7 minute read
Future
Rehan Khan Principal consultant for BT and a novelist COMMENT
Finding the right triggers
The modern office and home are awash with digital distractions. Often the best way to break these interruptions is to institute certain practices (habits). If we have proficient learning habits, we can be prepared and stay on top of issues. If we have prudent financial habits, we can provide for ourselves and our family. Whereas if we are always asking questions of ourselves – “What should I read?” “How much should I save every month?” – we end up with less attentional space and time.
Practices (habits) develop over time, but there are four simple stages as to how they form in the first place. These are: trigger, urge, action, return.
TRIGGER. Something in our environment triggers us to behave in a certain way. We envisage a return. In traditional civilisations, triggers often relate to matters of food, shelter, cultivation and safety. For most of us living in developed regions of the world, triggers envisage ancillary returns such as self-gratification, praise, money, friendship, recognition and reputation.
URGE. This is the energy behind a habit. It provides the yearning to respond to the trigger. We might not actually desire the habit itself, but we crave the change it brings about. We may not have an urge for coffee in the morning, but we have an urge for the feeling it stimulates, just as we may not have an urge to go to the cinema, but rather an urge to be entertained. Urges will vary across individuals. A glutton, for instance, will have an urge for consumption on seeing a scrumptious platter of food, whereas someone who is more in control of their food urges will not have the same level of craving.
ACTION. This relates to the actual performance of the habit, such as drinking the cup of coffee you had an urge for in the morning as you walked past the coffee shop and smelt the coffee being brewed or watching the movie in the cinema for which you saw an advert on your smartphone.
RETURN. This is the payoff and the end of the habit – how we felt after drinking the cup of coffee or watching the movie in the cinema.
The trigger alerts us to the return, our urge desires the return, and the action is about acquiring the return. What happens after the return will also determine whether or not you will be influenced by the trigger when you next encounter it. An overeater who falls prey to a coronary heart attack may end up having a life-changing experience and come back months later with more self-restraint. They may avoid watching adverts promoting lavish meals or prevent eating out at shopping malls that are packed with fast-food outlets. They will still be affected by the trigger. They will still have the urge. But if they can avoid the situation, then they are more likely to resist it.
When instilling good practices (habits), we need to make the trigger apparent. For example, if I want to introduce good eating habits, I should ensure there is a bowl of fruit on the table in the kitchen as opposed to a box of chocolates. If someone wants to break their bad habit of playing video games until late in the evening, they should pack up their console and peripherals each evening and store them in a cupboard out of sight. If they do not see the game console (the trigger), they are less likely to have an urge to play games late into the night.
There is also a reframing method we can use to make difficult habits easier to handle by linking them to a positive experience. We often consider habits as things we need to do or are compelled to do. For instance, we need to wake up, we need to cook dinner, we need to call a customer, and we need to compile a weekly report. Let’s reframe the word “need” with “opportunity”.
We have the opportunity to wake up and embrace the morning. We have the opportunity to cook dinner for our family. We have the opportunity to call a customer and deepen our relationship with them. We have the opportunity to compile our weekly report so that management is aware of our contribution to the goals of the organisation. The slight reframing of the language can make a huge difference to the attitude we adopt when trying to instill habits that may otherwise prove burdensome.
Education trends for 2022 and beyond
More and more universities will encourage students in their entrepreneurship efforts and act as incubation hubs, writes Professor Ammar Kaka, provost and vice principal at Heriot-Watt University Dubai
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STUDENT MOBILITY WILL GROW AGAIN The past year witnessed a significant decline in the flow of international students crossing borders to pursue higher education, owing to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, in 2022, we expect to see global student mobility making a cautious comeback. We are already seeing that several international students are willing to get themselves vaccinated and undergo quarantine in return for on-campus study and the experience of living abroad. There will also be students who begin a study programme in one country, and then look to transfer to a campus in another country to continue learning. While the pandemic is by no means over, student mobility in 2022 is likely to grow and is being driven by a strong desire to get back on track with academic and career goals after months of disruption, the availability of vaccines and the need to ‘not miss out’ on a holistic university experience.
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HOW WE LEARN AND HOW WE TEACH WILL CHANGE The pandemic has already brought about several changes to the way we teach and the way we learn, and this will continue to gain momentum this year. One, the need for lifelong learning will continue to grow and we will also see a change in the profile of learners themselves. For example – the university student of today may not necessarily be an 18-year-old, but a working adult who attends college part time, or may even be juggling childcare. And for this new demographic of learners, universities will look for ways to make education more flexible so they can take it up alongside their daily lives, such as by pioneering new work-based learning, including
apprenticeships, micro credentials and focused online programmes to develop a specific set of skills.
Two, the forced adoption of some teaching techniques by the pandemic, such as blended learning, are here to stay and will play a key role in education delivery in 2022 and beyond. Another is assessments, as students will need to adapt to exam settings after at least a couple of years of being assessed by projects or open books exams. Universities too will need to think about how students should be assessed.
And three, AI will continue to automate certain tasks, for example grading homework and tests, so educators can focus on other quality tasks such as spending more time with students. Tutoring and self-study programmes will advance even more, and AI will also play an important role in the admissions process.
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THERE WILL BE AN INCREASE IN INDUSTRY-ACADEMIA COLLABORATION Industry and academia partnerships have several benefits: they give students and faculty additional funding and resources to undertake research as well as diversify their research areas. They give industry a view into what the next big opportunity is going to be and access to talent, and society benefits from a skilled workforce that can positively impact the economy. 2022 will see academia and industry working together to identify major industry challenges and research gaps and trying to find solutions, which will ultimately result in a pathway for commercialisation. More and more universities will encourage students in their entrepreneurship efforts and act as incubation hubs, backed by industry.
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THE EDUCATION LANDSCAPE WILL BECOME MORE COMPETITIVE The education landscape in the UAE will become more competitive, given the recent growth in this space. We will see more universities coming up, many of them with significant capacity, leading to competition growing quite significantly. Students will have wider choices in higher education as well as access to more scholarships. This could help with bridging the gap, as in the past, some students could not afford to study and live in Dubai. At the same time, education is much more than just textbook knowledge. The ever-evolving job market requires educational institutes to keep up with the changing needs so that they can equip students with the right soft and technical skills. Institutes that pay far more attention to the overall growth of a student will emerge as winners than those that are still focused on just textbook learning. From new work-based learning, including apprenticeships, micro credentials and focused online programmes to develop a specific set of skills, to advocating mental health and physical well-being, institutes should be able to offer developmental growth to students if they want to succeed in a competitive landscape.
