To 'educate' means 'to draw out'

Open-ended questions is an important evaluation technique. It is employed in many fields like education, counselling, mediation, sales, investigative work, therapy and journalism . The oft repeated question on reality TV shows "How do you feel" is a classic example of unavoidable open-ended question.

In an earlier post we had discussed Constructed Questions which may be considered as a special case of open ended questions.

Multiple choice questions are closed-ended questions that expect a short or single-word answer. As opposed to this, an open-ended question elicits a comprehensive answer forcing the student to delve deep into his/her own knowledge bank and express himself/herself fully.

"What's the make of the pen you are using?" is a typical closed ended question. A corresponding open ended question could be, "Isn't that an interesting pen ?"

Open-ended questions are intended to be less leading than closed-ended questions. This makes both answering and evaluating them a matter of some expertise. This page explains how open-ended questions can be used by maths teachers. An interesting paper can be found here, which illustrates the creative and graphic use of open-ended questions for basic maths.

Open-ended questions play an important role in evaluating students. "To measure how well a student performs, teachers have to be able to examine the process, not just the final product." Open-ended questions make students construct their own responses and the answers they give reflect their thinking and understanding.

Sadly, in an attempt to make school education more accommodating, open-ended questions are getting neglected thereby potentially stunting the expressive abilities of students' minds in their formative stages.

The medium and the message

Many of my friends frown upon the use of the term "vernacular." It is a term generally used in India for denoting the linguistic medium of schooling when it is other than English.

Regardless of the various shades of meaning and connotations with which the term is employed, it might be interesting to look at the etymology of the word. It is the language of Verna - "home-born slave" (Not servant, mind you, but 'slave'). A word of Etruscan origin.

The word is no more used in respectable and politically correct discourse. But many of us continue to do so, especially those, who think it elegant and royal to flaunt colonial legacies.

It is fashionable these days, to scoff at schooling in regional languages as "low quality education." Time and again N number of experts and educationists have preached to the contrary. But unfortunately the vernacular mentality of the neo-colonists has been propagating lies among the innocent.

I'd like to draw your attention to a UNESCO study titled "The importance of mother tongue-based schooling for educational quality" under The Quality Imperative, by Carole Benson (2004)

The study addresses various myths like :

The one nation—one language myth.

The myth that local languages cannot express modern concepts.

The myth, which holds that bilingualism causes confusion and that the first language must be pushed aside so that the second language can be learned.

The L2 as global language myth.

The myth that parents want L2-only schooling.

"Instruction through a language that learners do not speak has been called “submersion” (Skutnabb-Kangas 2000) because it is analogous to holding learners under water without teaching them how to swim;" quotes the paper.

'Tinker, tailor, soldier...'

Image via Wikipedia

It all started with a hurried blog post on our other blog. (My true intention was to test whether the "read more" tag was working.)

A "Yateendra" commented to point out many errors in the text and in also styling the format. Since his profile was not accessible, I searched for a possible Yateendra and wondered if he were the "Yateendra Joshi," who writes the Editage blog and is the author of 'Communicating in Style' - the book praised by John le Carré, well-known British spy novelist, as "A gem. Courteous, unfrightening and essential. A perfect companion to Fowler’s A Dictionary of Modern English Usage for today’s communicators."

With any mention of John le Carré, I am invariably reminded of his 'Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy', the first one of his books I had chanced to read. Eventually I read the other ones, but this remained as one of my favourites. The title is an adaptation of the famous rhyme. You can read the various versions of the cherrystone rhyme here.

It seems that the rhyme has inspired many an author. Another work I chanced to refer was P. R. Wilkinson's "Thesaurus of Traditional English Metaphors."

Entries in this compilation are arranged under a highly original scheme following this old rhyme 'Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar-man, thief' with the additional categories 'at home' 'at school and 'at play'.

This also illustrates how the consciousness of a region is a storehouse of its trades and the thesaurus aptly illustrates how these find expression in the language the people there use.

The Last Lecture

Reading or buying a book prompted by some impressive review is not exactly my forte, and even less so after reading a review on the net. But after reading the author's interview as part of Editorial Review of this book, I decided that I'd read the book if I came across it. The name Randy Pausch meant nothing to me but the whole thing started with his video Cover of The Last Lectureon time management and it also led me to the review of the book cited above.

