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- April 12, 2021
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An online assessment is to conduct an online evaluation or test to assess academic performance among students. Traditionally, orally or through written tests using pen and paper, these examinations are performed. Students gathered in an exam hall or room where students obtained a question paper and students had to write answers within the time allotted. In order to ensure a fair evaluation of all participants, these questions were not previously used. Participants then turn to their answer sheets and evaluators exchange student scores after a period of time.
All these traditional elements continue to persist with an online study, but the method of evaluation has changed–instead of a physical examination room, students now log into an online examination system through which they view and post their answers to the question paper. This method also involves analysis and reporting of tests.
What are the advantages of an online examination system?
The advantages of implementing an online examination system at your educational institution are plenty. Below we discuss some key, easily accessed advantages of switching to an online examination system at your school:
Environmentally Friendly
Straight out of the gate, the negative impact of conventional pen and paper tests on the world is minimized by an online examination system. This kind of eco-friendly and forward-thinking approach to daily processes is essential in a world where students can graduate into an environmental crisis caused by climate change. Students will imbibe these values over the course of their education.
Technologically Forward
The key advantage of using the online examination system is that it is well incorporated into a technologically rich world. For professional situations, the use of pen and paper is growing. Most of the work is done with email, text messages, presentation machines, computer-based development, etc. Using this method to familiarize students with a range of interfaces prepares them for the real world. It is possible that their experience with such a system and method will be particularly helpful even in the future after they have graduated for activities such as training and testing.
Reduces Labor Cost
The sheer amount of resources that can be used to set up a single exam is mind-boggling — from teachers setting the test to administrators ensuring that all students receive enough copies of the exam paper. The use of an online examination system removes many of these procedures and the related labor costs, which have a significant and positive impact on the bottom line of the method implementing educational institution.
Saves on Time Investment
The design, administration and assessment of a test are time-consuming activities for all concerned from the student to the teachers. The use of an online examination system allows for a reduction in the time required for the analysis process as a whole. This is because features such as inserting and exporting questions, easy access to the students ‘ test, and batch-wise assessments allow students and teachers to save valuable time that would usually be spent on non-primary tasks and instead channel those resources towards setting and assessing students ‘ academic progress.
Reduces Overheads
The overhead costs of obtaining an exam hall, printing out multiple question papers, supplying students with answer sheets and other resources could actually add up. Nevertheless, switching to an online review platform reduces or removes many of these overhead costs directly. Such a move has a positive effect on the educational institution’s bottom line, freeing up much-needed resources for the school or college that can then be guided to core responsibilities.
Increased Security and Privacy
A final advantage of the online examination system is that it allows for increased student privacy and an improvement in how secure the entire process is for all stakeholders involved. For instance, there can be no meddling or untoward activities within the system since there is no opportunity for malicious elements to game the system and produce erroneous responses or results, engage in cheating or any other unethical practices.
Students often earn outcomes that keep their reputation among peers confidential and encourage positive development rather than harmful and futile peer rivalry. This kind of security and privacy may seem unnecessary, but for both students and teachers alike, it really provides a safer and more positive attitude towards the whole examination process. Fostering such a mentality is in the interest of the educational institution as a whole.
What are the disadvantages of an online examination system?
Open Book Exams
Due to the nature of the online examination system model, exams conducted through this platform are open book exams to some degree. Unlike traditional examination settings that did not allow the examination to have external materials in the physical space, nothing prevents students from referring to their course materials during an online examination. Since there is also no direct supervision during the exam time period, the entire system is reliant on an honor system to prevent cheating or other malpractice.
Teachers can, however, mitigate this effect by setting questions that do not depend on the ability of the student to search for information in a textbook or Google. Instead, questions must concentrate on evaluating the student’s understanding of the topic. These are in many ways predictors of the actual comprehension of the content being learned by the student and thus a better representation of their academic progress.
Onboarding onto New Technology
The implementation of an online examination system necessitates a period of familiarisation on part of all users. Any change in structure will require some investment in onboarding on behalf of the educational institution in question.
The best approach to take here is to model preparation for both students and teachers during the transition from traditional examinations to the online examination. Such learning will familiarize students and teachers with the system’s different features, making it more likely that they will actually use it rather than sticking to the status quo as to how exams are conducted at their school.
