State Board Commerce (XI-XII) - Test Papers
5 Tips to Design a Study Space that Promotes Learning
The Current Design of Houses
Design and decoration of a house is usually done by adults who plan for their home to be a place where they can come back to from a hard day at work and relax. All planning of houses are done with relaxation and entertainment in mind. The living room is for entertainment or family time, the kitchen is for cooking of course and the bedroom is for relaxing and sleeping. For a space strapped urban household having these spaces is usually a luxury. There is no more room. When a family is ready to welcome a new guest they will design the place to avoid sharp objects and make other cosmetic changes so that a child does not get hurt. But that’s about the only change that happens.
It is very rare to find a family designing a home for studies. That is because as pointed out above the adults are only planning for relaxation or entertainment – from their point of view. Although almost all parents have resigned to the fact that most schools hardly teach students and extra tuitions have become necessary for students to learn something. It never occurs to the parents that learning can happen at home. The only time learning at home becomes a necessity is when there is an exam. At that time the child is going to school, the tuition class, and studying at home. However, at that time there is no place to study and the child has to adjust in the bedroom or in the living room. The lucky ones who have their own room can sit down alone, but that’s usually the only advantage.
Planning a House for studies
Houses should be planned in a way that you could include a distraction – free zone to create a perfect learning environment. Study area influences student’s academic performance more than any other factor. Creating a distraction-free zone is nothing but avoiding any kind of entertainment like television, smart phones, access to internet or gaming. Students getting addicted to technology have become a major reason for their distraction from academics.
The University of Hawaii once conducted a study where they asked students to turn around their desks towards wall and label their desk as study table. They insisted that students get all distractions including video games, television and other devices away from that space i.e. the desk and the wall. Students who carried out the instructions promptly had a subsequent increase in grades.
Tips for a study space that promotes Learning
There are diverse methods that you can practice to help students from getting distracted easily. Applying these rules can actually deliver good results.
1) Inculcate some organizational skills in study area
Home study area should be always neat and tidy, because it’s hard to focus in an unorganized area. Every learning material should be organized in particular pattern with a daily planner to complete assignments or to meet the child’s goals.
2) Choose an area stacked with books
A place stacked with books will develop an interest towards studying and also can enhance your child’s knowledge in general, as it is rightly said, “we become the book we read”. Maybe a loft designed especially for books with a study table and lamp.
3) Un–clutter desktop of games
Create a different login ID on the computer that does not have games or other distractions installed. So when the child has to use the computer he or she is not tempted to play a game or watch that one particular episode of his favourite tele-serial.
4) Websites that promote study
Get membership on sites that promote lessons related to your child’s syllabus. This is more productive than installing a game or an app that keeps children busy for no reasons.
5) Studying where the child feels uncomfortable
This is method used and promoted by certain educationists who believe that since the examination is going to happen in a place which is absolutely new for the student it is better not to get accustomed to a study place. They recommend that the student choose a new place every day rather than sitting in the same place and following the same routine. A good change can definitely bring positive results. This will help in being prepared to take the exam at any place without being uncomfortable in a new environment. How the child feels sitting in an exam hall is crucial because you don’t want to ruin all your child’s efforts in the end just because they were less comfortable in the place allotted to them.
Apart from these specified study room arrangement, parents should avoid watching their favorite shows in front of the child or at least use earphones to avoid diverting the kid’s attention. A strong home study environment is not an impossible task if you take the necessary steps.
Identifying the Ideal ED Tech Solution for Institutions
1. Abstract
“A mediocre teacher tells, a good teacher explains, a superior teacher demonstrates, a great teacher inspires.”
Educators in India have been wrestling with a shortage of talented teachers, increasing student faculty ratios, the ever increasing number of technology solutions available for the classroom and a dramatic increase in the availability of free education resources in the hands of parents and students.
This white paper looks at some of the key challenges faced by educators. It also takes a close look at the pitfalls in the adoption of technology and the market scenario today.
An ideal Ed Tech solution should enable personalized learning and self-motivation for each and every student. This paper examines the potential of Ed Tech to enable this. It also provides a checklist for educators to select their technology provider.
2. Key Challenges for Educators
Education is on the cusp of evolving from traditional methods of teaching to ‘Guide by your Side’ approach.
Schools traditionally have been entrusted with the responsibility of
- the development of the natural talents of students,
- academic performance of students by
- helping students grasp difficult concepts,
- improving students’ performance in tests
Let’s take a look at the context and the key challenges for educators when selecting an appropriate Ed Tech solution.
- Student Teacher Ratio
Lack of quality faculty, faculty attrition, escalating cost of
managing and maintaining a classroom and the increasing student population ensure that student to teachers ratios are
consistently on the rise.
