Managing English Teaching Outcomes in Universities: An Experiential Learning Case Study of ESL/EFL Interventions

In countries where English is a foreign language, universities are expected to enhance the communication skills of their students after overcoming the deficiencies that they typically carry over from their schooling years, and the challenge for universities is to achieve this through the few mandated courses. This paper describes an auto-enthnographic case study of a series of interventions for improving the English teaching outcomes over a decade by the dean of a private university of Karachi. Each intervention was ref ined over a number of semesters through several execution cycles consisting of design, implementation and evaluation. Interventions were tried and tested until the outcomes could no longer be improved with the given resources. Issues identif ied through the evaluation of a particular intervention led to the design of subsequent interventions. The interventions consisted of changes made to the number of courses, grading criteria, selection of learning methodology, assessment strategy, hiring qualif ications, teacher development, medium of instruction for technical courses, design of environmental culture, quality control across multiple sections, level of student engagement, intensity of instruction doze, lab and instruction credit hours, assistance from senior students, and out of the box designs of course interactions. Experiential learning and analysis of these interventions demonstrated that traditional classroom based interventions centered on a teacher do not work unless they are accompanied by immersion experiences in innovative, collaborative and flexible learning environments. Experiential Learning and Project Based Learning (PBL) techniques which can stimulate and inspire the students were found to be more effective. The study proposes an innovative structure for conducting English courses that would provide an immersion experience to students which would be concentrated in time and space to help overcome many of the identified issues

Peer Mentoring: Exploring the Impact on the Learning Culture of a Business Institute in Pakistan

University education is a new transition from school to undergraduate programs for underprivileged students. Recruiting students from rural areas of Pakistan challenge teachers to teach at a Higher Education while teaching underprivileged students struggling for a better future. The aim of this paper was to introduce peer mentoring between the Business and Professional Speech (BPS) students and the freshmen. The researcher being course faculty of both the Business and Professional Speech and Foundation English students undertook the experiential learning project. The initiative for the project was to explore the impact of peer mentoring on the learning culture of a Business Institute in Pakistan, subsequently, highlighting the skills of lifelong learners in the 21st century of global citizenship. The aim of this paper was also to investigate the strength of mentors in keeping the course objectives aligning with students’ interpersonal, intrapersonal and public communication abilities, at developing students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Kolb’s experiential learning model (1984) was implemented to carry out the project; whilst, students direct data of interviews, video clips, pictures, questionnaires and documents were used to validate the research. Findings demonstrate the benef icial impact on the cyclical learning between the faculty, BPS and freshmen in terms of their improved results, retention of reading tasks and exposure to the real-life challenges of the diverse groups at the university. Peer mentoring could be the possibility of bringing about a change in society if introduced at universities in Pakistan

DERIVATIONS OF INITIAL DATA WAREHOUSE STRUCTURE BY MAPPING OPERATIONAL DATABASE ON TRANSACTION PATTERNS

Data warehouses improve the quality of integrated information in the organization for decision-making. The data for the data warehouse comes from online transaction systems. Typically, an involved process of analysis precedes the actual design phase of a data warehouse (1999). The analysis process becomes more difficult because of the costs involved in hiring experienced staff and the privacy issues arising from the use of external consultants (2000). Peter Coad’s transaction pattern (2000) is a higher-level description of a generic business process (or a template) that has helped in the analysis and design of a wide range of business domains. The thesis of this paper is that the mapping of the operational databases on the transaction pattern facilitates the derivation of initial data warehouse structure. During the mapping process, the relationships, roles and attributes of the players defined by the transaction pattern help us in identifying the instances of the pattern in the database. Through these instances, we can then derive the initial data warehouse structure i.e. the attributes of the fact and dimension table(s). The data warehouse structure thus derived reduces the need for an extensive information analysis of the needs of the user and the dependency on the experienced personnel for data warehouse development. This paper proposes a three-step derivation methodology that is illustrated using a case study of an organization’s operational database

WAS IT A ONE-MAN SHOW?