Infrastructural Barriers
While the online examination system offers great scope to improve student inclusion and accessibility worldwide, its positive impact can still be mitigated by the location’s infrastructural conditions. Nevertheless, these obstacles are beyond the influence of the system itself, it is clear that it affects it.
Factors like steady internet connectivity, the presence of an electrical connection, and other infrastructural issues in many parts of the world that interfere with how an online review system will work. Therefore, it is important to keep the audience in mind when introducing the school’s use of this program.
Not suited for Collaborative Evaluations or Group Projects
The very nature of examinations in the online examination system prevents certain modes of evaluation being implemented at the school. The most obvious one here is that it is not an ideal platform for collaborative evaluations or group projects. This is because the nature of the platform is objective, preventing subjective evaluations where points are handed out to a group for subjective efforts, rather than points awarded on an existing framework.
Conclusion
Examinations are an inevitable part of the educational ecosystem. With evolving technologies, a globalized world, and an increasingly competitive educational landscape, it is necessary to keep up with the times. Along with ever-evolving teaching and learning methods, processes like examinations must also be examined. An online examination system is the product of such an analysis – it automates, digitizes and flattens the process to become more accessible, inclusive and accurate compared to its previous avatar. At the same time, it does not eliminate best practices in student evaluation and examination that have been built over the years. Instead, the online examination system is a culmination of the old and familiar and the new and innovative.
Some of our most inspirational and unforgettable films are teachers and professors who use creative teaching techniques to achieve the students ‘ minds and win the audience’s hearts while doing so. While only a few years ago one would see such creative and efficient teaching on the screen, today technology has provided a number of tools to teachers around the globe to improve teaching techniques.
1. Cross over Teaching
While this type of learning does not include technology, for both the student and the teachers it is an enriching experience. Here, in an informal environment such as after-school learning clubs or museum and exhibition trips, learning occurs. The teacher can link the educational material to the students ‘ experiences. By adding questions linked to the topic, this teaching is further improved and deepened. Then the students can add field trip notes, photographic projects and other group tasks linked to the trip to the classroom debates.
2. Teaching through Smart Boards
Smart boards are an efficient way to give life to the classroom while helping students experience a greater level of commitment and understanding. This is achieved through the interactive and visualization of the course material. The smart boards turn the learning experience into an interactive and cooperative experience as teachers use vibrant multimedia material to assist students communicate the subject more efficiently and make it a visual and engaging experience.
3. Teaching through Flipping Classrooms
Flipping the classroom becomes an efficient teaching method that is becoming increasingly common. In this method, students are made active participants in the learning process by placing the learning burden on them, teachers are required to relegate themselves to the position of resource providers and students are responsible for collecting concept information. Students are motivated to build understanding using multiple technology instruments, fill in data gaps and create inferences on their own as and when required.
While many may question whether giving students the responsibility of teaching may be worldwide, teachers around the globe have seen them immersing themselves more in the topic, taking more interest and teaching better when they are in control of their own learning.
This method of teaching is one of the best ways to lay the foundation in independent learning.
4. Teaching through collaboration
Another innovative teaching method includes promoting cooperation between students for different projects. We live in a globalized globe today and cooperation is a vital life skill that is important for all professions and businesses. Teachers in the classroom can assist promote this skill by enabling learners to learn, study, and work in classroom.
For example, by assigning group homework or encouraging learners to work on plays, presentations and other reports together. Today, cooperation as a type of learning is gaining recognition as a strong learning instrument where teachers perform the role of guides, mentors, managers for the students once again in the community of students. It also teaches empathy, negotiation, teamwork, and problem-solving abilities to students.
5. Teaching through Virtual Reality
Technology for Virtual Reality includes helping learners learn through interactions with a 3D world. For example, instead of bringing the students through a boring lesson of history, teachers can use 3D technology to discover ancient cultures, travel for a lesson in geography to remote nations, or even take a journey to outer space during a science lesson.
Virtual Reality technology provides a precious chance for students to learn immersively, creating a lasting impression on their minds. It makes learning fun and enables students to keep the material for a longer period of time–all the key points when considering efficient teaching techniques in a classroom.