Approximately only 10-15% of the teachers’ time is spent on improving the performance of the student. This is because a large percentage of the teacher time is spent on teaching concepts, admin related work, paper setting, paper evaluation etc.
- Curriculum and ability to cover the syllabus in a fixed time
The effective teaching time available to teachers is lesser in schools because of the need to focus on the all-round development of the student through a large number of extracurricular activities. Within this limited time, teachers also face the pressures to cover the syllabus and improve performance of all the students as they move to the higher grades.
- Availability of Free and Paid Content
There are multiple content providers in the market with an emphasis on concept building. In the absence of parent/student education, there is an increasing tendency for students to look at multiple modes of instruction, one at the school, second at the coaching classes and a third is through these content providers.
With these factors in play, the pressure is increasing on educators in school to figure out the right solutions that would prevent students and parents from being confused by the multiple ways of the same concept being taught to the student.
The next section looks into the common pitfalls involved in the selection of the right education technology solution.
3. The Pitfalls
The myriad space of technology solutions to help improve learning outcomes makes it increasingly difficult for educators to identify the right fit for their schools. There are essentially three key areas that educators look at for improving learning outcomes in schools.
- Content: There are multiple and different kinds of content available in the market. In addition, content is continuously created by teachers whether it is in the form of notes, assessments or the content being delivered to students in class. The classic conundrum for educators is first a build versus buy decision. It is difficult to gauge whether a content maps to the curriculum or whether it maps to the need of the students etc. The amount of teacher involvement needed to decide on the content quality also acts as a detriment in this process.
- Technology: The decision here happens considering the hardware, software and infrastructure related requirements. The decision making process is complicated further by rapid changes in technology and the risk of obsolescence.
- Localized Solutions: Investments in creating a smart class are usually restricted to adding a projector, whiteboard, playing animations, presentations etc… It addresses only the pain point related to demonstrating concepts. A holistic solution and approach to providing personalized learning and measuring and improving learning outcomes is many a times missing.
- Impact on Existing Workflows: Eventually Ed Tech solutions have to be adopted by all the different stakeholders such as teachers, students and parents. It is a change management process that needs to be carefully managed.
4. Market Scenario
There are essentially three kinds of solution providers that are available:-
- Technology Companies: With an increasing number of technology companies now arriving into the education space, there are a myriad number of solutions provided to make content delivery seamless to students and teachers alike. There are providers of LMS solutions. Then they aggregate content from multiple sources, with no uniformity in content provided. However a delivery solution while important from an operational perspective misses the fact that content, fitness to pedagogy which are purely in the education domain are equally or more critical to a better learning experience. Analytics can work great only in the presence of great content. There is also the challenge of technology being intrinsically coupled to certain content providers limiting the content choices available to teachers.
- Content Providers: Traditionally textbook publishers were the content providers that were closely involved with the school eco-system. With the arrival of eBooks and other education technology, the traditional textbook publishers have made an effort to incorporate technology into their offerings. The movements such as reducing the burden of books that students carry to schools have further increased the pressure on the publishers to move to paper-less books (eBooks). However there are two major challenges that traditional content providers face.
- The content design is currently built from the perspective of a printed book. However traditional devices in the market do not replicate the same reading experience as a printed book. Just converting the printed book to a mobile friendly format for easy delivery misses the nuances of editorial work done to ensure a great book reading experience.
- The content providers don’t necessarily have the strengths of a pure play technology company. As a result ensuring seamless delivery of content is one of the challenges for pure play content providers.
- Retail Education Technology Providers: There is the third set of new players in the eco system that provides content and technology directly to students and parents. The purchase is done directly by students and parents who understand little about fitment and pedagogy. These players also provide for generic content adding to the confusion of students and parents alike on the right approach to understanding concepts and solving problems.
| Technology Provider | Content Provider | Retail Ed Tech | |
| Content | No | Yes | Yes |
| Technology for Delivery | Yes | No | Yes |
| Built for school eco system | Yes | Yes | No |
Moving into the next section we will be looking at a checklist that should be helpful for an educator interested in making an investment in the Ed Tech space and to take informed decisions when bringing in a new provider.
5. Checklist for choosing your Ed Tech solutions provider
Content
- Is the content homogenous and consistent in visual and instructional design?
- Is there continuity between the different content nuggets?
- Are the content nuggets thoroughly mapped to Curriculum?
- Is the content correct?
- Is the content effective in achievement of learning objectives?
- Does the content provide all three components: teaching, evaluating and conducting analysis?
Technology
- Is the Technology too cumbersome to adopt?
- What is the risk of obsolescence of technology?
- What is the Manpower needed to manage and maintain the solution?
