The Potential of Problem-based Learning in Closing the ...Ibrahim Mohammed Al Hajri General Services Salim Said Salim Al-Sadairi Khalifa Musabah Al-Salehi Photography Centre for Educational

Public Relations & Information DepartmentSultan Qaboos University

Thursday,15 March 2018 Issue #002

Obesity among Omani Young Adolescents

Role Modelling in Education

Sensor Taps Effective for Saving Water

The Potential of Problem-based Learning in Closing the Skills Gap

This represents about 1 billion people globally. A disability is only actually a disability only when it prevents someone from doing what he or she want or need to do. Technologies and commu-nication devices help reduce physical barriers. In-formation and communication technologies (ICTs) provide a model to allow people with disabilities to better integrate socially and economically into their communities by supporting personal access to information and knowledge, learning and teaching situations, personal communication and interaction and access to educational administra-tive procedures. When we talk about accessibility issues, removing barriers to accessing ICTs by per-sons with disabilities is of paramount importance. Government agencies, NGOs and private sector should all come out to remove barriers to access ICTs and work together with the stakeholders so that people with disabilities are able to live inde-pendent life.

The sixth International Conference on Information and Communication Technology & Accessibility, hosted by SQU recently, addressed several issues related to e-accessibility, e-learning and innova-tive computer technologies and applications. The conference highlighted the fact that the Sultanate is a performing exceptionally well in the region in ensuring accessibility of people with disabilities to ICT.

What SQU and other higher educational in-stitutions can do in this area? The shortage of information technology professionals with ICT accessibility skills can be overcome by organizing internal training programmes on ICT accessibility and by adding this issue to university curricula. By undertaking such priority actions, governments, private sector and civil society will be creating an enabling environment that provides incentives to other stakeholders to advance the inclusion of persons with disabilities in development efforts.

Disability & Accessibility

According to the World Disabili-ty Report, 15–16 per cent of the world’s population lives with a disability.

Editorial SupervisionJamal Said Al-Riyami

Editor in ChiefHilal Saif Al-Badi

Senior EditorSanthosh Muthalath Kunhiveettil

EditorsNasebah Said Al MuharramiSara Mohammed Al GhailaniFatema Salim Al Ajmi

Design & LayoutAhlam Shaaban Al-WahaibiNajah Saif Al HarthiIbrahim Mohammed Al Hajri

General ServicesSalim Said Salim Al-Sadairi Khalifa Musabah Al-Salehi

PhotographyCentre for Educational Technology

C 2018 Sultan Qaboos University.

3Spotlight

Such devices were significant-ly effective in reducing water consumption in restaurants, mosques, hotels and govern-ment buildings. The findings of this study, carried out by Dr. Hayder A. Abdel Rahman and Dr. Mushtaque Ahmed from the Department of Soils, Water & Agricultural Engineering, Sultan Qaboos University, Hali-ma Al-Farsi from the Ministry of Regional Municipalities & Water Resources, and Dr. Matheus F. A. Goosen from the Office of Research and Graduate Studies, Alfaisal Uni-versity, Riyadh,Saudi Arabia, was published in SQU’s Jour-nal of Agricultural & Marine Sciences.

The study concluded the pipeline system was the main source of water delivery to homes as indicated by 67.7% of the participants. Most people in the study area were not using any water saving methods at their homes, yet 76% considered themselves as water savers. Participants were readily willing to install water saving devices in their houses.

The case studies revealed that the most effec-tive devices in saving water were sensor-ac-tivated taps followed by self-closing taps followed by low-flow showerheads. WSDs were significantly effective in reducing water consumption in restaurants, mosques, hotels and government buildings. Water consumption in shopping centres decreased but not statically significant. Aerators were not effective, as taps come already equipped with aerators. Toilet bags were not effective as the bowl itself must be originally designed to handle a low flush. A flush with a toilet bag was found ineffective in cleaning the bowl and thus users flushed twice thus increasing water use rather than decreas-ing it.