6. Teaching through 3D printing technology
Teachers who are looking for creative learning techniques can also look at 3D printing as a learning tool. This technique is rapidly gaining worldwide recognition, particularly in greater academic institutions where 3D printers are used to produce prototypes and facilitate the understanding of complicated concepts. In lower-level schools, teachers can use 3D printers to teach material earlier taught through textbooks, thereby helping students achieve a better knowledge of the concept — especially STEM topics.
7. Teaching through Cloud Computing
Bringing technology into the classroom enables teachers to experiment with innovative teaching techniques. Using cloud computing is one technique where teachers can save on the classroom cloud information of essential classroom resources such as lesson plans, notes, audio courses, videos, and tasks. This can be accessed from the comfort of their homes by the students whenever it is necessary to bring the classroom back to the students by clicking on a mouse. It also guarantees that at all times students who have missed school for either disease or any other reason remain up-to-date. It eliminates the need for heavy textbooks and enables students to learn at a moment, location and pace they are comfortable with.
8. Technology and innovative methods of teaching
Using technology in the classroom helps engage students with various types of stimuli and generates an activity-based learning atmosphere. It makes the classroom content more exciting and enjoyable to learn.
Technology provides teachers with an infinite collection of resources they can tap into depending on the students ‘ needs. While this blog lists some of these resources, a teacher looking for efficient learning techniques in a classroom will be offering a vast amount of updated alternatives in switching to the recent technology.
e-Testing or e-assessments are on-line tests conducted with the aim of evaluating, measuring, and documenting the educational readiness, learning progress, talent acquisition, or academic wants of the test takers. Within the past, test were typically given in paper printouts and had to be two-handed out manually. Nowadays, you can create online test, share the link with your students, and immediately see their results.
e-Testing is a valuable tool in Higher Education for several reasons. it’s large potential benefits for school students in terms of learning and retention of study material, furthermore as increasing their engagement with their chosen topic. e-Testing offers several blessings over traditional pen and paper exams.
e-Testing can
supply immediate and focused feedback on students’ work
allow students more than one attempt at an answer
present questions in a predetermined or random order
be used for diagnostic, formative or summative assessment
guide students to further reading or resources if they are having difficulty
increase students’ digital literacy
increase student engagement
record highly detailed student learning analytics and present them to the teacher in real time
manage teacher workload and corrections
The use of e-Testing makes it much more realistic for students to get this timely and appropriate feedback given the workload already experienced by teaching staff. The feedback given can also be further enhanced by technology as it may contain links to interactive material, additional reading, videos etc. so that students can be directed to engage in self-directed learning tailored for their particular difficulties.
The Digital Roadmap also highlights the need to maximize the potential of data analytics to inform teaching and learning in Higher Education. The use of e-Testing makes this task manageable as most systems would automatically track many learning analytics as students use the system. E-assessment can also be used to great effect to develop greater opportunities for part-time, flexible learning, including lifelong learning.
The use of e-Testing saves students a lot of time and money. Often the assessments can be completed in less time, multiple candidates can complete the online assessment at the same time and there is no need for specialized (and expensive) personnel. Also, the test takers are able to take the assessment during class, or at home, using their own devices. You get to see their results and answers and get instant feedback about your chosen topic. That helps you, as teacher, to learn more about your students and adapt to their needs, strengths and weaknesses.
Not much can be said about the disadvantages of online testiing, since the advantages outweigh them by far. But there might be some, for example, you need to be computer literate (or able to use a computer well) in order to create and take an assessment. Technology is not always reliable, there might be connection or internet problems, energy breaks and other things like that. Also, there’s a cost involved in online assessment softwares.
e-Testing has some pros and cons. It’s up to you to decide what is the best option in your case, that is, keep using hard copy assessments or go for the online option. Although some financial investment in online assessment software is needed, we believe the benefits outweigh the costs by far. It’s a value for money acquisition, since you, as a student, will save a lot of time and money in many other ways.
Also, online test allow the test takers to take on mobile learning, which means, they are able to take the test anywhere, anytime. And they receive their results immediately by email. You can see their results and download them into an Excel file.
In this technically knowledgeable era, the fashionable and cool apps rule over the boring study and exams, and students with none doubt, love the ruling app. However, when we combine the two, the result is fashionable as well as a powerful source of effective learning. When we think about combining fashionable technology with boring studies, what we actually mean is the educational mobile app. Undoubtedly, students are more driven towards using a mobile phone for every purpose, and in this situation, the educational app can be the perfect way to attract the students and convince them to study.
