UDLCO (conversational learning summary by one human observer acknowledging that an LLM could perhaps be less biased) :
The conversation here meanders around different ways and styles of learning primarily in a focused specialized programmatic manner vs in a discovery
based exploratory all encompassing way that not just builds multidisciplinary expertise but also builds bridges across those disciplinary islands. Is academia responsible for providing employable students or is academia an instrument of socio technical problem solving?
How should academia generate students who have mastered the fundamentals and are self directed life long learners committed to societal impact and how would academia identify and nurture them and their discovered non traditional pathways are a few take away questions that still linger long after one has scrolled through the conversations below.
Keywords and UDHC glossary : http://userdrivenhealthcare.blogspot.com/2023/11/glossary-of-user-driven-healthcare.html?m=1
Conversational transcripts:
(2/15, 4:27 AM) K: Another thought bubble!
Why should engineering colleges offer all streams of engineering ?
Why cant we have a specialised institutions?
College
Of civil and infrastructure education
College of Mechanical Sciences
College of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
College of computational engineering
Just one single stream. These will be so specialised, the infrastructure, faculty,
Subject matter expertise, all will be top class.
[2/15, 7:31 AM] Rakesh Biswas: Is there no cross fertilization of ideas in the current cluster based engineering schools? Would specialized standalone engineering schools each for civil, mechanical, CS etc make for lesser ideation and further cognitive stunting?
Just a counter view that I would be glad to lose
[2/15, 7:31 AM] Dr Ravi Nayar : Wasn't it Vivekananda who said , we in India have a surfeit of leaders , not enough of people who serve..?
[2/15, 7:36 AM] N R: It's not the era of specialisation... From an industry point of view we need more generalists who can pick up new skills quickly.
Specialisation makes sense in medical field. But an Engineer has to be open for learning new skills in today's world. Vast number of Engineering output are into IT anyway, wasting their specialist skills in one branch
[2/15, 7:46 AM] J S : a number of points - clearly we are the nexus of some dramatic change - we will need specialist and we will need generalists in all fields - especially medicine - unfortunately the pendulum swings too far in a direction - if youi have unfortunately visited a hospital - each specialist (cardio, gastro, neuro) detail out their scope and passes the baton the next.. unfortunately the customer (er.. patient) is left to put the pieces together and make sense of this all - Internal medicine /GP used to be there to help make sense of these diverse datasets and be on the patience side to guide and advocate and even push back on specialists... so hard to say u need only one or the other..
-similarly in engineering - we need both -
on that note - just a good podcast to listen to is on e by MArc and Ben the Andreesson guys) - on the crisis in education -- it is very US focussed, but enlightening as the issues seem very foundational - and the sad part is other parts of the world are still modelling themselves after the US systems..
[2/15, 8:10 AM] Rakesh Biswas: Why would specialization make sense in the medical field alone?
The human body is a trillion celled ecosystem evolved to have cells that do cater to different organ requirements around which current organ based specialities such as cardiology, Gastroenterology, Nephrology, neurology etc are created and yet all these organs keep communicating with each other through molecular signalling mechanisms.
Perhaps we can learn more from the trillion celled ecosystem that each one of us carries around with us all the time?
Here's more about generalism in education and practice :
[2/15, 8:16 AM] N R: Because of trilions of cells ... 😄
It will probably take few generations to understand all the cells in human body and how they interact with eachother... With specialisation it might be possible to focus and get somewhere with a few million cells 😀
2/15, 8:34 AM] Rakesh Biswas: Very important point :
Was also earlier trying to respond pivoting on this as to what are the possible basic similarities and differences between engineering and medical education :
Similarities are what @Dr Ravi Nayar puts it as:
Both are meant more for service than obsessive marketing and selling
Differences are :
Engineering deals with quantitative approaches to quantifiable knowns although when it comes to an offering solutions bottomline, there are instances where engineers too can provide working solutions where the machine works although one may not exactly understand how. Case in point: hemodialysers were removing a lot of toxins that were not completeley characterized even as dialysis machines evolved and yet we knew they were being removed beneficially for the patient!
Medicine otoh especially at the patient interface (coalface of healthcare) largely deals with qualitative approaches to unmeasurable unknowns and uses a lot of art and humanities tools that are seldom shared formally in education and research!
[2/15, 8:38 AM] Rakesh Biswas: So what should be the first step to provide true multidisciplinary education with societal impact?