- Judge adaptability level with respect to the solution
- What types of diagnostic reports are available for different stakeholders?
Keeping the above points in mind, let’s take a step back to look at what an education technology solution for a school should look like.
6. The Ideal Ed Tech Solution
The ideal Ed Tech Solution should provide for personalized learning and self-motivation for each and every student.
Based on Ellen Langer framework of self-motivation, the ideal Ed Tech solution should provide students with
- Choice
- Competence
- Consequence
- Community
When overlaid with the learning cycle of Teach, Evaluate and Analyse, the ideal Ed Tech solution can become a powerful transformational tool for each and every student.
| The 4 Cs of Motivation | Teach | Evaluate | Analyse |
| Choice | Learning Pace and Teaching Style set as per student | ||
| Competence | Build competence and confidence of students by encouraging Self Study, testing through Formative Assessments followed by Summative Assessments | ||
| Consequence | Get immediate and specific Feedback for improvement | ||
| Community | Learn concepts, Solve problems with the rest of the student community | ||
- Choice: Each student should have the possibility of learning at their own pace. The content should cater to different learning styles of students. At the same time, the teacher should be able to cover the curriculum for all the students in the class. For this to happen, the teacher can act as a catalyst in increasing the pace of the student learning. This can happen when the teacher gets detailed feedback on students’ strengths and weaknesses.
- Competence: The tests difficulty level should adjust as per the competence of the student. This requires that the teacher be involved in creating a large number of Formative and Summative assessments of different difficulty levels to test the students.
- Consequence: The student should get immediate feedback for accelerating the learning cycle. The solution should reduce the time between action and consequence for the student to be able to improve rapidly in the mapped competency areas. The teacher should help the student by providing for remedial content and direct necessary action towards weak areas of the students.
- Collaboration: Students learn the best when they teach and help other students. With the teacher acting as a moderator for the groups, students can feel as being as a part of a community in the achieving learning objectives.
Apart from this, the ideal Ed Tech solution should help parents become active partners with the teachers in the development of the child’s innate talents and gifts.
For administrators the solution should help them objectively gauge
- improvement in performance on learning outcomes of students year on year
- gauging improvement in teacher performance year on year and
- conduct active focussed training for improving performance of teachers
The following section looks at Robomate+, an Ed Tech solution built for achieving the above ideal.
7. Robomate+
Let’s relook at the framework of the ideal Ed Tech solution overlaid with the features of Robomate+.
| The 4 Cs of Motivation | Teach | Evaluate | Analyse |
| Choice | Robomate+ AV Lectures,
Robo Books, End of Module Tests, End Of Chapter Tests |
RoboAnalyze | |
| Competence | Robomate+ Assess | ||
| Consequence | Robomate+ Performance Reports | ||
| Community | Robomate+ Study Groups | ||
Robomate+ has Audio Visual Lectures and eBooks mapped to the curriculum which enable the teacher to transition students to a learn mode. This happens with the student studying at home through a seamless delivery eco system that enables both online as well as offline learning.
The formative assessments are built right into the content to enable a student to practice well in advance of arriving to the classroom.
These details are then sent to the teacher before the class to enable focussed teaching.
Through RoboAssess, teachers can also build their own content, create their own questions for evaluating students on the understanding of the topic. It also helps in evaluation of both subjective and objective question papers directly substantially reducing the lag between taking of the exam and providing the feedback to the student.
Through RoboAnalyse, teachers can have a detailed view the areas of strengths and weakness of each student at a concept level. Thus, teachers can look at what concepts to specifically emphasise on when it comes to different classes.
And all of this is seamlessly interwoven into a lesson planning system that enables teachers to tailor the pace of the curriculum coverage to navigate the students through the entire curriculum within the time available.
Provided below is the way the students, teachers interact within the Robomate+ ecosystem.
8. Conclusion
The choice of Ed Tech solution is a complicated one. Myriad solutions and the complex context involving multiple stake holders make the choice all the more challenging for educators.
With a more holistic approach to the adoption of technology solution, educators can now move towards setting up an ideal environment where they can help each and every student achieve their potential within the school eco-system.
Whitepaper Authors: Rahul Mahurkar, Narendra Sannabhadti
Date: 29th Jun 2017
Company Name: Robomateplus Private Limited
5 Tips To Get Most Out Of Your Study Time
To succeed in your exams or life in general you have to stay self-motivated at all times. School, college or coaching classes help you learn, but you will have to dedicate enough time towards studying on your own.
“Practice makes perfect” they say, but this practice has to come from you. Thus, you need to encourage yourself to stick to your goals and study every day. Given below are some insights as to keep you going everyday:
1. Make realistic goals.
Decide how much of the syllabus you are going to cover for a particular day and if the portion is big then break it down into smaller parts. At the same time have a ready time table for the whole week or 10 days in advance.