It was 2nd March 1992, when I entered my office. Everything was the same but I felt a silence in the atmosphere and my colleagues were busy in discussion with each other in a manner that I have not seen before in my whole working experience of 8 years. I came to my cabin and looked at the table clock that was again saying to me: “Yes! You are right on time, 5 minutes before 9:00 am”. My mind was again struck with the fact that why am I feeling so different today? And what is the reason behind this deadly silence in the atmosphere? Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder I turned around and it was none other than my friend and my colleague, an intelligent engineer from our Research and Development department. He was a friend, one of the four in the office, who were of the same batch of NED University

Peer Mentoring: Exploring the Impact on the Learning Culture of a Business Institute in Pakistan

University education is a new transition from school to undergraduate programs for underprivileged students. Recruiting students from rural areas of Pakistan challenge teachers to teach at a Higher Education while teaching underprivileged students struggling for a better future. The aim of this paper was to introduce peer mentoring between the Business and Professional Speech (BPS) students and the freshmen. The researcher being course faculty of both the Business and Professional Speech and Foundation English students undertook the experiential learning project. The initiative for the project was to explore the impact of peer mentoring on the learning culture of a Business Institute in Pakistan, subsequently, highlighting the skills of lifelong learners in the 21st century of global citizenship. The aim of this paper was also to investigate the strength of mentors in keeping the course objectives aligning with students’ interpersonal, intrapersonal and public communication abilities, at developing students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Kolb’s experiential learning model (1984) was implemented to carry out the project; whilst, students direct data of interviews, video clips, pictures, questionnaires and documents were used to validate the research. Findings demonstrate the beneficial impact on the cyclical learning between the faculty, BPS and freshmen in terms of their improved results, retention of reading tasks and exposure to the real-life challenges of the diverse groups at the university. Peer mentoring could be the possibility of bringing about a change in society if introduced at universities in Pakistan

Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Background: In an era of shifting global agendas and expanded emphasis on non-communicable diseases and injuries along with communicable diseases, sound evidence on trends by cause at the national level is essential. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) provides a systematic scientific assessment of published, publicly available, and contributed data on incidence, prevalence, and mortality for a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of diseases and injuries. Methods: GBD estimates incidence, prevalence, mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) due to 369 diseases and injuries, for two sexes, and for 204 countries and territories. Input data were extracted from censuses, household surveys, civil registration and vital statistics, disease registries, health service use, air pollution monitors, satellite imaging, disease notifications, and other sources. Cause-specific death rates and cause fractions were calculated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model and spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression. Cause-specific deaths were adjusted to match the total all-cause deaths calculated as part of the GBD population, fertility, and mortality estimates. Deaths were multiplied by standard life expectancy at each age to calculate YLLs. A Bayesian meta-regression modelling tool, DisMod-MR 2.1, was used to ensure consistency between incidence, prevalence, remission, excess mortality, and cause-specific mortality for most causes. Prevalence estimates were multiplied by disability weights for mutually exclusive sequelae of diseases and injuries to calculate YLDs. We considered results in the context of the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a composite indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and fertility rate in females younger than 25 years. Uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated for every metric using the 25th and 975th ordered 1000 draw values of the posterior distribution. Findings: Global health has steadily improved over the past 30 years as measured by age-standardised DALY rates. After taking into account population growth and ageing, the absolute number of DALYs has remained stable. Since 2010, the pace of decline in global age-standardised DALY rates has accelerated in age groups younger than 50 years compared with the 1990–2010 time period, with the greatest annualised rate of decline occurring in the 0–9-year age group. Six infectious diseases were among the top ten causes of DALYs in children younger than 10 years in 2019: lower respiratory infections (ranked second), diarrhoeal diseases (third), malaria (fifth), meningitis (sixth), whooping cough (ninth), and sexually transmitted infections (which, in this age group, is fully accounted for by congenital syphilis; ranked tenth). In adolescents aged 10–24 years, three injury causes were among the top causes of DALYs: road injuries (ranked first), self-harm (third), and interpersonal violence (fifth). Five of the causes that were in the top ten for ages 10–24 years were also in the top ten in the 25–49-year age group: road injuries (ranked first), HIV/AIDS (second), low back pain (fourth), headache disorders (fifth), and depressive disorders (sixth). In 2019, ischaemic heart disease and stroke were the top-ranked causes of DALYs in both the 50–74-year and 75-years-and-older age groups. Since 1990, there has been a marked shift towards a greater proportion of burden due to YLDs from non-communicable diseases and injuries. In 2019, there were 11 countries where non-communicable disease and injury YLDs constituted more than half of all disease burden. Decreases in age-standardised DALY rates have accelerated over the past decade in countries at the lower end of the SDI range, while improvements have started to stagnate or even reverse in countries with higher SDI. Interpretation: As disability becomes an increasingly large component of disease burden and a larger component of health expenditure, greater research and developm nt investment is needed to identify new, more effective intervention strategies. With a rapidly ageing global population, the demands on health services to deal with disabling outcomes, which increase with age, will require policy makers to anticipate these changes. The mix of universal and more geographically specific influences on health reinforces the need for regular reporting on population health in detail and by underlying cause to help decision makers to identify success stories of disease control to emulate, as well as opportunities to improve. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 licens

