 In how many of us actually write out our cause objectives? Can I just have a feel of it? Tell us how you write your objectives and why do you need to write your objectives? The entire course. Why does the subject is important for them? What is the practical relevance to that particular subject? It is important in daily life and the object. What time is important for the unit? Object is one different thing and you need object with another thing which we have. Very good, macro to micro, very good. So what she says is that she writes out the entire outline with the relevance of the entire course to the student. And second thing is per unit she works out a similar kind of relevance and importance. We have a lecture planning schedule which is to be built by each and every faculty member. In that we give the course break up lecture wise. Yes. And then per lecture the topic to be covered and what is the objective? So give me an example of an objective that you set. For example I teach a theory application. Right. So the theory application exactly they are supposed to know and then the particular topic of that. Like for example one topic one objective just give it to me how you do it. That is designing a digital filter. All right. Designing a digital filter that is the topic she is going to teach. So how do you write out the course objective? The unit objective. The unit objective is when I just say one particular topic to be taught. Then what I say is its practical relevance. All right. And then after doing that topic what are they supposed to do? What they know about it and what is their responsibility? All right. Thank you. What I can figure out is that most of you are working out the relevance of the subject or the topic to the engineer's job. Am I right? Yes. And the second thing you are looking at is the importance and so on so forth. Okay. So now but largely I gather the feeling that you are looking at the content. Yes. Besides all this. Particularly my course I used to give them an open-ended sort of thing. In the future they can lecture upon this using this. So application. It cannot be realized at that point of time. Yes. They can carry that and they can work upon. I understand. So but really speaking it is either relevance to the job or it is the content. You are really focusing even on the, in the content it is the relevance. It is the relevance. Okay. So now I am going to take you into slightly different way of thinking because there is a lot we can do with writing out course objectives. There is so much we can do which we may not have been aware of. And I want to propose a comparative model. You know most of us are in this traditional model. Right? The traditional model is that there is a given course which has been designed. If we are autonomous then we have designed it. If it has come from the university then someone else has designed it. So the first step here is if you do well on this course which they or we have designed. The second step is that and you do well in the examination which we or they have designed. Okay? So if it is autonomous we design the test and examination system. Or if it is a university oriented course then the university designs while you do the teaching. You will get the certificate which we or they award. The ultimate aspiration here or objective is that you will get a degree or an award. And there is a given course. It is all fixed for us. Even if it is an autonomous institute we might tinker with the course. We might make it more modern and so on so forth. But still the intention is that if the student has studied it, answered the tests and the exams appropriately and to the satisfaction of the different examining bodies. The student will get a degree or a certificate as that he or she has passed that course. Okay? This is the traditional model. But there is another model. And that model exists in the world outside after the student has completed their engineering education. That is when they are at the workplace they are required to show certain competencies. So this is a competencies based model. Now what is this model? This model says that let us say the industry wants X, Y, Z functions to be performed by the individual. And the industry wants that these functions should be performed very well by the concerned employee. That is the main cut off point. Now there are two approaches here. One is you can learn these functions at work or by any other means. So one is trial and error. You keep on learning on the job. You have a mentoring approach in that organization. Through them you ask how should I do this? How should I do that? For example, I remember some of the students who passed out from IIT when they went to work on the shop floor they found that they were not able to do it. And they thought they knew everything. So when they tried to show off their theoretical knowledge the workers became a little difficult with them. They said if you know everything go and do it yourself. And then I remember one of the students say that I had my first lesson there. He said I went to some of the workers and told them, boss, you know everything. This is just the knowledge of the book. Please teach me. And the workers then were very, very obliging. So this also can happen at the workplace that you go there and you learn with the help of some mentor. Or through some other means like joining an e-learning program or CDP programs or so that while you are on the job you go on adding to your skills and competencies. And this then leads to a certificate which attests that you can perform to those standards. So today for example people constantly are talking of how knowledge is changing. The frontiers of knowledge are getting expanded and one has to constantly upgrade one's knowledge. So you find a lot more learning happening, a lot more e-learning happening, a lot more desire to upgrade one's knowledge and skills. But there is another approach that this design, this course is designed to get you there. That is the industry has identified that certain competencies are missing in the students or in the employees. It could happen at the intake level or it could happen at the middle level. And then they design a course with the help of some trainers and then the employees are trained and they are put through an assessment which finds out whether you can perform to industry standards. So there could be two approaches to the competencies based model and it is very different from the traditional model where the aim is to get a degree. Whereas here it is whether you are able to perform to industry standards. So having said that what I am trying to draw our attention to is that our given syllabus doesn't really prepare us for all