With the educational app, the students can get access to any information from anywhere. Therefore, the mobile app Paatham was made with the most interactive and constructive way to attract the students towards studies and enhance their productivity. Let us discuss few benefits of the educational app Paatham.
1. Interactive Learning:
Gone are the days, when the sole possibility for the students to read books, was by visiting the library. The innovative gadgets of these days make it simple for the students to practice their lessons in a good and interactive approach. Paatham app is available for all types of students. These apps ensure interactive and effective learning, by changing the boring lessons and helping the students to visualize each and everything.
2. 24/7 availability:
Unlike schools, the mobile app Paatham is accessible round the clock. Therefore, app learning isn’t time-bound learning, rather it’s relaxed learning. We tend to all understand that time-bound learning is not much effective, as children get distracted very easily and don’t seem to concentrate continuously for a long time. Thus, educational apps work the best regarding this issue, as they are available 24/7, and also the students will study as per their convenience.
3. eBooks and on-line study material:
With the advancement of technology and introduction of educational app Paatham students don’t seem to invest their time and money to buy the desired study material from the outlets and libraries. Paatham can facilitate the students who are unable to go to the library on a daily basis, by providing needed study material in precisely some clicks. Paatham also facilitate the readers to discover a range of eBooks with a mere click.
4. Movability
Clearly none of us leave our cell phones at home while going some place. Using app have become a part of the day by day schedule, whether you watch a video on the way to work or play games at lunch, your cell phone is dependably with you. In this way, the app can be the consistent companions for the students, as they obtainable to youngsters anyplace, anytime. With the help of educational app, Paatham learning won’t be confined to the schoolroom alone, because the apps permit pupils to require their learning into their own hands and and that they will study and check themselves at any purpose within the day.
5. Leisure hours usage:
The mobile app learning is one amongst the wisest decisions of utilizing your free time actively. The child’s leisure is utilised to be told one thing new with the help of mobile app, and also the entertainment is warranted, without wasting time by watching the idiot box. The mobile apps prove their value, by utilizing the free time in an viable and helpful way.
6. Individually-focused learning:
A teacher’s role within the student’s life isn’t the least bit questionable, however a teacher cannot focus towards one student solely. He/she sometimes has got to interact with 20-30 pupils throughout every session, and it’s tough to make sure all is engaged and following what’s being tutored. However, once a student utilizes an app, the time they interact with the app is all their own.
7. Track your children’s progress:
With Paatham educational app, you can track your children’s progress, that is one in all the foremost necessary things that each parent needs to explore. It is easy for the parents to track their child’s overall or individual subject progress and guide them accordingly, with the help of the mobile app Paatham.
The above-mentioned benefits are enough to prove the value of the educational app, Paatham but the app have a lot more to offer. Without any doubt, technology has helped a lot to create a worldwide platform for education furthermore as helped to spot the hidden skills and abilities of the students. Thus, educational app Paatham, contribute within the learning process and can reshape the long run of education.
Every year, an increasing number of organizations use eLearning to deliver more of their training. As eLearning tools evolve, they continue to offer more functionality at a lower cost, making eLearning an increasingly attractive alternative or complement to traditional training methods.
Still, eLearning is not always the best option. There are times when live instructors are needed, either in person or via web meeting. Consider these seven key questions when deciding what role eLearning should play in your next training initiative.
1. What Kind of Instructional Content Am I Looking to Implement?
While eLearning has the potential to be a particularly powerful training tool, its effectiveness depends on the job you have in mind. Before deciding on a training format, it is important that you consider what skills you are training, and how you want your employees to use those skills in their jobs. The following content types work especially well with the strengths of the online training format.
• Software Training and Web Applications
• Certification and Compliance Training
• Company Policy and Procedure Training
Others?
Basic soft skills, such as sales processes, product knowledge, and quality standards, can all be taught using eLearning. Generally, eLearning for these skills is best used as part of a comprehensive blended learning program.
Travel costs can be all but eliminated.
While classroom training programs often require a significant amount of travel – both for trainers and trainees – eLearning by its very nature is travel-free. All that’s needed is an internet connection.
