A news item on CNN-IBN today stated that the CBSE Board has decided to implement H.O.T.S. For the 10th standard Board exam this year, they stated that very subject would be based on this new design in which the question papers include 10% of very short answer questions and 20% of questions to assess H.O.T.S. Also read it here.
H.O.T.S according to this official website is Higher Order Thinking Skills. It is a complete general thinking skills program for helping students in grades 4-8 who are disadvantaged in learning (a euphemism for the actual term "Low grade students"). The approach, they say, combines software with a sophisticated curriculum and Socratic dialogue (i.e. teacher asking questions rather than telling the student what to do) in small group settings. For example, instead of making the student answer a question in one word, they "encourage" him to elaborate his/her answer and thus gradually enable him/her to improve the thinking process.
The HOTS software is described as a state-of-the-art interactive application. The teaching is through simple interactive games. Some of these games, like say, "Hangman" is something I have seen (and even played!!) in the computer labs at N.I.T. Trichy during the tenure of my M.B.A course. I must say that i found it to be interesting and even addictive. It involves guessing the letters in a word based on clues, and every wrong guess brings a man pictured in the game nearer to his execution. On guessing the entire word correctly he goes scot-free. This link in the website shows the entire list of games, all of which are interactive and quickly gets the attention of the student, much like the Hangman game.
Through such games, curriculum, training and support H.O.T.S is said to develop the following thinking skills:
Metacognition
Generalization
Information from Context (Reminds you of the CAT exam, eh? ;-) )
Information Synthesis
The organization itself admits that though the Socratic dialogue method is effective, it is also very difficult at first. Therefore, rightly as they say, the teacher should be organized, flexible, energetic and excited at getting students to talk. I guess they missed one point: Loads of Patience. Considering the fact they are dealing with students who are "disadvantaged in learning" and therefore such students need to be given both time and encouragement. This system of education has been implemented in many schools in U.S. and the results are said to be encouraging.
Now coming back to the situation in India, there is one reason why i posted such an article. It was ironic, to say the least, that this news item in CNN-IBN was preceded by a news item in N.D.T.V which should put our education reformers to shame. It was reported that at a primary school in Maharashtra, 50% of the class 7 students had failed a very basic test to gauge their competency in the English Language and General knowledge. Some even could not correctly write even their own names in English!!! And the school authorities say in the usual lackadaisical manner "Hum iske baare mein charcha karenge". Arre kya charcha karenge aap? These are students from the 7th grade for heavens sake!!!
The state of the primary schools in India is abysmal. No proper infrastructure (Remember the gruesome fire tragedy at the Govt. school in Kumbakonam around 2-3 years back?) , lack of teachers, pathetic text books and an indifferent management which professes by the laws of the babudom (Best depicted in the Malayalam film "Doore Doore Oru Koodum.. Starring Mohanlal). The situation needs urgent remedial measures.
How do you expect such students to become employable when the basic foundation of knowledge is not built properly at such schools? Teachers, especially at Government schools take leave requests at their liking without even paying the slightest attention to their job. The senior examiners even at established boards like the I.S.C and I.C.S.E are sometimes found wanting in the knowledge of the subject they teach. The syllabus in books remains the same even after a decade with no changes appearing in the pipeline (which seems to get longer and longer). Compare this with the education system in U.S. where in the 1960’s the content and syllabus of the entire school science text books were reviewed by greats like the Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman.
The Indian education system, which owes it origins to the Britsh Educational System, has not been upgraded unlike the latter. While we still brood over our pathetic primary education system, the West seems to be on the other side of progress with the same. While HOTS seems to be a pradigm shift in the teaching methodology of students in the higher grade/class what is needed in India right now is to call the shots on the basic needs of the Primary and Secondary School education system. Then we can bring in the HOTS.
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