this. And how we can plan in such a way that our students are fit for industry and the kind of competencies required there. The points therefore that I am going to examine now what our syllabus does not tell us. The second point I am going to talk about is what are the consequences of this lack of information through the syllabus. The third point I am going to discuss is the importance of writing instructional objectives. The fourth is identifying the major abilities to be developed through each topic and the last is what are the general techniques of stating objectives. So how should I state my objectives or write them out in a manner that I am going to actually put them into use as a teacher. So in a way you are now I am going to talk about the means which will help us work towards a competencies based model so that our education becomes more relevant to the industry that is going to use our product. That is very important in the changing times. We are not just there to award degrees. We have to make our students marketable products. So I will take the first point what our syllabus does not tell us. Please tell me which of these points you would agree or disagree with. It does not tell us of the abilities and skills to be developed. It doesn't tell us what are the competencies required by our students. Yes or no? It doesn't. Am I right? It does not tell us what order in what order we should teach our topics. It just lists them. It does not tell us what is the depth of treatment we should give to each topic and also how much time we need to teach that topic. It also does not tell us how it links with other subjects. For example physics, maths, chemistry, so many of the other subjects mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer science what are the links among them. What I have found and even in the best institutes is that every department goes on offering similar courses. Now everybody is busy offering courses in their particular department and justifying their presence. So if it's a maths department they will offer their maths course without reckoning what the engineering faculty are doing in their courses. So there is very little connection between the different departments. So students will complain that we do a repeat course when we go it's virtually a repeat in the engineering department or stream and there is a lot of economizing which is possible. But the source of all this is the syllabus which does not tell us how different subjects are linked. What interdisciplinary approaches are possible. The syllabus also doesn't guide us about the different teaching methods that we can use for different topics. Like yesterday I gave you different outlines and one of them was the sequential method whether you have to use the sequential method largely when you are teaching a historical account or teaching mathematics and so on. This is something the syllabus doesn't help us know. And finally what is the relationship with engineering jobs that also is left to the teacher to design. So in effect we as teachers are left abandoned. We really don't know. We just have a sheet which tells us what the syllabus is. And if a teacher has had some kind of training the teacher knows how to apply the tools. Otherwise the teacher is very much like the engineering product we have produced who when he goes to the industry finds that he cannot perform to industry standards because he doesn't have the necessary competencies. Now as teachers also we need certain competencies one of them is how to write our course objectives. And this the syllabus does not tell us. Therefore the consequences can be well imagined that when I teach I try my end is to cover the portion and to test the students in all the topics without quite being able to understand what is their exact competency that I am training them for. So the emphasis remains on memorizing information. In the classroom the teacher when the teacher teaches we are mostly giving them a lot of information with the student is expected to give back to us. Teaching becomes routine as a result. It's stereotypical and testing is predictable. The university keeps on setting up the same kind of test papers and we know that the students are going to plan for those test papers and write in a predictable manner. There is very little of creative solution solving as part of that test. Further application is not emphasized and I think the rest of the points I have already covered. So the importance of designing instructional objectives is that they help us to spell out specific learning goals in observable measurable ways. They help us to spell out articulate instruction specific learning goals. That is when I am covering the syllabus my role is that of a teacher. My purpose is to teach. But when I start writing the objectives I become learner centric. I start thinking from the learners point of view. That is I am a teacher teaching not a subject but teaching that subject to students and trying to meet certain objectives. So observable or measurable ways. That is when I have written out my learning objectives if my student has fulfilled those objectives of learning I should be able to measure them. I should be able to observe that my student can perform in those ways. And some help comes to us in the form of Benjamin Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives and the three domains. I will explain this to you. Essentially Bloom's taxonomy is a hierarchical system six level hierarchical system of objectives. How many of you are aware of it? This was written out in 1956. But till today it remains one of the most used most popular most useful taxonomy. The word taxonomy means framework. So there is a framework within which objectives have been placed and one to six they are in a hierarchical mode. The lowest level is knowledge and the highest is evaluation. So if you take a look you will find that if knowledge means recognizing and recalling information then that is level one of teaching and learning. When I am helping my students to recall and recognize information I am addressing level one of teaching. And an example would be when I ask my students to write a definition of what is an electric circuit. I ask them what is an electric circuit in the exam and the student is able to do it. That means the student has the ability to recall information which is important. Or describe the role of tar in making a road. So the student can specially he has that knowledge. But knowledge is the lowest level I said. What is next important is comprehension. Here the student is expected to think on a slightly higher level and reproduce knowledge in his own words. Then it means that he has comprehended. The third stage is