This study showed that there was no significant difference in water consumption before and after installation of WSDs at homes. This was due to the fact that faucets in houses were already equipped with aerators so no savings were achieved by installing new aerators. The researchers recommend retrofitting programs that involve replacement of existing plumb-ing equipment with that uses less water, and residential water audit programs that involve sending trained water auditors to participating family homes, free of charge, to encourage water conservation efforts.

A study that evaluated the effect of some water saving devices (WSDs) in Oman indicates that the most effective devices in saving water were sensor-activated taps followed by self-closing taps followed by low-flow showerheads.

Sensor Taps Effective for Saving Water

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Victoria Tuzlukova & Vindhya SinghCentre for Preparatory Studies, SQU

Problem-based learning helps students further improve their skills, nurture their metacognitive abilities and bring them towards a deeper and clearer understanding of the world.

The Potential of Problem-based Learning in Closing the Skills Gap

5Scope

The invasive co-existence of technology and inter-disci-plinary collaborations with skills development has made learning a global experience. This turn has necessitated a closer look at the pres-ent trends in education. A typical graduate is now expected to go beyond the textbook and the prescribed syllabus and show evidence of both theoretical knowl-edge and its practical appli-cations. Employers are also keen to have career ready students, who are equipped with the 21st century skills, especially the four Cs of communication, collabora-tion, critical thinking and creativity. However, many entry-level roles do not get the right candidate due to the widening skill gap that exist between the learning outcomes at the University level and the expectations at the employment scenario.

According to “The Mid-dle East Skills Report” of a joint study conducted by Bayt.com, the Middle East’s number one job site, and YouGov, a research and consulting agency, 52 per cent of respondents in Oman believe that there is a skills gap in the mar-ket. As reported in Muscat Daily (July 25, 2017), the job seekers believe that the educational system does not train students on skills which are relevant in today’s marketplace. From their perspective, there is also a ‘lack of awareness’ of what skills are in high demand. The support of this perspec-tive comes also from the employers. However, more important, is there a solu-tion to this problem? And what is the response of the tertiary education? Current-

ly, educators and researchers in tertiary education insti-tutions in Oman attempt to identify and integrate differ-ent approaches, techniques and strategies that can be used to enhance students’ skills and close the skills gap. Problem-based learning in English for Business courses at Sultan Qaboos Universi-ty is seen as an attempt to bridge the gap.

Problem-based learning is one popular instructional ap-proach aimed at helping stu-dents further improve their skills, nurture their meta-cognitive abilities and bring them towards a deeper and clearer understanding about the world around them. In the English for Business courses at Sultan Qaboos University, the development of problem solving skills is integrated throughout the curriculum. Students learn to think and solve problems through facilitated con-text-rich problem solving tasks. They also engage in self-directed learning. The instruction is aimed at developing in students the ability to solve problems beyond the usual pattern - that is, the ability to transfer problem solving skills to situations students have not tried/attempted before. The focused attention is also placed on the application of content and the process of learning. Consequently, “through consistent prac-tice, students will eventually develop their abilities to con-struct ideas into their think-ing, to accurately assess what they are reading, and to think within the view-point of authors (even those with whom they disagree)”. The students collaborate as a group and communi-

cate their ideas that should ideally help them to critical engage in problem solving. Thus, as rightly empha-sized, “because students talk out their different ideas and evaluate alternative approaches, they acquire individual problem-solving skills in the process”.

In-depth inquiry into the background of the product and a holistic approach to finding solutions enable reflection and revision of ideas. In the English for Business 3 course, for instance, students work in the optimal size groups of three or four, to identify an ill-structured real-world problem in a country of their choice. The solution will be to offer support through an international charity, which will be set up in the country. On the one hand, “real-world problems furnish more interesting, meaning-ful and challenging contexts for students to apply and hone their skills. On the other hand, students are engaged in cognitive collab-oration and develop prob-lem-solving expertise, group dynamics and team work as they critically analyze the specific situation and suggest creative solutions through the services offered by the international charity. The students’ voices find expression as they articulate through PEST analysis and SWOT analysis the rationale for their solutions. Problem solving tasks therefore to a large extent, is a step in the right direction to equip stu-dents with the skills needed in the future workplaces in addition to developing con-fidence to pursue self-em-ployment as a career option.