2. Do not over commit yourself
Be mindful of your commitments. there are other commitments that you need to be prepared for which may present themselves suddenly and without notice. Your regular commitments will include self-study commitments, weekly tests in school or term exams.
3. Reward yourself while studying
All work and no play will leave you frustrated and jaded. A little bit of break is well deserved after a long and engaging study session. You can use gaming or your favorite past time as a reward. Do reward yourself after a proper session of study and you will see its positive effects immediately. Post your break; your mind will seem fresh and ready to take newer challenges.
4. Make notes, flash cards and bullet points
Do smart work and not just hard work. Taking notes of important points post reading a lengthy chapter helps revision easy afterwards. Similarly, studying with the help of flash cards and bullet points makes the whole process interesting as well as useful.
5. Competition and Accountability
Interact with your peers and friends about studies and let them help you be accountable by making sure you have finished your goals. Also keep the competitive oil burning inside you. Discussing your study goals and test scores with fellow students will give you a reality check as to where you stand in a crowd. Healthy competition always acts as a big motivating factor after all.
To conclude, you got to develop studies as a game. Make a point system, include rewards and take it to the next level so that you keep boredom at bay and study with all your interest.
CBSE Class 10 Result 2017
Alert! The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) announced the class X board exam results! It is show time! It is that time of the year when all your efforts are going to pay.
We are proud to announce that the name of Sneha Gondukupi, who stands out to be our topper by scoring a whopping 98.80% in Class X CBSE, 2017 exam. We are her proud mentor and congratulate her on this significant achievement. A total of 154 of our students have successfully scored a perfect 10 CGPA in the CBSE class X exam.
Our subject-wise highest scores are listed below:
Maths – 100 out of 100,
Social Studies – 100 out of 100,
Science – 99 out of 100,
Hindi – 99 out of 100.
We thank all our students for keeping are standards high as ever and making us proud. We would also like to extend our heartiest congratulations to each and every student who cleared the CBSE class X exam in 2017. This milestone is achieved by the united efforts of the institution as well as the students, who make the most out of our teachings. We look forward to their bright futures and hope to be a part of that as well!
How to deal with exam results Anxiety: Tips for parents and students?
If you have ever wondered how to deal with exam results anxiety, these are tips that could help you deal with it better and more efficient.
Imagine that you are waiting for exam results and while you are having exhausting experience of nervous shakedown, especially, when you are expecting that you children will match the expectation, however, you should know that it could be a negative point of view. Stress is a normal thing before the exam and it could give you a boost, however, too much stress could make you feel blocked and therefore you can miss the exam. We decided to provide you with tips for parents and students that will help you deal with anxiety:
For Parents:
Don’t expect too much from you children
Every parent has unrealistic expectations, however, in some cases, you should be realistic. Even if your children are not the best students in the class, you cannot expect that everyone should be top in their class.
Don’t discuss it frequently
You must show your children that you are with them no matter what happens. In that environment, we can expect that your child will feel less stress and therefore it will complete the exam without any pressure from you. The idea of the exam is stressful enough; you don’t have to show your own frustrations.
Don’t compare your child with others
Even though, our nature is telling us that we should compare each other because that is the way we can succeed, in the mind of a child that could be a disturbing moment filled with pressure. The idea is to acknowledge your children’s possibilities.
Support is important
If you have in mind that old and traditional way with strict ideas is good, think again, and because today world has changed and according to that, you shouldn’t make your children scared you. Tell your children that you are with them whatever happens. That means that you are going to be supportive even if it fails to reach the desired result. If you are not supportive, your children will be afraid of you and that could lead to more serious problems such as lying and you don’t want that at all because it is not a progressive method.
For Students:
Self-criticism is important, but self-correction is indispensable
Just stop judging yourself and try to change something instead of just thinking that you are not good. None exam is the last exam, so if you start improving everything could be changed.
Talking is something that should keep your self-esteem.
The first thing that you have to know is that your grades are your grades, and your parents have nothing to do with them. That means that when you fail, you are not failing them, so be responsible and talk to them and tell them what your main problem is so that you could find solutions together. Whatever grade you get it is not the end of the world and everything can be changed even grades.
Tell yourself: “Okay, now I reached my minimum.”
You don’t have to be afraid of bad results because all successful and smart people reached a point in their life when they had to improve themselves. Think of it as a reason to improve yourself and to reach better heights.
Show everyone your seriousness
Sometimes, people around you see only bad things and things that you are not doing well. You must show your parents that you really want to improve yourself and ask them to assist you in any way they can.