A good place to start would be a peripatetic school (etymological derivative of Sanskrit parivrajak) where disciplinary experts (Rishis) move with their peripatetic gurukul in search of real problems to solve toward real impact!
Above was just a neutral thought lest we start tagging it with left right connotations
[2/15, 8:18 AM] Rakesh Biswas: To build better generalists in Medicine a complete game change of the curriculum that moves away from a single organ driven to a whole patient centered curriculum where the focus is not just on internal medicine and it's trillion celled internal cellular molecular crosstalks but due consideration to external Medicine with heightened abilities to understand with precision, the complete biopsychosocial requirements of individual patients.
More about game changing education curriculum here :
[2/15, 8:32 AM] J S : I was thinking about it too. But, do we run the curriculum in a multi disciplinary way? The streams are compartmentalised inside the campus. Thats all.
We are long way to implement a true multidisciplinary approach.
Unless we make the education “applied” rather than “knowledge”, we can’t call multi disciplinary.
[2/15, 8:38 AM] Rakesh Biswas: So what should be the first step to provide true multidisciplinary education with societal impact?
A good place to start would be a peripatetic school (etymological derivative of Sanskrit parivrajak) where disciplinary experts (Rishis) move with their peripatetic gurukul in search of real problems to solve toward real impact!
Above was just a neutral thought lest we start tagging it with left right connotations
[2/15, 8:41 AM] K : My thoughts are like this.
Applied and fundamental
If we need applied engineering, then multi disciplinary institutions are the way to go
But, if we need to encourage fundamental research, then, a specialised, super focused institution may be the right approach.
More discussion and expert PoV are required to validate my hypothesis.
[2/15, 8:46 AM] G N: Education has to teach the fundamentals Skills follow if the conceptual foundation is robust.
[2/15, 8:53 AM] U B : That will be driven by the industry partly. Employers need to change their mindset. As an example, I know some colleges are offering Engineering with History as an elective. Potential employers need to understand this and hire them
[2/15, 8:58 AM] G N: Thats standard practice overseas. A mentee of mine at Stanford majored in Computer Science and had two minors - Comparative Literature and Salsa Dancing.
[2/15, 9:00 AM] N R : Its crazy that people from around the whole world think modern education is broken.... At least we are not alone
[2/15, 9:06 AM] G N : The problem is that industry wants to blame academia for all its ills
[2/15, 9:08 AM] U B : Academia is also to blame partly. They are not in synch with the industry. That's why we have a employability problem. Only now with the NEP getting enforced there will be a transformation, seeing early signs of that,
[2/15, 9:23 AM] A Ki : Enforcing is exactly the problem. Modern education does not need regulators like AICTE / UGC or govt to decide which institute is ranked better (NIRF). This restrains innovation. Set the institutes free and let them innovate and let the market decide. IITB only has 175 odd seats for CompScience. Why not 2000 with 1000 being higher fees.
[2/15, 9:09 AM] K : Is employability is the only goal of academia 🤔
[2/15, 9:12 AM] Atul Batra NPC: agree blame games (and only overly negative narratives) are feel good perhaps but don't help anyone. It doesn't change things. What is needed is ideas and action. And deep collaboration between industry and academia, which someone well summarized as "just not talking to each other (exceptions notwithstanding)". The entire charter of this community. This community was not setup to just vent out at each other which is very easy to do; but but to exchange ideas, to have conversations, and build long term relationships that will germinate into action over time.
[2/15, 9:12 AM] U B : That's why I said partly!
[2/15, 9:14 AM] U B : You may want to read through the NEP policy I had posted earlier. You will understand how much transformation is required.
[2/15, 9:19 AM] K : 💯 On a Thursday morning, a working day, the kind of conversations happening here are amazing💐
This group has reached a critical mass and tipping point 👏👏👏
[2/15, 9:09 AM] K : Is employability is the only goal of academia 🤔
[2/15, 9:22 AM] N R : Mostly yes.
I mean we have massive industries in place for which we need to keep producing resources to keep 'em running
[2/15, 9:27 AM] K : Good point. But….
On the other hand, we will have think about 100s of other smaller / private institutions.
Given a chance, they will happily keep the status quo’s and running their cash cows.
The frameworks, measures and metrics by AICTE and UGC at least pushes them and keep a reasonable standard.
And there are autonomous colleges and deemed universities that have autonomy to make certain academic changes as required.