application. Can the student apply this knowledge by explaining a problem or by applying his knowledge to some new engineering issues. The fourth is analysis. Where the student can solve problems by systematically examining facts or information. So he can break them into smaller parts. He can see the connection of the parts with the whole. That is analysis. And the synthesis is where he can find solutions to problems through original creative thinking. Through you actually set him certain problems to test whether he can find original solutions. And the last is where the student can assess what is good from what is not so good using some standards. So these are the six levels. I will give you the examples. Examples of knowledge I just read out. Knowledge is one. Second is comprehension. And under comprehension an example would be asking our student to distinguish between potential energy and kinetic energy. So we are not asking him to define them but we are asking them to distinguish between the two. Can you distinguish? The third level would be application where we want to know whether the student has the ability to use previously learned material in new and concrete situations. Here the person does the person know all the rules, procedures, laws and theories. This is level three of teaching. I think I will take also very simple example like teaching someone to drive. When you teach someone to drive a car, the first thing that the teacher tells the learner is that this is the A, B, C. The three pedals that you see are the A, B, C of car driving that is the accelerator, the brake and the clutch. Now the important thing is one is that the student knows that this is how it goes. If I press the right pedal it is going to accelerate. If I push the second pedal then I can stop my car and if I press the third pedal I can control my car. But mind is not the same as being able to use these in the actual scene. When the learner is on the road he may have understood it. He may have understood it all mentally and intellectually but when he sees a large crowd you know most learners make the mistake of pressing the accelerator when they should be pressing the brake. And that is where they go and bang into the car. So today car driving teachers have cars with double controls so that when the learner makes mistakes the teacher controls it all. Then comes the stage of application in a different way where the can the student not only recall the rules and procedures of traffic but also be able to manage it all. Then analyze the problem by systematically examining facts for information that would be your stage 4 and here we would like to know if the student can break down the material into constituent parts such as draw the CPM network for a software project. The next one example would be synthesis objective is to check if the student can put the parts together to form a new whole like classify the roof systems for Crescent auditorium depending on cost and visibility etc. And the final is evaluation. It is concerned with the ability to judge the value of material and methods for a given purpose. This is the highest level of teaching and learning and the example would be evaluate the suitability of installing an external lift to the IIT hostels from among various proposals. That is a certain decision is involved. Similar to carry is allowed to carry on the analogy of car driving. When I start mastering the skill of driving I should be able to negotiate through difficult traffic. I should be able to negotiate through other drivers who are not careful, who are reckless, who are speeding. I should be able to understand that some drivers are not going to follow the signals that I give. For example, if I indicate I want to turn to the right then maybe a half a dozen others who want to overtake me at that time while I am manipulating my car to the right. So at that time I should be able to synthesize all my learning and the best test is when I am able to evaluate can I take my turning to the right now or I need to wait so that I avoid a collision. When I am able to do all this then alone I have said I can be said to have learned car driving otherwise I still need the control system parallel control system. So as teachers when we are taking our students through the syllabus it is not sufficient to talk only of the content but to understand that there are different abilities that a student need to develop at different stages and whether we have incorporated the teaching and development of those abilities and skills in our teaching. So the Bloom's taxonomy actually goes into three domains domains are categories of learning abilities and this is how it goes there is the cognitive domain cognitive simply means intellectual intellectual when we are talking of cognition it has to do with the intellect such as knowledge and comprehension thinking skills that word machines should not come here it goes to the right hand side extreme right column. So the cognitive domain is actually those six levels that I have shared with you that those six levels in the previous slide they all fall under the cognitive domain perhaps most of us are trying to cover some parts of the cognitive domain not all then the second domain is the effective domain effective domain means the feelings and emotions the feelings and emotions how much interest have I created in my student how much motivation have I created in my student to learn a subject we all know of teachers who when they teach us we have become so fond of the subject that we have begun teaching that subject you know we have been inspired to do our thesis in that subject because of the kind of motivation the teacher has given us so how much interest the student has in the subject how much what is his attitude or her attitude to the subject is it positive is it hostile and of course we have to recognize that all students are never going to like all subjects it is impossible no matter how much as teachers we try and motivate our students all students in the classroom will never like a subject so there is nothing to despair but if a larger number can be motivated to have a positive enthusiastic attitude and interest in the subject then we have achieved quite a lot what are the values that we are inculcating or the student is inculcating as a result of the course is something one needs to look at for example last one of my electrical engineering colleagues here I said few people teach them science, technology and always talk about the glamour part of the achievements of science I am a humanist I want to ask you whether you ever in your courses also talk about the downside of technology or is it only the glamorous part that figures the particular