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Shyam Sharma
The author teaches writing and rhetoric at the State University of New York in Stony Brook. He can be reached at shyam.sharma@stonybrook.edughanashyam.sharma@stonybrook.edu
Three Thresholds for AI use
Published On: June 22, 2024 09:00 AM NPT By: Shyam Sharma
AI use is exposing people’s lack or disregard of knowledge, honesty, and accountability. If we want to avoid letting AI make us ignorant, dishonest, and uncountable to broader social good, we must commit to elevating and maintaining fairly high standards in these three regards.
Using AI: Credit, Content, Credibility
Published On: May 16, 2024 08:30 AM NPT By: Shyam Sharma
AI is blurring boundaries of all kinds, so we all need a communicative philosophy to help us set boundaries for content, credit, and credibility when using AI tools.
We’re Hallucinating, Not AI
Published On: March 17, 2024 08:30 AM NPT By: Shyam Sharma
When lawyers lie, doctors kill, or teachers fool and then deflect responsibility to a machine, we must see these problems as the visible tip of humanity’s collective hallucination.
Expertise Cycle
Published On: July 26, 2023 08:30 AM NPT By: Shyam Sharma
To truly improve teaching, it is time to take the expert out of training, center professional development back in the classroom, and unleash the power of the practitioner-as-expert–letting such a cycle of expertise replace traditional teacher training.
Educating Beyond the Bots
Published On: February 12, 2023 09:00 AM NPT By: Shyam Sharma
The current discourse about artificial intelligence not only reflects a narrow view of education. It also represents romanticization of, or alarmism about, new technologies, while insulting students as dishonest by default.
Bridges and Barriers
Published On: May 15, 2022 06:30 AM NPT By: Shyam Sharma
All languages must be used for advancing and using new knowledge for social good. And scholars should strive to build bridges instead of barriers with languages.
TU is Well
Published On: February 11, 2022 06:30 AM NPT By: Shyam Sharma
Nepalese academia, including Tribhuvan University, has challenges, but we must tell the full story, including what it is doing well.
Magic tools and research integrity
Published On: March 23, 2021 09:00 AM NPT By: Shyam Sharma
Plagiarism is a manifestation of a deeper problem in academia: Of publishing for the sake of publishing, and of rewarding it regardless.
Unteaching tyranny
Published On: July 7, 2020 05:30 PM NPT By: Shyam Sharma
When a fellow professor in a teacher training program said last month that he takes attendance twice during class since going online, I was surprised by the tyrannical idea. What if a student lost internet connection or electricity, ran out of data or was sharing a device, had family obligations or a health problem? We’re not just “going online,” we’re also going through a horrifying global pandemic!
Languaging Research
Published On: March 15, 2020 09:52 AM NPT By: Shyam Sharma
“English is . . . the language of higher education, mass media, information and communication technology, business, tourism, science and medicine,” says the introduction to the recently published English language curriculum for 11th and 12th grades. Built upon this combination of half truths, ignorance, and ideologies, there is another pervasive belief that English is also the language of scientific publication, if not all significant knowledge production in the world. This essay seeks to debunk the latter assumption, going on to discuss the social costs of passively accepting while actively contributing to the conditions behind the assumption, as scholars in developing countries like Nepal are doing increasingly.
How do we measure knowledge?
Published On: December 5, 2019 12:46 PM NPT By: Shyam Sharma
“If you only need good grades and not the learning,” I tell my students, joking, “don’t bother using the library, learning how to use academic databases, finding and reading complex scholarly articles, and representing others’ ideas substantively and carefully in your writing.” “Just hire a good ghost writer or find another effective way to cheat me.” Students get the point quickly, and they start doing serious research and writing.
Rethinking research
Published On: September 22, 2019 01:30 AM NPT By: Shyam Sharma
We must make research a number-one social mission of higher education, make funding for public universities contingent on research productivity and revamp faculty evaluation and promotion to advance research
Localizing knowledge production
Published On: July 25, 2019 01:30 AM NPT By: Shyam Sharma
Universities in developing countries must create new knowledge as their primary mission, especially for social progress and in the national interest
Multilingual Tuesdays
Published On: February 21, 2019 01:30 AM NPT By: Shyam Sharma
Whether they start a Multilingual Tuesday program or one called Matribhasha Mangalbar, it is high time that private schools advanced multilingual competence among their students
Abolish private education?
Published On: January 2, 2019 01:30 AM NPT By: Shyam Sharma
To truly counter arguments about abolishing it, private sector education must rethink its socioeconomic roles in the new national context, creating robust models of faculty development
Making education three-dimensional
Published On: October 23, 2018 01:30 AM NPT By: Shyam Sharma
Higher education must be a three-dimensional deal, one that includes acquiring knowledge, developing skills for the workplace, and having meaningful experiences to shape learners for a lifetime
Expats and experts
Published On: September 11, 2018 01:30 AM NPT By: Shyam Sharma
Diaspora scholars shouldn’t use criticism as a default position in scholarly conversations, especially if the larger objective is to develop better understanding of issues
Normalizing research
Published On: July 3, 2018 01:30 AM NPT By: Shyam Sharma
We must begin to value research as normal and necessary for teaching and learning, academic and professional success, social and economic progress
Producing professionals
Published On: May 30, 2018 01:30 AM NPT By: Shyam Sharma
Higher education cannot be just teaching, especially just transfer of knowledge. It must foster disciplinary identity and professional development
Redesigning our universities
Published On: April 26, 2018 01:30 AM NPT By: Shyam Sharma
Teachers and students and the public alike will be thirstier for new knowledge if university education is defined as and designed for putting research first
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