Published 30 articles per year?

Someone told me that it is quite possible to publish more than 5 articles per year.   Well, there is nothing wrong with that.  But to publish 30 articles per year?  It means that on average, this person can produce on average 2 articles.  Wow, this person must be super excellent.  Yeah right.  But look what has happened to him now?  For more details, go to HERE.  

Just imagine, what would happen to those students who are or were supervised by him?  Would they be affected by this?  If they are affected by this, won’t it be unfair for them to be dragged into this mess? It is all started with a person aiming to be recognized as a prolific academician.  There is nothing wrong having such aim but the end cannot justify the means.   Well, the way I see it, such trend is happening now somewhere too and at the moment, nobody cares the adverse effect in the near future.  Well, just wait and see.  Let’s see how it goes.  

Image result for publish or perish cartoon

Reading

I found cartoon strips by Grant Snider.  Well, somehow it does resonate with me and the way I put my books on the shelves 

Image result for grant snider reading book

 

Image result for grant snider reading book

I know it is messy. But I have only two shelves in my office. Those are important stuff that I cannot throw away at the moment. The files contain teaching materials that I still use until now

 

What should you do?

Somebody asked me this question few weeks ago.  “What would you do if people criticize you or talk behind your back?”  “Don’t you feel sad knowing how people backstabbing you?”   

Well, there are hadith about how we should treat people.  I am trying to learn the best way to treat others according to the sunnah.  It is an arduous process.   This is my personal struggle.  

For now, my stance is even if I know someone is backbiting me or talking behind my back, I would do nothing.  I like to use this analogy.  Imagine backbiting and all are like a shit or poo (I am referring to the literal human feces).  It is smelly and bad, right?  If someone gives you that, would you accept it even if they shove it into your hand?  Of course, you can either accept it or refuse to take it.   

If you accept it, what would you do with it?  Keep it?  Or use it?  Well, poo can be a good ingredient for compost.  So, you can use it for better usage such as gardening.  Or you can take it and keep it and later on complain about its smell yada yada yada without stopping. 

If you refuse it, good for you.  It is what you should do.  When people give shit to you, don’t take it.  You are not obligated to take it.  You have a right to refuse it.  It is your choice.  

If the person throw it on your face, what should you do?  Well, you can either throw it back to the person or you can clean yourself.  If you throw it back to the person, well, in this case, you are alike.  Tit-for-tat?  It can be perceived that way.  If you decide to move on and get yourself clean without making any noise, it is choice.  After all, no shit or poo cannot be cleaned and cleansed.     

My point is, make a decision for yourself.  Do what is the best for you.  So, to this person even though this is a late reply, I have done all of the above.   I cannot decide anything for you, but one thing that I can do is to be there for you when you need me.  In sha Allah I will always be there for you 

 

Why are you not friendly?

One of the students asked me why I would seem to rush or always in a hurry when they approach me.  Well, for one thing, off lately I have things in my mind that seem to bug me.  It is not about the classes or the students, it is something that I have thought about for a while and I do not have any answer or solution to that yet and thus, it keeps bugging me until now.  For those who know me quite well, I can appear to be funny, bubbly but I can also turn into a person who appears to be snobbish/surly/unapproachable in a split second. 

Well, it is me alright.  I do not have multiple personality disorders or am not Mr Hyde and Dr Jekyll.  Well, the only suggestion that I can give to my students is go and read Brian Little’s book “Me, myself and us”.   Yup.  I am an introvert alright.  I confirm it when I took a personality test when I was in Durham (just for the sake of exploring myself, I volunteered to be a guinea pig when the graduate school organised a workshop)


.   

Example of interactive activities that you can do in class

I found the handout while searching for more examples of interactive and active activities that I can do in my class.  I found this handout.  This is not mine but the author stated how you can give the credit of this handout to him.  So, there is no copyright issue here.  I haven’t tried all of the techniques listed in the handout but I will try few in the future in sha Allah.  

Would you use neuroenhancer to improve your cognitive capabilities?

It was a rainy gloomy day. It was our last class before the mid semester break. Deepavali is around the corner. A perfect day to have all-lecture-no-activity class [sarcastic note].  Nope. I won’t allow my students to fall asleep in my class.

I searched an article with a controversial topic but still related to human development. The use of “smart drug” to enhance cognitive and intellectual capabilities. Smart drug, neuroenhancement, neuroenhancer, you name it. It is all the same. Students consume it for the sake of improving their concentration, attention, performance and the lists can go on.

It is really interesting to know how people perceive the use of drug in a more positive note even though there is possibility for adverse side effects. Reading my students’ responses on whether they would use it, it is kind of alarming that they would say YES to it. Looking at the reasons, there is one common theme appeared: curiosity. They are willing to try because they are curious about it.