Strand Book Stall also mentioned the book in their newsletter at about same time and it caught my attention. When I went to Strand, at least two other customers were asking for it. I did buy it but wondered whether I was getting drawn into some systematic propaganda.

But when I started reading it, an unpudownable spell unleashed itself on me and it still lingers after so many days. I'd unhesitatingly recommend it to anybody and everybody.

The last chapters appear to be preaching and are bit irritating at times but just so. Jeffrey Zaslow, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, attended the last lecture, and wrote the story . His craft has made the book intensely readable, and has done full justice to the author's intensity of feeling.

Despite its grave background, the narrative is never depressing. Certainly a collector's item, with a capacity to recharge your dampened spirits on every re-reading.

VOW ! What a medium!!

VOW is Video On Wheels.

They are also used as a cable or satellite TV on a large 100 to 300'' screen with ultra modern audio equipment.

VOW travels from village to village with a programme announced a day in advance creating a media event and getting coverage in local press - a double exposure with multiplier effect.

According to a research, on an average, VOW covers 1.5 lakh viewers a month. It operates on a generator where electricity is scarce.

1980 elections witnessed the incarnation of video vans, alias video raths. Devi Lal is said to be the first politician to use VOW for campaigning in Haryana. Since then it every political party, especially, the BJP, has exensively used VOW.

VOW is the brainchild of Dr. Jain of Jain satellite TV. After the elections, the video vans were rented out by Dr. Jain's company to various companies for marketing their products.

Companies like Hindustan Lever, Brooke Bond, ITC, Proctor & Gamble, L&T, Godrej and Pepsi have successfully used the medium to promote their products. VOW offers advertisers a complete communication solution that enables them to make inroads into the far flung rural Indian market and includes

* demonstration of product
* promotion
* market research
* retailer motivation
* instant reaction and
* opportunity to sell.

VOW is also being used for educational purposes. You can read more about VOW in this book.

What is Surrogate Advertising?

The literal meaning of ‘Surrogate advertising' is copying the brand image of one product to promote another product of the same brand. It can be defined as the strategy used by manufacturers and advertisers to promote a product surreptitiously, the advertisement of which, is banned by the law of the land. Liquor and tobacco companies often advertise their products in this clandestine manner.
In India an attempt has been made to prevent the electronic media from advertising harmful products.
Thus, Cable TV Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995, (CTNRA), Rule 7(2)(viii)(A) of the Advertising Code states that "no advertisement shall be permitted which promotes, directly or indirectly, the production, sale or consumption of cigarette, tobacco products, wine, alcohol, liquor or other intoxicants."
Many companies have worked around this rule by bringing out soda, glasses, and fruit juice, playing cards and what not, by the same name to promote the brand. This is known as "Brand Extension" in advertising lingo. Some say that genuine "Brand Extension" is different from surrogate advertising.   But many people believe this to be a fraudulent approach garbed in politically correct terminology.
These advertisements employ techniques of persuasive communication, strategically using "lifestyle" as an appeal to attract impressionable consumers. Celebrities from every field are roped in to eulogise the virtues of the surrogate product on screen, only to remind the target about the real thing and the gullible find it hard to escape this powerful dragnet.

A useful study-technique.

"Constructed Response Questions" or popularly called simply "Constructed Questions" are thematically connected short questions grouped together as one question. e.g.

'' What was the total wheat production in India in 2007? How does it compare with the record production figures for the decade? Interpret the data in comparison with the trends for other developing nations of Asia taken together.''

Compare this question with a typical descriptive question like "Discuss the wheat production scenario for developing nations in Asia (with special emphasis on India)."

Constructed response questions are designed for eliciting precise responses and also to to test higher level cognitive abilities. The marking or scoring is done as per a pre-determined schedule or rubric corresponding to the abilities being tested. Refer this page for a broad idea of how a marking schedule is prepared.

Answers to Constructed Questions help compare and contrast various points of view, find and link causes and effects, interpret changes in trends, identify patterns or classify and draw conclusions from the data. This also makes plotting graphs or tabulations easier. Answers may also successfully explain or predict the events.

This is the reason why we find such questions drafted for University level question papers. While preparing notes on study topics, it is therefore useful to tackle various small questions as and when they get posed and club the questions and answers together in plausible permutations and combinations as the exams approach nearer.