The controversial teaching strategy in the world is Outcome Based Education. It does not work because the implementers have been inexperienced, fugitives from class rooms who pushed the strategy on to inexperienced teachers.
Next week, there will be a convention in Madang where the blind experts will be out in force promoting a viable option to Outcome Based Education.
There is a common misconception to Outcome Based Education that it is all about research and requires libraries and computers.
One senior officer told me recently that what he learned in Mastery Learning decision making is all that he can still remember from his days as an officer cadet. Hey Murphy.
Application of Mastery Learning blossomed during three years as the Deputy Headmaster and/or senior subject master at Dregerhafen, Bumayong and Busu High schools in 1993-1996 and later in private schools in Port Moresby.
The skill is to produce categorized sequences of exercises to be practised by students and demonstrated by teachers in lock-step fashion.
I lifted the standard of writing by sequences of hundreds of categorized exercises. That is Mastery Learning and Outcome Based Education. No research anywhere. Please click:
TEACH STUDENTS TO WRITE COMPLEX SENTENCES
I have started a program of giving workshops to teachers in Port Moresby schools on Mastery Learning. I am about to run a three hour workshop on a voluntary basis for 41 teachers of Kila Kila Secondary School and 37 teachers of Boreboa Primary School.
Their teaching practice will never be the same.
The students learn to:
* use complex sentences,
* not repeat words unnecessarily.
* avoid simple baby sentences, and
* use the range of connectors -with, and, but etc.
Try this exercise for upper primary level students:
FAIRY STORY OF THE SHOEMAKER
Once upon a time in a far away land there was a shoe maker.
He lived in a shop in a village in a forest.
He lived with his wife and beautiful daughter Anna.
Once upon a time in a far away land there was a shoe maker
who lived in a shop in a village in a forest with his wife and
beautiful daughter Anna.
Every day he would sit outside his shop.
He would tell stories with his friends.
He would boast of great deeds he had done.
Every day he would sit outside his shop and
tell stories with his friends, boasting of great
deeds he had done.
Every day he would sit outside his shop telling
stories with his friends and boasting of great
deeds he had done.
He would tell of how he killed a giant.
The giant would come to attack the village.
He would carry away the maidens.
He would tell of how he killed a giant who
would come to attack the village and carry
away the maidens.
He cut down a large tree.
The tree fell on the giants head.
It killed him instantly.
It crushed his great body into the dirt.
He cut down a large tree that fell on the
giants head killing him instantly and
crushing his great body into the dirt.
One day he was boasting to his friends .
He told them of how he changed straw into gold.
It filled his house.
It made him a rich man.
One day he was boasting to his friends of how
he changed straw into gold that filled his house.
and made him a rich man
On that day a troop of the king’s soldiers came to the village.
They heard him talking about changing straw into gold.
On that day a troop of the king’s soldiers came to the village.
and heard him talking about changing straw into gold.
On their return to the palace they told the king of a man
He changed straw into gold.
He lived in the forest with his family.
On their return to the palace they told the king of a man
who changed straw into gold and lived in the forest with
his family.
The king told them to bring the man to him.
They were to fill a room with straw.
This was for him to do the magic deed.
The king told them to bring the man to him and to fill a
room with straw for him to do the magic deed.
The shoemaker was afraid to stand before the king.
He was afraid to tell the truth.
He said he could do it.
The shoemaker was afraid to stand before the king
and tell the truth so he said he could do it.
The king told him that he must not fail.
His daughter would be taken from him.
She would be put to work in the kitchen of the palace.
The king told him that he must not fail or his daughter
would be taken from him and put to work in the kitchen
of the palace.
The shoemaker sat in the room.
He cried. He was afraid to lose his daughter.
The shoemaker sat in the room and cried.
afraid to lose his daughter.
But a little man appeared.
He told the shoemaker not to worry.
He could change straw into gold.
But a little man appeared and
told the shoemaker not to worry
as he could change straw into gold.
In the morning the doors opened.
The king stood in amazement.
He saw the piles of gold.
In the morning the doors opened
and the king stood in amazement.
to see the piles of gold.
He put him in a bigger room.
Once again the little man appeared.
He turned the straw into gold.
He put him in a bigger room and
once again the little man appeared
and turned the straw into gold.
It made the king more greedy than ever.
the little man appeared.
He turned the straw into gold.
It made the king more greedy than ever.
He put him in a bigger room and
once again the little man appeared
to turn the straw into gold which
made the king more greedy than ever.
Once students have completed such exercises over primary and secondary years, their approach to writing will be sweetened forever. They should complete about 2000 writing skill exercises.
THIS IS OUTCOME BASED EDUCATION. NO RESEARCH ANYWHERE.
The fall in HIV in Uganda had nothing to do with circumcision - the campaign hadn't started yet - and everything to do with "zero grazing" (one partner at a time).
This is because the virus is at its most transmissible just after it has been received.
The three African circumcision trials (including Auvert's) are very dubious. Less than two years after circumcising a total of 5,400 men, 64 of them had HIV, 73 fewer than similar groups told to wait.
That is the whole basis of the "60% reduction" claim. But 327 circumcised men were "lost from study", their HIV status unknown, so anything is possible.
Another study in Uganda started to find that circumcising men increases the risk to women, but it was cut short before that could be confirmed.
Condoms protect both partners much more than circumcision can, even in theory.