Training is more consistent from location to location.
eLearning can eliminate the variance in content delivery that is common when multiple instructors are employed to deliver training over a broad geographic spectrum. Different instructors tend to highlight different points based on their own experience. Unless they are heavily scripted, this creates inconsistent training experiences among your learners. eLearning provides consistency and ensures that your learners are sharing a common training experience with a consistent message being delivered.
What is the Geographic Distribution of the students?
When you have a geographically diverse audience and are committed to instructor led training exclusively, you are stuck with two choices: bring the instructor to the learners or bring the learners to the instructor. Both choices come loaded with a whole bucket of potential scheduling issues that may result in your learners not getting the training they need, when they need it.
A widely disbursed workforce can be a major hassle for training managers, and one for which classroom training is especially poorly suited. eLearning provides a solution that can provide significant cost savings, while delivering a more uniform and predictable training result.
1. eLearning courses can be accessed any time, from any location, allowing employees to take training when and where it works best with their schedules.
2. eLearning allows the trainees to learn at their own pace, increasing understanding of the material and speeding the process.
3. What Sort of Technology Investment Will I Need To Make?
4. Can eLearning Be Used in Conjunction With the Classroom Training We Currently Use?
5. Am I Prepared to Make eLearning a Success?
6. The Bottom Line: How Can I Assess the eLearning ROI?
In a world of tightened budgets and continual cost-cutting drives, new systems need to prove their own worth. While there are some easy to measure hard-cost savings associated with eLearning (like less travel, fewer trainers, less work-interruption, etc.), the greatest benefit often comes from soft- savings. Unfortunately, measuring just exactly how much you’re saving can be tricky. Here are a few suggestions:
• Start by figuring out what your company’s definition of “success” is when it comes to training.
• Identify the soft-savings you’re trying to measure.
• Assess your eLearning system’s effectiveness through a controlled test.
There will always be a place and need for instructor led training. Nothing in the digital world can truly replace the adaptive give and take afforded by the classroom. But, there are many opportunities for smart managers to leverage eLearning in order to save time and money while still getting your learners the quality training they need.
Depending on how much time you have for guided math, find ideas on how to schedule your daily math block to include key components for success.
Ever wonder what your daily math block should look like?
A well designed math block incorporates whole group and small group instruction. It also provides time for teaching new skills, practicing for mastery and reviewing previously taught skills.
However, there are two things I want you to keep in mind. The ideal and the real. And I’m going to share both.
First, let me share what an ideal elementary math block looks like. When I say ideal, I’m talking about a math block that is 75 minutes or longer.
Warm Up Activity For Books
Purpose: (1) Review math skills or (2) Introduce a new topic
Any good lesson starts out with an engaging opening. Math is no exception.
This section of your math block should be fast paced. This is either the time for a quick review or a way to interest your kids in a brand new topic. Remember, you want to spend the bulk of your time in centers so that you can work with your teacher led small group.
Here are some examples of things you can do during your warm up:
• Number Talks
• Calendar Activities
• Problem of the Day
• Number of the Day
• Kinesthetic Math Activities
• Number Sense Routines
Whole Class Mini-Lesson
This is the part of your daily math block when you are teaching a mini-lesson. You’re teaching and modeling new concepts by using think-alouds and clear visual models.
It’s also the time to do guided practice. Set aside a short amount time for students to actually practice what you’re modeling. This can look many different ways: interactive large group activities, partner work, etc.
Be strategic. Stay focused on the topic. Otherwise you may find yourself going down a rabbit hole and then not having enough time for math centers.
Here are some examples of things you can do during your whole group mini-lesson:
• Math Read-Aloud
• Hands-On Activities with Manipulatives
• Partner Work
• Group Activities
Teacher Tip – Since this is a “mini-lesson” after you explicitly model you may not get to guided practice on the same day. That’s OK! You can do guided practice the next day. The important part is to make sure you are modeling AND then providing support.
Math Centers and Teacher Led Small Group
Purpose: (1) Differentiate instruction for all learners and (2) provide ongoing practice and review of previously taught skills
There are 2 different things going on during this portion of your math block.
Math Centers – Students practice and review math skills in small groups or pairs, without teacher support (You’ll be at working with your small group).