Ten Major Managerial Misconceptions about IT Implementation and the Computerization Process

Failure of computerization projects and projects involving information technology is not a rare occurrence (to put it euphemistically). Studies have indicated that typically over 60% of I.T projects fail (Mac lead 1995). In Pakistan, several organizations have gone through a similar experience of projects that failed to deliver the promised results; projects that were abandoned halfway through or projects completed but never used by intended end-users. This paper is based on lessons learned from case studies and focuses on managerial lack of understanding about information technology and the process of computerization

Derivations of Initial Data Warehouse Structure by Mapping Operational Database on Transaction Patterns

Data warehouses improve the quality of integrated information in the organization for decision-making.The data for the data warehouse comes from online transaction systems. Typically, an involved process ofanalysis precedes the actual design phase of a data warehouse (1999). The analysis process becomes moredifficult because of the costs involved in hiring experienced staff and the privacy issues arising from theuse of external consultants (2000). Peter Coad’s transaction pattern (2000) is a higher-level description ofa generic business process (or a template) that has helped in the analysis and design of a wide range ofbusiness domains. The thesis of this paper is that the mapping of the operational databases on thetransaction pattern facilitates the derivation of initial data warehouse structure. During the mappingprocess, the relationships, roles and attributes of the players defined by the transaction pattern help us inidentifying the instances of the pattern in the database. Through these instances, we can then derive theinitial data warehouse structure i.e. the attributes of the fact and dimension table(s). The data warehousestructure thus derived reduces the need for an extensive information analysis of the needs ofthe user and the dependency on the experienced personnel for data warehousedevelopment. This paper proposes a three-step derivation methodology that is illustratedusing a case study of an organization’s operational database

WAS IT A ONE-MAN SHOW: THE STORY OF SALEEM-UR-REHMAN THE FOUNDER OF DIIGITAL COMMUNICATION

The case study describes the rise and fall of the company 'Digital Communication". The company was formed by Saleem ur Rehman, who had experience of working with companies like AT&T and Bell Labs.The company at one time had more than 3000 clients in various sectors. These included Textiles: towels, hosiery, garments, spinning, insurance, travel agencies, defence organizations, GHQ, Pakistan Rangers, NGOs, Hotels: Marriot Karachi, Pearl Continental Peshawar, Pearl Continental Bhurbam, Hotel Mehran and Hotel Paradise; guest houses; sugar companies; engineering concerns, large residencies; Engro Chemicals; PNSC; NICVD and other products.The company expanded rapidly, within two years Digital Communication's business grew to an extent that a new premises was needed just to maintain sales and marketing of the company. The company maintained its monopolistic control of the market till 1990 in the range of products that it offered.However, after the demise of Saleem ur Rehman in 1992, the company faced many problems. The stool of Digital Communications was a one man show and when the man died several people came to take his place but no one was capable of handling a big ship, hence the ship sank and the dreams of an enthusiastic Pakistani died with his death.Key Words: Entrepreneurship: Technology Service