one is very sensitive so he said no I do make it a point to talk about the humanistic and social angle of the technology to some extent many teachers may be looking at the social sciences part like economics for example I understand that there is no technology you cannot just invent technology without talking about the costs of it the costs involved so to some extent it might happen when we talk about these consciously in the classroom certain values are being given and inculcated in the students that also is part of our teaching that helps our students prepare for the competencies they need at the workplace later so what kind of values get generated that falls under the affective so affective is feelings and emotions cognitive is intellectual and heard is psychomotor domain psychomotor as the word would indicate these are manual or motor skills I am sorry some part of it has just shifted but ignore that then here I would like to know whether my student has learnt how to operate machines does he actually know how to operate the machines yesterday we saw a presentation where the students had showed us the diagrams on different machines that they had thought would be helpful to society but the question is when it comes to actual operation do they know it I think in the very outset some of us talked of the lack of the engineering science this probably engineering sense this probably has got to do with that whether my students can actually operate machines in some of the polytechnics I have found that they have real workshops where they are grooming their students from the 12 standard onwards to work on their machines and to do things with their hands which unfortunately doesn't happen to in great depth and comprehensiveness in the colleges and universities so can the student perform can the student actually operate a machine with his own hands or her hands can the student independently perform experiments then I have inculcated in him the scientific temper the process the respect for procedure and so on so forth maybe a psychomotor domain like presentation skills or writing reports this also is part of skills writing and whether as teachers we are able to set out this as an objective so these are the three kinds of learning objectives cognitive, effective and psychomotor very popularly today these are called KAS when people come to select students interviewers today are looking for what they call KAS to use an acronym what is that knowledge, attitude and skills they do not just select a student for his or her knowledge what is their attitude do they have a positive attitude do they have a go getter attitude do they have an attitude which has you know which never says die kind of thing or are they laid back what kind of skills do they have do they even have language skills for example that's a big thing with industry today so we have to when we are teaching not just focus on the intellectual domain but there are many other there are two other domains that need our attention so that will help us address the competencies model of teaching so now we are just a little guidance on how we can work around this how do we identify we identify the major abilities to be developed in each topic not just the elements but abilities step one is you identify the major ability to be developed by a student in a topic second is you write out the general objectives for achieving that ability and the third step is to write out the specific objectives the example of writing objectives is if I have decided that my general objective is that the student should be able to recall properties of steel and concrete in RC section but the specific objective is that he should detect defects in the steel and concrete used in RC section when I put it as a specific objective then my student has really learnt something which is applicable at the workplace and the second example is the student knows Hooke's law so if in the exam I say you write out the definition he writes it out but the specific objective is can he write Hooke's law in his own words in his own words can he apply it to a particular given situation which industry might throw up so that's the teacher's creativity so when I write out my objectives they should not be general objectives but rather specific so that the competencies are addressed the general techniques of stating objectives therefore is decide on the general learning for each topic that is one then the second point is some specific learning objectives using verbs using verbs that is the student should know how to the student can do the following the student will be able to detect rather than I want to teach I want my student to be able to define something no I go a step further my student should be able to do something so I use verbs and the focus shifts from teaching to learning then objectives let me tell you that objectives under effective domain cannot be written attitudes, values we can't write them out but some idea I must have that I want to nurture them and I cannot give them through one topic they need to be nurtured throughout the course so if I want to give certain values to my students or interest or attitude towards a certain course or subject I need to develop that throughout maybe even by setting an example and to develop psychonautoskills I need to list specific tasks so whereas in the first case I write out the learning objectives which are in the intellectual domain I put them first in the general objectives format and then the specific learning format the effective domain I list them for myself and I nurture those throughout the course and the last is when I teach them psychonautoskills here I have to list specific tasks that will help my students master those skills I like I want them to know how to perform experiments independently or I want to have presentation skills then I have got to build them in the particular course and here I will build all these objectives and tasks in my course outline and the different lesson plans so when I write out my lesson plan I have my objective the general one the specific one then what are the tasks that are going to help me what activities I need to do what values I need to give and so on so forth so that is what will make it complete in terms of writing our course objectives so if I come back to the this point that it is true our syllabus does not tell us all this and there are negative consequences but if I can develop the art of writing instructional objectives first in a general manner then the specific manner and work on the major abilities to be worked in the student or developed in the student I can prepare a lesson plan which enables me to fulfill that development objective thank you very much