At Vidya Mandir we use the most lethal weapon that the educational arsenal consists of – Tests. But there is a lot more to it than what meets the eye. We do not believe in conducting tests just for the sake of judging how much our students have learnt. We believe in doing things differently. Read on to know what we mean.
The tests we conduct are not meant to differentiate the smart students from the weak students or as a means for some students to show off, and brag about marks. We use our tests as a tool to accurately show where our students stand in terms of preparation and understanding of the subject matter. The idea behind the tests is not to rule out answers based on right and wrong. We don’t believe in “right” or “wrong” answers.
Confused? Continue reading.
Our tests show us how much our students have understood a topic. Instead of concentrating on how much has a student scored, we concentrate on the student finding out WHY he went wrong. This way he/she understands his roadblocks, and learns how to solve them. We believe that simply telling them they’re wrong won’t serve any purpose, and will only scare the student away.
At Vidya Mandir, every class starts with quick fire verbal tests that increase the tempo and energy of the class, and this way we make sure that the students have remembered and absorbed what was taught in the previous lesson. As a student we believe you don’t need to go home and study a lot, as long as you’re on your toes in our class you’ll be on top of your game throughout the school year!
Once the corrected answer sheets are handed back to the students, there is an open discussion as well as an individual discussion of the papers to see where each student went wrong. Problems are approached on an individual level. The open discussions address common doubts where questions are encouraged and students can learn through each other’s weak points too.
Here, we encourage our students to learn with examples rather than just mugging up the theory. When they leave our doors, they know a concept through and through well enough to explain it to anyone simply using apt examples from things around him. Once you know the concepts well, the battle is as good as won!
