Why is it recommended that you spend 5 or 10 minutes at the end of class to reconsider what youve heard during class multiple choice question?

I’m an international student from India and sharing my “world-class” and “international” experience I experienced at RMIT University:

I got offer for the program “M.E Electrical Engineering”. There were 4 courses in the 1st semester of the program. 3 of the courses were handled by Chinese staffs and 1 was handled by an Indian.

On the first day of lecture itself I found it hard to follow the Chinese professors’ accent and spoken English. Initially, I just thought it was the Australian accent. After few weeks, when the new topics in the courses picked up heat, it was even harder to follow them and I had to turn to youtube videos. It was confusing initially as I got 7.0 in IELTS and couldn’t follow their spoken English.

Their way of teaching was so hard to follow and even made easy topics as convoluted as possible. While the youtube videos I saw, handled the topics like a piece of cake. Most of those videos were from the United States youtubers and I had no problem in following their English and teaching.

I asked my Indian friends regarding this issue and even they found it very hard to follow Chinese staff’s English and relied on youtube for most topics. They even said that, if they had already known the situation, they would not have even applied to these Australian universities in the first place.

Half way through the 1st semester of the program, I was devastated by the fact that my father and I spent many days at the bank and had to pledge our land to get education loan, all for some poor-quality education in a “world class” Australian university. Honestly speaking, I should have given that money to those youtube channels. Some might even think I’m a racist for pointing out the poor quality of teaching and spoken English of Chinese professors in Australia, but I have spent a fortune in a hope to get a good quality education.

In the 2nd semester of the program also, 3 out of 4 courses and were handled by Chinese staff with poor spoken English. It took me just a week to realize that if I continue at this university, I will only become a master degree holder and not a real engineer. I immediately applied for Leave of Absence (LOA) and started looking at US based universities.

However, all the Chinese staffs that handled my courses graduated from China’s top universities and had a very good academic profile. Coming to their quality of teaching, it was just appalling. I even wonder if these staffs cleared their IELTS/TOEFL exams.

One of the main reasons I applied to Australian universities and ignored US, Canada, UK based universities is due to the ranking provided by QS World University Ranking and TIMES World University ranking. I found out that these ranking sites emphasize more on international student enrollment and international staff percentage/ratio. This is the only reason why these Australian universities are in the top list.

US based universities with international ranking around 1000s provide better courses and programs than these “world-class top” Australian Universities ranked at 100s. Also, more than 90% of the Indian students pursue their program at Australia to get PR and citizenship only. They don’t even care about the quality of education and the prospect of getting job after completing their program.

Indians can skip the Australian Visa interview if they go to an education consultant. The main disadvantage is that, the students who won’t even get admission in a Tier 3 university/college in India, easily gets into these “top” Australian Universities. These students also skip IELTS/TOEFL as the Australian universities provide the option to do a course on English instead of clearing IELTS/TOEFL.

If you are an international student and want to pursue masters from a world class university, kindly avoid Australian universities at all cost. There are way better universities at the US, UK and Canada. I made a grave mistake by choosing an Australian University and don’t let their fancy buildings lure you.

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contributed by bettermarks.com

Most people have heard the sayings, “You learn from your mistakes,” “Adversity is the school of wisdom,” or are admonished to ‘fail forward.’

Meanwhile, it is a general consensus that making mistakes is an important part of the learning process. This is because if instead of giving up in frustration after making a mistake, we work constructively to understand the mistake, the strategy to solve the problem stays with us better than if we just memorize the solution.

Despite this, in our educational system, mistakes are more often punished than seen as an opportunity to learn. What then can we do to help our students learn from their mistakes? First, let’s take a look at how mistakes can stimulate the learning process.

1. See mistakes as a source of understanding

When students are mindful of incorrect solution concepts while working on a problem, they are able to deal with the problem at a much deeper level than someone who is just presented with the correct solution and has to memorize it. Also, we should not just correct a mistake but make sure that students recognize and understand the reason for the mistake.

Only in this way can students arrive at a deeper understanding and correct solution method for the mistake.

A student who successfully fixes something incorrect experiences personal success. They experience directly how worthwhile their effort is and how their competence improves. Such an experience of success leads to the student being more persistent and putting in even more effort in the future when working on reaching a learning goal because they know that they can achieve it.