Examples of math centers can include:
• Math Games
• Journals
• Task Cards
• Fluency Activities
• Problem Solving Tasks
• Math Sorts
Teacher Lead Small Group – This is my favorite part of the block! While the rest of your class is working in centers, you’re targeting instruction with a small group of your students in order to meet their needs.
It’s that magic time of the math block because you get to see and correct misconceptions up close. This is where you get to move your students.
You’re finished with your last teacher led small group and the rest of your students are cleaning up their stations.
Now, what?
It’s time for your kids to show what they know. Let’s move to the last part of an ideal daily math block. Time to assess.
Student Reflection
Purpose: (1) See what your kids know and (2) Inform instruction
This is the time to do a quick check of the day’s learning. It’s not a formal test.
What about if you only have 45 minutes?
This definitely isn’t ideal. But let’s keep it real, I know that some of you only have 45 minutes. The first thing, I strongly suggest that you advocate for more time for math.
With that out the way let’s get real creative.
In this scenario, I suggest keeping both the warm up and the reflection time 5 minutes each. This will leave you with 35 minutes each day for alternating teaching a whole group lesson OR doing math centers. See example below:
Monday: Warm Up (5 min.) – Whole Group (35 min.) – Reflection (5 min.)
Tuesday: Warm Up (5 min.) – Math Centers (35 min./2 groups) – Reflection (5 min.)
Then continue the pattern for the other days of the week.
Proper attendance management is crucial for the success of any academic institution. Many researches reveal that poor attendance is affecting the quality of education. Schools are not able to meet the expectations of parents because of the disorganized manual attendance management system.
Schools should give much emphasis on student attendance in order to improve the overall academic performance of students. To assist them in this issue, they can avail the help of an online student management system.
Attendance management helps in many ways:
Enhanced Course Management : As you know, teaching is a continuous process. Therefore, each day’s lessons are scheduled as the continuation of the topics that you taught your students the previous day. Regular absentees may leave an avoidable burden for the teachers. You may have to repeat the same topics for irregular students, thus taking extra time.
Repeating the same topics may prevent you from achieving your lesson plan goals. Tracking student attendance on a daily basis will help to you keep an eye on irregular students. You can easily meet your lesson plan goals with the help of attendance management systems.
Better Overall School Result : It’s obvious that only regular students will achieve excellent grades in a school. Irregular students cannot compete with your regular students, no matter whatever effort they take. Such kind of students would do badly in their exams and affect the overall results of your school. Completely automated attendance management software will help you to track your students’ progress in a systematic manner.
Good Attendance Stimulates Good Behaviour : Does attendance affect student behaviour? Of course, yes. Regular attendance can nurture good behaviour in students. This will motivate them to behave in a responsible way as well.
Assuring student safety : We are at a juncture of time where student safety is so much important. With a full-fledged attendance management system parents will be informed about the day to day attendance of their child via automated messages. If there is any doubt parents can even go through the attendance sheet online.
Considerable productivity increase : Attendance related activities are usually carried out manually which takes sizeable amount of time of the teachers. If a school has an attendance management system it will carry out all the attendance related calculation within no time, Thus saving a huge amount of time which can be put to another use.
Burden on Teachers Can be Minimized : As we discussed earlier, managing the needs of irregular students is hectic and time consuming as well. Teachers have to reteach the topics for the absentees in order to make them competitive with the regular students. Unfortunately, this process needs time and energy of your teachers and as a result will become a burden for them.
Improved Parent Teacher Communication : There is no doubt that better parent- teacher communication, influence students’ academic success. By installing a quality student attendance management system you are creating a chance to reach out to parents. If a parent come to know that his\ her children is bunking academic sessions, definitely he\she may contact the teachers. This will give you an opportunity to improve the academic performance of irregular students.
HOW TO CHOOSE A STUDENT ATTENDANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM?
Student Attendance management system should offer following features:
• Compatability
• Attendance reports
• User-friendly interface
• Leave management
• Notifications
• Good software support
• Regular updates
When you are learning a new skill, do you do it perfectly the very first time? Do you know all the answers before you even begin? Of course not! The same is true of math. Learning math requires practice, and making mistakes is part of the process. But as I’ve shared before, making mistakes in math is a good thing, and can help kids learn and understand more deeply. Today I want to dive a little deeper, because all mistakes are not equal. There are different types of math errors that students make, and understanding how to prevent them and how to learn from them is essential.
