U.S. Classroom Norms

U.S. Classroom Norms

India with a population of 1.25 billion people is second in terms of the number of student who go to school ( only behind china).Yet the percentage of children who go on to finish secondary school continues to be at an abysmal rate of around 10 percent. Indian education is still elitist. Only middle and upper middle class families have been made able to go to school.

Even though only a few percent of the population go to school, Indian's tend to do well  in the field of math and science and there is fierce competition for admissions into top institutes (IIT,IIM) which have a very low admission rate.(IIM-Ahmedabad is considered the hardest business school to get into with 70,000 applicants fighting for 200 places).

The learning environment in India is pretty poor. Most of the schools do not have shelter or basic facilities. Lack or rural infrastructure and  unwillingness of teachers to take up a rural posting means that the student to teacher ratio is even worse than the statistics.                

Contrasts between Indian and American learning.

1.Individual vs Team

Indian tend to be more team oriented .Assignments given to the whole class tend to be the same generally so that the students can work together and come up with a answers.

Americans tend to be a more individualistic society .The have analytical thinking and prefer to work individually on assignments. They prefer rewards based on the individual's contribution.

2. Teacher-centered vs Student Centered

Indian teaching in information packed. Teachers generally dumps a lot of information in classes. Teachers teach based on the requirements for the finals exams and within the limits if the syllabus. Indian teachers cover the entire syllabus required for the term.

American teaching contain a lot of problem solving, case studies and experimental thinking. They also allow the students to learn by himself based on trial and error. American teachers do not teach the whole syllabus and expect student to read up some parts of the course.

3. Communication

In general ,  Indians prefer to be good listeners during the class. The session is dominated by the teacher and no comments or opinions are made during the class.

American classes are known to be more informal and interactive. There may also be debates among them. American professors encourage participatory learning.

Asking Questions

A typical Indian classroom session is more theoretically based and professors do not encourage questions outside the syllabus. On the contrary, the United States education system encourages out of the box thinking and innovation.