This is how to turn the motivation to learn into something intrinsic, which can be much more effective than incentivizing good grades for example.

3. Honor mistakes as guidance for the teacher, too

Wrong is just wrong? Wrong! Mistakes are multifaceted. They give the teacher information about the stand of the individual student and which incorrect ideas and knowledge deficits the student has hinder learning. Mistakes also show you whether the student understands the required prerequisites and how you can optimally connect the previous topics to the current topic in the classroom.

Mistakes give you, as the teacher, an important foundation for the lesson structure and individual student development. If they’re learned from and responded to, mistakes are powerfully good! But which prerequisites have to be met so that mistakes lead to learning success and not to a dead-end?

4. Allow mistakes through the learning atmosphere

If students are to be allowed to learn from their mistakes, they must be allowed to make them! It should be clear to students that in a learning situation mistakes will be handled in a different way than in a performance evaluation where every mistake has a negative consequence.

Also, help to create a mistake-friendly learning atmosphere where students don’t feel ashamed of their mistakes. Motivate your students to not give up and to continue to work on the correct solution. In this way, the reward for learning remains the focus and a constructive way of dealing with mistakes is an important foundation of this.

Failing forward is a mindset!

5. Allow a variety of mistakes

Students should not only be allowed to make mistakes, but they need to be able identify the different kinds of mistakes that can occur. Here the type of learning material plays a decisive role. Enable situations where your students can make a variety of interesting mistakes. In most cases, just asking for the answer or using multiple-choice questions will not give you insight into the reasons for your student’s mistakes.

If a problem with understanding is recognized late in the learning process and a lot of time has elapsed before the student discovers they must re-learn the topic, the incorrect thought processes may be firmly cemented in the student’s mind. The learning process usually follows these steps in this order: practice activities, make errors, get feedback, think over the feedback, and try again.

The less this process is interrupted the more efficient and effective the learning is. The earlier a problem is discovered the easier it is to fix it. In the ideal scenario, a student will receive feedback on how close they are in terms of correctness immediately after giving their solution.

7. Analyze root causes and sources

There are different kinds of mistakes. Careless mistakes, systematic mistakes, misconceptions – the root cause of mistakes can have many sources. (Diagnostic teaching can help here.)

It is not enough that students know that they have made a mistake; they also need to receive feedback on where the mistake lies. This root cause analysis in connection with targeted individual support is the best way to change thought patterns and prevent students from making the same mistake again.

8. Encourage independent mistake correction as a matter of habit

Giving students the opportunity to find and correct their mistakes on their own immediately after they are made has a positive impact on their motivation to learn. At the same time, learning to look for root causes and sources of mistakes develops conceptual understanding.

For example, in mathematics, students often just learn solution methods for problems by rote rather than actually understanding the concept. However, when students look for the source of mistakes on their own, they realize the cause and improve their understanding independently. Things learned in this way are retained longer and are more easily applied to other mathematical topics.

If you want to help your students turn their mistakes into learning success in the best possible way, there are a number of challenges:

• How can you keep an eye on all students individually?
• How much effort must be put into the mistake analysis?
• How can you give all students individual feedback?
• How do you provide timely feedback?

9. Use technology that supports mistakes and personalized mistake analysis

We quickly reach our limits when we try to do justice to all the mistakes of all our students. Educational software can give some relief if it is able to analyze everything the student enters and give them direct feedback on their answer. In turn, you as the teacher should automatically get analyses on the strengths and weaknesses of your students.

There are hundreds if not thousands of educational software and platforms to choose from. To assist you in evaluating whether a technology supports you and your students in learning from mistakes we have created this checklist of requirements:

1. Does the program allow any kind of answer to be entered, or is it just multiple choice – can a student make a variety of mistakes?
2. Are there interactive input tools that are modeled after analog learning materials, for example, a compass or protractor?
3. Is feedback given immediately after entering an answer?
4. Does the student receive customized individual feedback with explanations?
5. Does the technology recognize recurring mistakes as knowledge gaps?
6. As a teacher, do you receive an analysis of the learning progress and mistakes of each of your students individually?

9 Ways To Help Students Learn Through Mistakes