A large number of students studying in schools and colleges in Pakistan depend on additional mentoring to understand the course content. Most of them have to rely on private academies and individual tutors to comprehend the course content and to pass the board exams. Many of these students do not have the financial resources to afford private tutors for each subject they are studying. Moreover, ev
en when they attend the private academies, due to large class size the pace of learning is not self-controlled. Furthermore, in many regions of the country, especially in rural area, qualified teaching staff is in scarcity. This situation is more pronounced for science subjects. Students in such regions are at a competitive disadvantage because for their college or university admissions they have to compete with students from all over the country. Using advances in communication technology, Khwarizmi Science Society (KSS) Maktab program plans to address some of the above mentioned problems. KSS Maktab program will assist the students in their comprehension of the course content, as well as provide them a self-paced learning alternative. One of the key sources of motivation for us is teaching model of Salman Khan (KhanAcademy.org). Objectives
● Provide quality lectures on CDs and YouTube with an open access and at no cost
● Main focus on conceptual learning, but at the same time teaching geared towards exam preparation also
● Act as a supplementary resource for students attending colleges or academies
● Teach the course content in Urdu language for better comprehension. Most of the text and technical terms will remain in English; however, the explanation of the text will be in Urdu. Scope
Long term scope of this program is to cover most of the academic classes and courses offered in Pakistan from Class 1 to bachelor degree level. Focus and preference will be for the scientific subjects, as these are aligned with the KSS goals of popularization of science in the society. However, in Phase 1 of this project, we will only cover the F.Sc. syllabus for the following science subjects: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology. We will start with the text books of one of the government boards and extend it to course content of other boards’ text books, based on resource availability. In Phase 2 of the project, we will cover the Matric syllabus for the science subjects. Our current preference to cover F.Sc. syllabus is due to the following reasons:
● An overwhelming majority of the F.Sc. 1st year students come from Urdu medium background so face additional difficulties due the transition of language (of the text).
● The working environment of government colleges that majority of the students attends is completely different from that of the schools. In many college lecturers don't observe a teaching schedule strictly, hence the students are generally left either on their own or on the tuition academies. So college students deserve first and foremost attention.
● Many colleges located in remote districts offer F.Sc. with incomplete faculty. Sometimes a single science teacher covers all the science subjects (Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology).
● It is quite rare to find a complete set of four female lecturers in a small city to cover all the four subjects, due to which many female students suffer the most. Methodology
● We will start the project with some seed money and will hire instructors to cover the F.Sc. science subjects (Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology).
● We will prefer the fresh graduates of F.Sc., and students in Engineering Universities, Medical Colleges, and Computer Science institutions.
● During incubation period we will closely manage and monitor the project. Later, we will remove the restrictions and make it more open for others to contribute. This call will be made from KSS’s platform.
● After pilot program’s success, we will be open to accept donations to promote this program.
● Volunteerism will be encouraged to produce new content and to manage and disseminate it.
● We will inspire other people and/or groups to replicate the experience for non-science subjects
● Lectures will be record in a style similar to that of KhanAcademy.org.
○ In general, the instructor will not be visible in the lecture.
○ Lectures will be video recorded
○ We will use a digital board to draw on the computer screen
○ A screen capturing software (preferably an open source) will be used to capture the lecture from a computer screen
● Lectures will be uploaded to KSS YouTube channel
● A specific page will be created on KSS website (http://www.khwarizmi.org/) for this project to display all the lectures in an organized way.
● Lectures will be available for free, for downloads and/or burning them on a CD.
● Each video’s duration will be 12-15 minutes (with exceptions as per the situation).
● No single video will be longer than 30 minutes.
● Preferably the first and the last slide of each lecture will bear a logo of KSS, project name, and the instructor’s name (and of course a title and description of the lecture)
● Ideally, comments will be enabled for each lecture on the YouTube and this feedback will be analyzed and incorporated in future lectures.
● A status file will be maintained to track the progress of the project.
