Sent via a collective email to each of the TEN GROUPS separately -- this email creates an email list via the Reply-To-All function built into all mail programs. This is the easiest way for groups to communicate with each other. Some Groups have also created a WhatsApp Subgroup for their own use for communications. This has proven to be an effective strategy, and may be useful for future.
Since the times that I received graduate training at MIT and Stanford (from Sep 1971 to June 1977), I have travelled a long intellectual journey. My whole life has been spent in educational institutions, in the process of teaching and learning. It came as a great surprise to me to learn that everything I had been taught in Economics at Stanford was wrong – see “The Education of An Economist” for more details. Similarly, I was equally surprised to learn that the extremely difficult mathematical skills that I had acquired in the axiomatic method of theorem and proof, were actually completely useless for helping me with problems I faced in my life – see “Islamic Education: Still Revolutionary After 1440 Years”. I resolved to provide a better education to my own students, and worked continuously to improve my teaching both in substance and in style.
By the time of my recent retirement from PIDE, I had made tremendous progress in developing efficient ways of teaching students. The changes that I made came from Islamic insights about knowledge, and the process of teaching. One of the key insights is that ‘useful knowledge enters the heart’ – all of the knowledge that I had acquired at Western universities was in my head, but none of it entered my heart. How can we change the substance and style of our pedagogy, so that what we teach enters the hearts of the students, and changes their lives for the better? Gradually, I learned how to separate the beneficial knowledge, which our Prophet SAW made dua to acquire, from the useless knowledge from which he sought the protection of Allah. Much to my surprise, I learned that MOST of what we are taught is useless knowledge. By removing it from the curriculum, we can create a far better learning experience for our students, which rapidly leads them to the frontiers of current human knowledge. Using these techniques, I was able to do what I had previously considered impossible: bring students from weak backgrounds to current frontiers of human knowledge with only 10% of the training I had received myself. I have been able to supervise around 30 world-class Ph.D. students, and more than 60 M.Phil. students, all of whom have produced valuable theses, on original research topics.
The purpose of my creating this online course was to transfer this knowledge to teachers in the Islamic world. Under influence of capitalism, the attitude that the teacher is a hired employee providing a paid-for service to a client is coming to replace the traditional Islamic views of the teacher-student relationships. In fact, teachers play a tremendous role in shaping thoughts and actions of students. Muslim teachers need to learn to provide guidance to their students in terms of how to become better human beings, and how to develop the tremendous potentials for excellence that Allah T’aala has placed within all human hearts. But traditional Western subjects, taught using the traditional Western approach that we learnt during our own studies, do not provide us with any opportunity to reach the hearts of our students. Using the new methods can create a knowledge revolution in the Islamic countries since we can use the Islamic approach to substantially improve on what is currently best available education in the West. For example, I can confidently claim that students of my advanced Macroeconomics course learned much more about real world macroeconomic issues than their counterparts at Harvard University. Similarly, students who learn statistics using methods to be taught in this course, will learn much more than their counterparts all over the world. We have tried these methods, and achieved excellent results, so they are tested and proven.
One of the keys to improved learning outcomes is to move beyond the lecture methods. Learning is created in the process of struggle – “Those who struggle in Our path, We will show them our pathways”. Encouraging the students to struggle, in order to acquire knowledge, is an essential part of the teaching process. Without struggle, learning cannot take place. This first week has been a struggle for me, since this is the first time I have tried to run an online course, and that too with 200+ students. I have already learned how to simplify the process, to concentrate on the learning essentials. All administrative overhead tasks can be done solely by the two group leaders. For the first week, which will end at midnight tomorrow, on Saturday 3rd August (corresponding to 1st or 2nd Zil Hajj, here is a REVISED set of tasks: These can be completed in less than 30m if you do the reading only (Tasks 1 & 3, omit 2), and in less than an hour if you do all three.
REVISED TASKS: To be Completed By Midnight on Saturday 3rd Aug.
1. [Compulsory – 5 minutes reading] Read the post: Real Statistics (1/4) Fundamentals of An Islamic Approach.
2. [Optional – 15 minute video] Watch the Video embedded in the Post
3. [15 minutes Task] Write Up a RESPONSE to the post. Start by summarizing the post in one paragraph in your own words, and then write one paragraph of your own reaction to what has been said in the post. EMAIL these two paragraphs (Summary + Response) to your GROUP.
All other overhead tasks will be done by the Group Leaders, so that the remaining participants can focus on the important learning tasks required of them. The third task illustrates one important and ESSENTIAL pedagogical principle which we rarely use in our lecture based courses. Students do not learn by listening to lectures or reading textbooks. Student learn by actively engaging with and struggling to understand and respond to the knowledge provided, and to IMPLEMENT this knowledge in their lives. When you read and respond, and try to explain what you have understood to the other members of the group, you will NOTICE a substantial increase in your own understanding. This will give you experiential knowledge of a valuable pedagogical principle which you can use to improve your own teaching and studying.
I have reduced the tasks down to the minimal possible set which is necessary for participation in the course so that even the busiest person should be able to complete this task. Those who do complete it will gain valuable knowledge and skills. Those who do not even have half an hour per week should inform their Group Leaders, so that we can offer the slots to others who have been locked out of the course because registration closed at 200. The course is still in its initial phases, so it is possible for new students to be added, to replace those who cannot participate in the group learning experience.