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We all live in a world full of actions. Have you ever wondered what influences students the most? Is it your perfectly organized power points? Is the mastery with which you deliver your content? Is there something else that might influ-ence students to learn? In academics, we do a lot of lip service to the concept of “Role modelling”. However, this is never evaluated or assessed in any way in the academic setting. Nor is it recognized as of value.

Role modelling like tacit knowledge is very personal to an individual. However, unlike tacit knowledge, it’s an observable behaviour which can easily be imitated. I remember learning perfect telephone manners quite well into my work life, by just observing a work colleague answer the phone. It just struck me how simple and pleasant it is to wish “Good morning, I am Shreedevi speaking and how may I help you”. Since then I have always done the telephone answering the same way for over 30 years.

The term ‘role model’ is commonly used in various occupational fields and walks

of life. It is often described as a person who exemplifies behavior or a social role for others to emulate. A role model is also defined as someone who sets a positive example and whose attitudes and values are assimilated by learners. Role modelling is widely acknowledged to be a very valu-able method of educating student health professionals within the clinical setting and can contribute to their professional development and attainment of knowl-edge.

Are Role models needed?Good role models have a powerful influence on people, and the direction they head in life. It’s someone that you look up to, admire, and find yourself wondering what they do whenever you have a question about something now and again.

Influential role modelsStudies indicate that in contrast to our thinking, role models are usually peo-ple close to lives of youngsters such as

Nothing is so contagious as example, and wenever do any great good or evil which doesnot produce its like. - Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Role Modellingin Education

7Vista

Shreedevi BalachandranLecturer, College of Nursing

parents and teachers. This is because our socialization behaviours in the family are influenced by parents and in the external world by our teachers at school and pro-fessional education before we are let out into the world to practice by ourselves. There is generally no explicit mention in any curriculum or job description about this matter. Latent or hidden curriculum expects that we role model as educators.

Learning fromrole modelsOne of the reasons that I spent quite a few years in the clinical area doing hands on nursing care was directly observing the behaviour of another teacher. She did teach me nursing; however, later she spent many years improving the nursing care rendered at a cardiac specialty hospi-tal. Observing her gave me the conviction that higher the degree of education in nursing, the graver is the need to spend time practising and improving lives of patients under our care.

My teaching oratory skills have been influenced by a role model from a tradi-tional spiritual ‘Guru’. This ‘Guru’ used to explain tough Hindu scriptures with daily life examples using science as the base. He used physics, technology and other life observations. This taught me, to be a teacher with a simplistic approach to even the most complex ideas. I imi-tated his style of providing examples and connecting a complex idea to a daily life happening. I really am excited seeing the “Ah-ah” moments of my students when they understand.

Best practices as a teacher of nursingRole theory suggests individuals perceive their identity in relation to groups with whom they identify closely in terms of roles. The moral sense of nursing cannot be taught but can be caught. This means students may not think of academic staff as role models, as they may not be seen as nurses. So it is important for teachers to behave like nurses first at the bedside and then as a teacher.

1. No communication class can teach more than your greeting at the bedside,

your response after listening carefully to a patient.

2. No amount of talking will change a student approach to the patient, other than your appropriate touch and body language and approach to the patient.

3. Joining the student with all your enthusiasm in caring for the patient especially for hygiene will give them the right attitude rather than bossing or criticizing the student.

4. Arriving on time for duty by the teacher, utilizing the allotted break time,dressing professionally speak much louder than rules and regula-tions.

5. Being knowledgeable, confident, communicative, unique, hardworking and optimistic and above everything, great at what you do is the success formula for a good role model. Hon-esty even in unconscious actions does help.

6. Indicating to students the vast array of possibilities and their own individ-ual strength is a key to successful role modelling.