[2/15, 9:33 AM] Atul Batra NPC: Can we kickstart the concept of a community scribe? We can also use AI tools but it will help to have someone polish it up after. So every week, one person, by rotation, takes 20 minutes to parse through the discussion and summarize it back for group. Many of us can publish to the world etc. It can be anonymous so we will not call out names etc. High level summary w/ key takeaways. Who can start as the first community scribe?
[2/15, 9:41 AM] Rakesh Biswas: I often do some DJ mixing with different group texts forwarded to different groups to see different tunes emerge and also archive them as UDLCO on the lines of Baker expanding kolbs work on experiential conversational learning.
Here's what I got today from other health 2.0 groups. Too early to say how much music v noise it adds👇
[2/15, 8:47 AM] Rakesh Biswas: UDLCO thought for the day from NPC industry academia group : competency v learning style :
[2/14, 11:45 PM] Prof Ram : Too many good points and I am not competent to respond to all. But just one general point - there cannot be one type of education system that suits all. So, we need many types.
There is also no correlation between number of students who go to college and the overall per capita GDP.
Only 12% of high school graduates go to get a degree in Netherlands. Their workforce is very skilled because a much larger percentage go to vocational training and get absorbed.
Similar things in Finland, Germany, etc.. But their labor forces are highly skilled.
In the USA this is about 43%.
In India depending on where you get the numbers from it is anywhere between 8% to 27.3%. To me therefore the Indian challenge is not numbers, but (i) quality, (ii) lack of good vocational training for the rest and (iii) a society that values theoretical knowledge more than practical skills.
The changes need to be cultural as much as policy.
[2/15, 8:43 AM] Rakesh Biswas: Yes learning styles are important and often confused for competency and it's bedfellow that is just the opposite.
We need to rename competency based education as "learning style based education"
[2/15, 9:18 AM] Kandada Srinivasa : We have to wait till another generation. The current parental generation are a combination of aspirations to achieve highest caste, white collar jobs, top positions, and get away from the birth based forced trade crafts which do not or rather did not allow them to move around if they have other aspirations. Once it is saturated at the top all over the world only then the raising Indians will look back and take a more pragmatic view course correction towards vocational courses and skill development
[2/15, 9:19 AM] Ravi Vangara: There Is a need for industry, institution and individual to get a view of industry demand, that modified the courses or individual learns skills.. this way every one benefits a lot. This is the equation that needs to be solved.
[2/15, 9:42 AM] Atul Batra NPC: thanks. A nice crisp summary would be very useful as ritual here on I/A community. Also, minus names.
[2/15, 9:45 AM] Rakesh Biswas: Some anonymized indicator will need to be used to differentiate the originators of each text.
Suggestions around this welcome!
Not sure how would human 1 or human 2 look like. Perhaps something else?
2/15, 9:38 AM] R v B : In the midst of our fast-paced world, diving into STEM education feels essential, especially here in India.
If we aim to keep our edge in science and tech, sparking that innovative spirit early on is key. It's disheartening that many entering the workforce lack basic STEM know-how, and the fact that there's a noticeable absence of women and various ethnic groups in crucial STEM fields is a red flag.
We really need to invest in diverse STEM role models to build a more inclusive innovation landscape.
We will have to nurture a culture of curiosity and problem-solving – that's how we together may drive India forward in the science and tech game.
[2/15, 9:42 AM] R v B : Some of the questions coming to mind:
1. How can we incentivize higher education institutions to implement necessary change toward these goals, including adopting practices we know work?
2. How can technology be used as a pedagogical tool and be a democratizing force?
3. What non-traditional pathways are students taking to acquire skills, competencies, and credentials?
4. How do these new pathways challenge higher education as we know it?
5. How do people best learn STEM concepts at different life stages?
6. How do different contexts, including where people live, affect learning?
7. And how do we optimize content delivery to improve outcomes?
[2/15, 9:54 AM] Rakesh Biswas: Question 3 appears pivotal to answer the other questions!
My students I realize are from a generation facing information overload while I may have come from a generation of information poverty when walking to different libraries in the city and browsing books standing there, gave some daily exercise which I'm still thankful for.
This generation have their eyes on the sensory pleasures as the outcome of their efforts (we were no exception) and currently they know how to optimize their information handling toward learning what the curriculum demands toward ensuring a degree that guarantees life long supply of power and sensory pleasures (again true of all generations).
There are exceptions to the above rule and I guess a summary of all the discussion above is that we need their tribe to increase.
Those who have mastered the fundamentals and are self directed life long learners committed to societal impact.
How do we identify and nurture them and their discovered non traditional pathways?
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