning in which main emphasis was on memorization instead of conceptual learning. Though some of the schools were following UK or American Curriculum but the teaching method was teacher centered and because of this situation students were not being benefited.

When I started my teaching journey the situation was same. From the last few years in UAE there have been some revolutionary changes in the field of Education. This encouraged me to know what the modern education system is and what the difference between them is.

Now I feel we are standing at the crossroads between the modern and old system. What I observed is that the old teachers and those who are coming from South Asian countries are not getting how to cop up with this situation. Some teachers have changed themselves to meet the demands of the modern world through their effort but the overwhelming majority is still wandering.

 Actually when teachers started their career their main aim was to earn money to support their families.

Also the mentality of some people is they have finished their education already and now it is the time to earn and live a comfortable life. They do not have the concept of “Lifelong learning”.

 On the other side online education is a new system where people are not confident and have little trust in it. Many people will not agree with me on this statement. But this lack of trust is because:

1. Cyber crimes such as frauds.
2. Bogus Degrees can be issued.
3. People give preference to the renowned institutions degrees instead of online ones.        

  Online teachers should take the following measures:
1. Building up the students confidence
2. Continuous contact with student through Skype or any other easy webinar
3. Find out the difficulties they are facing as a multicultural environment.
4. Try to promote friendly environment

 Building up the student’s confidence is most important as it is human nature that when we see each other physically one kind of bond develops among teacher and students, which is mutually very important. Full guidance should be given in the introductory class as to what kind of this course this is. As students belong to different cultures and have different calibers we should keep continuous contact with student through webinars, monthly or as deemed necessary. If students belong to the different countries and time zones meetings can be held in groups at separate times to make it convenient for students and teacher. In this way teacher will be able to understand their situations and gradually the environment will be comfortable and with continuous contact the environment will be become friendly automatically.