Finally, we must remember “We must acknowledge . . . that the most important, indeed the only, thing we have to offer our students is ourselves. Everything else they can read a book.” – D C Tosteson

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This cross sectional study was conducted by researcher from the College of Education and the College of Agricultural & marine Sciences at Sultan Qa-boos University with the sup-port of experts from the Diwan of Royal Court and the Min-istry of Education. The team equally contributed in this study and included Kashef N Zayed, Mostafa I Waly, Badriya Al Haddabi, Majed S Al-Busafi, Nasser Al-Rawahi, Mansour Al-Tauqi and Fathi Thiyabat. The research team carried out this study considering the fact that sedentary life style and bad nutritional habits are the main etiological factors for obesity-associated non-com-municable diseases. Adequate physical activity practice and

good nutrition are essential to support growth and develop-ment of young adolescents.

The aim of this study was to assess the physical activity and nutritional status of young Omani adults who live in Mus-cat city. Seven Hundred and One Omani young adults (313 males and 388 females) with a comparable age of 17.2 years were included in this study.

The results showed that there was no gender difference with regard the socio-demographic characteristics and anthro-pometric measurements of the study subjects. The study participants had a high caloric intake that is associated with overweight and obesity as

evidenced by the increase in Body Mass Index. The dietary intake of protein and fat was comparable for both genders and within the recommended dietary allowances.

Dr. Mostafa Waly from the Department of Food Science and Nutrition, who was in the research team, said that meeting energy and nutrients needs, and preventing nutri-tional-related disorders while establishing healthy eating habits among preadoles-cents is the main challenge in Oman. “Adequate intake and the establishment of healthy eating behavior are essential to reduce the risk to develop non-communicable diseases (NCD).

Obesity among Omani Young Adolescents

A research study that assessed the physical activity and nutritional status of young Omani adults in Muscat city indicates that sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy nutritional habits lead to obesity Omani young adolescents. The results underscore the need to adopt physical edu-cation intervention programs to improve the life style characteristics of young Omani adults and to in-crease their awareness about health risks-associated with sedentary life style.

99In focus

The results of this study were considered in the context of the current dietary guidelines developed by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that were directed specifi-cally to preadolescent children’s health and well-being. Such framework was not ful-filled in Oman, and our study revealed that the enrolled study subjects have a high daily intake of the total caloric intake, which might be a trigger for obesity and overweight. The purpose of this study was to assess the preva-lence of overweight and obesity and examine eating habits among Omani young adults”, he said.

Based on BMI classification of weight status, findings of this study indicate that the major-ity of study subjects were of normal weight. Normal weight was more prevalent among males (60.1%) as compared to females (48.3%), whereas, overweight and obesity were equally proportional among males and females. A total of 22.5% of the males were obese compared to 22.4% of the females. The lower rate of obesity among males and female subjects was attributed to their cau-tion about weight status, this assumption was supported by the fact that 17.4% of males were underweight as compared to 29.3% of females in this studied sample.

Dr. Waly further said that data analyses of eating habits in our study revealed that the majority of study subjects eat meals regularly in accordance to the guidance of food guide pyramids in terms of daily and weekly serv-ings’ numbers. The majority of study subjects (males and females) believe that it is impor-tant to eat a variety of foods to have a bal-anced and nutritious diet. Healthful diet was classified as a diet that included more fruits and vegetables, and less fat. On the contrary, daily intake of snacks and fried food were reported by the majority of students, and this frequent snacking and eating fried food (four times or higher per week) is a direct cause for obesity as it is considered as an energy and fat dense food.

The researchers opined that development of effective nutrition-education programs is re-quired to increase the nutrition knowledge of young Omani adults, as the nutrition educa-tion will positively change their dietary behav-iors. Developing nutrition education programs that promote healthy eating habits for young adults should be adopted. The findings of this study were reported in E-Chronicon Open Access EC Nutrition journal Volume 7 Issue 1 February 2017.

