Thank you for this interesting trial example. I’ve heard before about active learning, but ninja learning in which knowledge is injected in the activity without the students know that they are actually learning seems very interesting. However, it may be the case that some students are embarrassed of participating in the activity. Accordingly, sometimes it may be necessary to tell them explicitly that we are doing this to learn so and so.

I totally understand your concerns.

Thank you for this post!
I had the same problem in my country. All my life was a bunch of tests from my first day in school to my pre-masters study. When I came to the US, things were different. Instead of having tests, I now have assignments
But to me, assignments is much better than tests and may be less stressful.

Yes, I totally agree with you. In the post I am mainly talking about practical disciplines.

I totally agree with you that assessments have a negative effect on students that it makes them worried about failure. But I believe not all forms of assessment are causing this bad effect. I believe that written in-class exams may be responsible of this. Accordingly, we need to find better ways of assessments that are less stressful for students and allow the instructor to better gauge and improve his students’ performance. Assessment is inevitable.

I really liked the factory metaphor you used to describe schools in which classes are the assembly lines teachers are the workers and students are the product. This is really what is happening in today’s education without giving more attention to individualized learning.
I also totally agree with you that individualized learning is impractical in highly populated countries. For example in Egypt where the population is approaching 100 million, on average a class will have about 60-90 student and the ratio of teachers to students is about 1:25.

Thank you very much for pointing me to this resource.

I agree with you that blogs is a good convenient way of making your point or argument reach more people and that it has nothing to do with adding more meaning or giving more credit to your point. Very similar is your Facebook or Twitter account. You can publish your own opinions and beliefs freely, and you may also enter debates to defend your point. However, blogs, posts, and tweets and any other mean of sharing thoughts is not just a space occupied as you mentioned. It can be so if you publish just crap! On the other hand, it can be a place that people use to visit regularly to get all the new out of your head! Accordingly, the value of your blog lies mainly in the value of the thoughts and arguments written it it. You can make it worth its space!

Thank you for sharing this.

Yes that’s right. They get paid less since their stipend comes directly from the government not the university.