Skip to main content

Exams, schools and trust

 As schools have gone online, after the initial hiccups it has somewhat started working well. Not perfect, but well. And around now has come the first hurdle. Exams. 

How to tackle exams in a covid scenario. I am only referring to school internal exams - not competitive ones like JEE entrance or anything of that sort. 

Like everything else, the default approach to a new situation is to force fit everything we learnt in the earlier situation to the new one. So, in the same way schools have asked students to keep the camera and volume button on, camera to always the student in view at all times. I don't see how an invigilator can actually keep an eye at multiple students - seems impossible. 

This is apart from technology solutions like no alt -tab of browser, connection drop = exam submission and all that. 

The reason that all this is being done is to stop the child from "cheating" in the exam. 

Why can't this be tackled differently? Why not have the onus of "not cheating" be a covenant between the parent and the child and the teacher (school)? Why is it an assumption that the child will cheat? If the child cheats with the parents being at home and the covenant - isn't that something the parents need to worry about the values the child is imbibing?  

The second approach - which is assume something different is to turn the exam into something that is more amenable in the current environment. Think open book exams, viva-voce, deeper reading, more frequent shorter tests, video recording and submission and so on. But this approach I suppose comes in the way of current grading methods. 

Either way, approaching the situation with a little more trust will be more beneficial. And thats the question, how can this be designed for trust?

[PS: This is from my sample size of schools]

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Be Civil. Make nice!

Popular posts from this blog

The man who saved Pumpelsdrop

This was a story we had in college if I am not mistaken. Perhaps it was in school, but a delightful story it was. The story goes somewhat like this ( reproduced from here ), but the college version we had was slightly different from this.  I t was a dull, gloomy and a depressing morning in a town named Pumpelsdrop in northern England. The Great Depression had brought all the businesses to a standstill. The bored automobile dealer was spending time alone, as usual. But, this seems to be an unusual morning as an odd entity (customer) appeared on the horizon. A man in a bright suit walks up to the dealer and says, "I need to buy a Rolls Royce Phantom II. We have a business conference coming up and I need to impress my customers". Then proceeds to pay 10% of the deal with a single check for 2000 pounds. The rest he says will pay when he takes the delivery.   The auto dealer was stunned. He was delighted to hear that someone is holding a business conference of some kind and ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Most Powerful Idea in the World

The above titled book by William Rosen (and I am still reading it) has set me thinking. As it goes through the industrial revolution (rather, the beginning of it) - it explores as to why the industrial revolution happened when it happened. Rather, how a lot of factors came to play in making it happen. For that alone this book is worth a read. It is worth reading how a 'dotcom' kind of ecosystem existed in England with the combination of tinkerers, rich patrons, correspondence and of course, the right kind of institutions. When one studies engineering, or even science, what we hear are the rock star stories. For instance, we know that Archimedes had a 'Eureka' moment. Likewise, in this book, I realized how a 'Eureka' moment helped James Watt resolve the problematic steam engine into a workable design. While it is very romantic to believe that discoveries happen accidentally, the fact remains that somebody like a James Watt (or others) slogged through many man...
Post a Comment
Read more

Narendra Modi, Presentation Skills

This is the latest speech by Narendra Modi which was delivered yesterday at the India Today Conclave. Much analysis has been carried out on this speech, but here is a different perspective. I have written about Presentation skills - and to me this is a video that touches upon almost all aspects of presentation skills. For someone who wants to learn public speaking, presentation skills this speech is a great example. It is well worth your time, if you want to see presentation skills in action (and the bonus of a great speech). The speech is largely in Hindi, though there are parts in English as well.  Mr. Modi uses a video at the start (which is missing here) - so the speech uses other media as well - surprising the audience - since politicians arent generally given to videos. That initial video has made the audience look forward to more. The speech is extempore - which can only happen when one knows the subject thoroughly. I personally don't know how much Mr. Modi practices...
1 comment
Read more