I just rolled my eyes when someone asked me if I ever tried such thing before to enhance my academic performance even though I had chances to buy “lollies” or “a slice of space cake” when I went to Amsterdam few times.

My reply: “I don’t go to gym to develop my muscles. So, you won’t see any six packs on my stomach. But I do believe reading is akin to weightlifting that lead you to develop mental muscles” [I used my right index finger to point it to my head as I said this]”.

New Academia Learning Innovation (NALI) Active learning: Using Round robin – Method 2

For my undergraduate class, I have large class (more than 50 students) with a normal size classroom.  So, it is quite challenging to conduct round robin activity if they sit in their seats like this example.  It is something that I can envision in my dream only.   

What I have to do is to improvise.  Rather than having them to stay put in their seats and divide them into groups and each member in a group share their ideas, what I do is I group them into several groups with minimum 5 members in each group (59/12 group = 5 members each more or less). 

How to conduct round robin activity?

Steps:

  1. Think about a topic that you want to discuss.
  2. Decide on the amount of questions or topics you would like to be discussed.  In my case, with 12 groups, I have 3-4 questions and thus, there will be  some groups with similar questions.  In this case, I want to have a variety of ideas from different groups.   Note: I give each group a mahjung paper and marker pens.  They have to write their ideas in a poster format (using point form)
  3. Set a timer for the group discussion.  I set 30 minutes for this activity.  Since the class is a bit small, I allow them to go outside the classroom so that they can prepare their poster using mahjung paper.
  4. After they have finished their poster, I ask them to post their poster on the wall.  Each group has to stay near to their poster.
  5. They present their ideas by taking turn.  So, rather than allowing them to move around (it can become uncontrollable), every student would present at their own station (the wall where they post their poster becomes their station).  Other students have to listen and they are allowed to ask any question to the presenting group.
Some students have to sit on the floor inside the classroom. The LCD screen projected questions that I posed.
Some students have to go outside where there are chairs and tables. Each group occupied one table with 6 chairs
Each group picked a corner/wall and posted their poster [mahjung paper]. They took turn to present their ideas.
For bigger wall, students can post more than 2 posters.

To present their ideas to others, you can also do this.

  1. If you don’t mind to have students to move around (this could be a bit noisy), you can ask each member to select one person to stay at their station while the rest will go around to other station.
  2. The one left behind is assigned to be the presenter.  So, when other group members visit each station, the one who left behind has to present/explain what his/her group ideas to the visitors.

 

New Academia Learning Innovation (NALI) Active learning: Using Gallery Walk (first attempt)

I did round robin Gallery Walk activity in my class this semester.  Alhamdulillah the students are ok with that. 

Gallery Walk is meant to allow students to exchange ideas by taking turn to give their feedback/response/comment.  It allows everyone to talk/write their thoughts.  HERE is one example of Gallery Walk.

You can give them a reading material first before you start this activity or it can be based on what you have previously discussed and you want the students to summarise the points, if you are afraid that their “sharing” ideas might not be fruitful. 

For me,  with the undergraduates, I don’t give them a long reading material because they might need extra [long] time to finish reading.  But with the PG students, I can finish the activity within 45 minutes [reading = 30 minutes, 15 minutes for them to “go round” the class to write their answers on the manjung paper].  Rather than grouping them into groups, I create a station where they can write their ideas.  

I posted a mahjung paper with a question. Students would take turn to write their answer. Since my class has 19 students, so with 5 stations [5 mahjung paper with different questions], it is not too crowded for them to be in one station at a time.

Students took turn to write. On the white board, there were two stations [mahjung paper] with different questions.

Some students were writing their responses at different station at the back of the class

How to conduct Gallery Walk activity?

Steps:

  1. Think about a topic that you want to discuss.
  2. Decide on the amount of questions or topics you would like to be discussed.  In my case, I set 5 questions [plus muddiest concepts]
  3. Ideally, arrange the desks or tables so that discussion flows nicely and students can move about easily.   But since I want the students to move around the class, I post the mahjung paper on the wall/white board instead.  So, rather than sitting, they will walk around to different stations.
  4. Give each station [could be table, mahjung paper etc.] a question/topic.  You can assign a leader to take note or in my case, I ask the students to take note of what others have written individually [individual accountability].
  5. Set a timer for each student to move around.  There are other ways to do this.  You can assign students to move in group or they can move individually to any station as they wish according to their preferences as long as they complete the round.  If you have big classroom you can allow them to randomly move to different station, but if you have smaller classroom and large number of students, it is better to assign their movement from one station to another in orderly manner.
  6. Once every student has visited all the stations, you can ask one student to give a summary of one question/topic [based on the station] or if you select a leader (in this case, students are grouped at the beginning of the activity and their movement from one station to another in a group, rather than individually), ask the leader to give summary.  In my case, we would discuss their responses based on station.  There are 5 stations, so it takes me around 5-10 minutes to discuss on each question (station).