3 Types of Math Errors:
As I’ve thought about the different mistakes students of all ages make as they solve math problems, I’ve narrowed them down to 3 categories:
• Careless Errors
• Computational Errors
• Conceptual Errors
Careless Errors:
Careless errors occur simply because they are not paying attention, or are working too fast. Some examples might be:
• Copying the problem wrong to begin with
• Writing a wrong number
• Dropping a negative sign
• Sloppy handwriting
• Not following the directions
• Typing it wrong into their calculator
Here are some simple ways to help kids prevent making careless mistakes:
• Slow down
This seems obvious, but students are often in a rush to finish so that they can move on to something else. Rushing is the easiest way to ensure careless mistakes. Encourage kids to take it slow and pay attention to what they’re doing.
• Circle important information
Whether it’s a worksheet or word problems, circling important information will help students know what to do. Circling something in the directions will help them follow them correctly. Circling key information in a word problem will help them think through their strategy and make sure they don’t forget anything.
• Use graph paper
Using a sheet of graph paper to work out problems can be a really simple fix for kids who struggle with neatness. Graph paper allows kids to line up the numbers correctly and prevent sloppy mix ups.
Computational Errors:
The second type of mistake is computational. This means somewhere in the process they incorrectly added, subtracted, multiplied or divided.
Making one computational mistake in a multi-step problem means the rest of their work will be wrong and the final solution wrong.
As a classroom teacher, I always required students to show all their steps because if they used the correct procedure and showed me that they understood the concept, I was not too concerned about a small computational error.
Yes, that may have meant the “whole problem” was wrong, but to me, the final solution is not as important as understanding the concept and the process.
Still, we never want to encourage carelessness in computation.
Here are some ways to help students prevent computational errors:
• Slow down
• Check the answer after solving
• Use a calculator
Conceptual Errors:
Conceptual errors occur because kids have misunderstood the underlying concepts or have used incorrect logic. This is the most difficult type of error to identify at first glance. This is also the most difficult type of error for students to recognize, but it is the most important to catch and correct.
When students make conceptual errors, it’s possible that all the math computations are correct. If they’ve misunderstood a concept and thus used an incorrect method to solve, they can work out each step meticulously and correctly but still get the wrong answer.
Ways to prevent and correct conceptual errors:
Obviously preventing conceptual errors is not as easy or straightforward as careless or computational errors. And of course, all students will have varying degrees of understanding, and will struggle with different concepts
But here are a few things you can do to try and encourage conceptual understanding and prevent future conceptual mistakes.
• Introduce concepts in hands-on, conceptual ways
• Teach a concept more than one way
• Have math talks
• Use math journals
Paatham online educational portal has been designed with an aim to explore the future of education. Paatham provides an integrated platform for benefit of educational entities like students, faculty, schools and other educational institutes. Paatham acts like an intermediary for these educational entities.
Explore the world of learning: Paatham provides you with a seamless navigation that gives you an uninterrupted learning experience.
Choose what you want to learn: You need to know the answer to just one question at this stage: ‘What do you want to learn?’ Once you’ve selected your class or exams, you will see a list of subjects that are essential for your preparation.
Chapters straight from your textbook: No matter which board you belong to or which exam you are attempting, your chapter list will reflect the perfect syllabus for all your preparation needs.
Visual learning experience: Want to learn or revise a chapter? Watch dedicated playlists for every chapter or selectively choose what you learn. Our interactive videos will help you build a deeper understanding.
Practice made perfect: Topper creates a unique learning path for each student. It suggests the right question at the right time, making it the most efficient practice platform.
Dedicated question sets: Practice with short sets based on difficulty, question type, previous year’s papers etc.
Say goodbye to doubts: Have a doubt at 3 in the morning? Our experts are available 24×7 on our Doubts App. Connect with a tutor instantly and clear your concepts.
Know where you stand: Attempt the largest test series in India and compete with lakhs of students. We have test series for almost every board and competitive exam.
Revision has never been quicker: You remember the last minute hassle of finding your notes before the exam? With ‘Concepts’ you can find all the important definitions and formulas within every chapter in one place.
Customize your course: Choose from millions of combination syllabi covering all boards, competitive or scholarship exam that you are preparing for.
Finally you can sign up to Paatham and let the journey to academy excellence begin.