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Prerequisites for Significant Learning

Prof. Stewart Lewis Ross is a senior consultant specialized in course design workshops at colleges and universities around the world. He is the Found-ing Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) at Minnesota State Mankato (MSU), which began in fall 2002. He is currently affiliated to Dee Fink & Associates, which is a small company of experienced workshop leaders who have expertise in Integrated Course Design. The com-pany leads workshops and online courses for college instructors on how to design courses that lead to increased student engagement and learning. An accomplished trombone player, Prof. Ross gave numerous recitals and played with various bands. He was at SQU, delivering workshops on “Creating significant learning experiences: an integrated approach to designing college courses”, organized by SQU’s Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and attended by over 170 faculty including the CETL Faculty Fellows.

Imprint: The term “cre-ating significant learn-ing experiences”, itself alludes to certain prob-lems associated with college teaching today. Could you explain?

Prof. Ross: If you take any professional, such as lawyer, doctor, engineer, etc., you will see that they are well trained in their respective profession and their knowledge about the subject is outstanding. When many of these people are asked to teach, we could find that many of them have very little knowledge about how to teach their respective subject. The majority of them have very little knowledge about teaching, the psycholo-gy of the students or student engagement, grading, con-ducting tests and/or how to help people learn. The reason is that, across the world, the societies do not ask faculty to do much work in this area. Many university teachers do not go beyond the “under-stand and memorize” type of learning. They do not think about aspects of learning such as: problem solving, decision making, critical thinking, eth-ics, and the future of society. This gives the impression that college teachers generally read a book in the class and throw things against the wall or the just present informa-tion. This makes the students engage in kind of “informa-tion dumping” of their own. Then students think of learn-ing as memorization. Often teachers do not think beyond the traditional methods of lec-turing and leading discussions in classrooms.

Imprint: What are the negative consequences of this style of teaching?

Prof. Ross: Quite simple. The students are unhappy. They keep complaining about

teachers. Sometimes, even the teachers are unhappy. The students are at differ-ent levels; the teacher does not know how to meet the learning needs of such a wide range of skills and knowl-edge. Therefore, teachers throw information “against the wall.” Then many stu-dents cannot make sense of the information, they do not see the reason for learning the information and ome fall asleep in the classrooms. They show apathy and do not really care. The teacher has failed to motivate the students. In addition, some students are only at the university because their mom and dad said they should be there. Whatever the underlying reason, far too many students do not see the big picture for their educa-tions. Alarmingly, they take no reponsibility for their own learning.

Imprint: What should the teachers do to over-come these problems?

Prof. Ross: The teaching com-munity should have knowl-edge in their discipline. That is required. At the same time, they should learn about them-selves and other people. They should learn to enjoy their lives and also help their stu-dents enjoy their lives. When an employer hires a university graduate, they make sure that he or she is proficient in the discipline s/he studied at the university. The employers ensure that the person they hired is a personwho can get along with everybody, is able to work in teams,has confi-dence in himself or herself and, can do things. These are the important traits that a person should acquire while at the university. In order to produce such special people, the teaching methods and ap-proaches have to be changed. A university graduate should

be able to retain the informa-tion after a course is over and develop the ability to transfer his knowledge to novel situa-tions. He should have thinking and problem solving skills along with motivation for lifelong learning and a willing-ness to change attitudes and perspectives; have an open curious mind.

Imprint: What are the prerequisites for signifi-cant learning?

Prof. Ross: If the process of learning makes a lasting change in the life of a learner, we could say that significant learning has occurred. For learning to take place, there has to be some lasting change in the learner. Apart from foundational knowledge, application and integration, the “Taxonomy of Significant Learning” includes human di-mension, caring and learning how to learn. When students learn something important about themselves or about others, they can interact and function more effectively. Sig-nificant learning experiences change the degree to which students care about some-thing. When they care about something, they have more energy to learn about it and to make integrate the learn-ing into their lives. Students can learn about the learning process during the course of their studies. They can learn to be better individuals while-learning scientific methods; they can become self-direct-ed learners while becoming experts in their disciplines. The most significant kind of learning experience is one in which students achieve all six kinds of significant learning. That is possible - if teachers learn how to design their courses with these goals in mind. Significant learning is the core concept or model of “integrated course design.”

11Face to Face