Study Smart, Maximise Exam Performance

       In February 2022 I decided to help a struggling RTE student catch up with her class. Kavya would soon be in 2nd grade. She had been in a Marathi medium school in the kindergarten and then got admission through RTE in a well-known English medium school in the first grade. Then she became a victim of the pandemic like so many other children, as schools shut down. She started online in her new school, and her struggles were compounded. Her English Medium school teachers had done a wonderful job of teaching her English basic pronunciations. While she could read most three- and four-letter words, she did not understand most of the words she was reading. There were other gaps as well. At the end of the 1st grade she went for remedial classes in school. However, she was paying a heavy price for the pandemic and her pickup was slow. Very slow. I thought about asking her teachers to keep her back in the first grade. Unfortunately, I found out that the RTE system, does not let the school

I often conduct face to face sessions with audiences of 15 to 30 people on various topics. About 2-3 hours into a session, I am able to remember the names of all the participants. People are always astonished that I can do this so fast! I am not blessed with a photographic memory, and there is no magic in it either. I just follow a time tested process that works. It is also the philosophy that FlashCardz is based on. When we study any subject, there are quite a few things to remember. This fact is quite obvious in subjects like history, geography, biology and chemistry. However it is also true of physics and even mathematics. In mathematics, you have to remember and recognise patterns of problems, so that you can recall and decide what approach can be used to solve them. Most study methods focus on taking in concepts and other study material - by reading, watching videos or listening to your teacher. However any information or concept only becomes easy to remember and recall when we en

Now that the ICSE and CBSE boards have announced a Multiple Choice Question (MCQ) exam pattern for the 2022 board exams, students and teachers are looking for ways to practice this new pattern. So what is the most effective way to practice? There are many resources that are now available for students. MCQ books - many publishers are selling books that contain chapterwise MCQs. These books typically range in price from  ₹ 200 to  ₹ 500 for each subject. MCQ worksheets - many websites are publishing pdf worksheets containing MCQs. These are usually limited to 10-25 questions per chapter, and the coverage is not comprehensive at all. Online MCQ tests - these are available on many websites or apps. Some of them are free, but they tend to be repetitive and limited in scope. So a student can solve a few MCQ questions per chapter, but will not get comprehensive practice. So what is the best way to practice for the upcoming MCQ exams? What should an effective MCQ testing method have? Three pri

The CISCE board has recently announced that the 10th and 12th board exams for ICSE will be based on Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs). A similar announcement was also made by the CBSE board. The first term exam will take place sometime in November 2021, which is just two months away! This has resulted in schools, parents and teachers frantically looking for a solution to practice this pattern of questions. If you have taken a moment to read our story, and also the concept on which the FlashCardz platform is based, you will realise that Multiple Choice Questions have always been an integral part of the study method we offer to our students. This is because our mission is to help students organize their self study and revision around the best possible approach. And we know that continous self-testing is the best known revision approach to become exam sharp. MCQs are an important part of self-assessment and continuous self-testing that we embraced almost 3 years ago. The MCQ testing approa

  A Revolution! In the Pandemic, the teachers and students were grappling with online teaching and studying...Now almost everyone seems to have settled into it. It's an edutech revolution of sorts where there have been so many disruptions and unbuilding of old systems and building of new systems. There are by far, more disruptions with the children in the remote areas who have been hit the hardest. We have to find a way to address this problem, else we will be left with a chunk of the future adult population who could not be educated because of our inability to take technology to the remotest places. And of what use is technology if it benefits only the privileged few?  Blended learning We are heading towards a blended way of teaching, taking the best from both the virtual and physical to create a bigger whole. The Virus seems to have literally revolutionised education. There is a huge difference in what the teachers' readiness to accept new technology was, back in March 2020,

 Flashcards is a method of studying used universally by students in schools and colleges around the world. It can be used effectively by a 3-year-old and a 23-year-old. Be it a second-grader, a law student, a medical student or an engineering student. They could be studying history, German, physics, mechatronics, patent law or pediatrics. The method works very well for ALL! Method One may look at  FlashCardz  as a bunch of questions in a deck or a question bank. The method is important. Though the content has to be comprehensive, it is not enough. It is the combination of the content and the method that is extremely powerful. It is an added bonus that the children don’t have to make the content by themselves and have the entire curriculum readymade at the tips of their fingers or rather touch of their finger-tips. Mental Health As it is, the children in our Indian system of education have little time as they are loaded with studies. Using the  FlashCardz  method is a wonderful way to f

The COVID-19 pandemic has thrust us all into a very unfamiliar world. The suddenness of the change has left us gasping for breath, and it gave us no time to think, plan, or prepare. Education is perhaps one of the most severely impacted areas as schools and colleges remain shut, and a lot of the teaching has moved online. Lets face it, online teaching is hard, as thousands of teachers have discovered during this COVID-19 lock-down. Most teachers have never been trained to conduct online classes. Learning the video conferencing technology to communicate with students is the easier part of the process, while other challenges remain. Let's also remember that online learning is hard as well, particularly if online teaching does not cater to the challenges of online learning. For a student, this is new territory. In this article, I am going to talk about my top 3 tips to get more out of your online teaching sessions. Tip-1: Manage the Environment When you have the s