Assessments and timely examinations have always been a tool to determine the student’s level of understanding. Often there is misconception that examinations are only conducted to rank students and discover who is better than the other. Well, if you are one them who believes exams are merely about marks, then you are slightly mistaken! Although healthy competition to score better grades in class is a good motivating factor, there are other objectives that are achieved by way of assessments. Periodical assessments aim to develop the learner’s overall personality, improve their memory skills, and make them more confident individuals. It also instills a sense of responsibility amongst learners to take their studies seriously, this is the approach followed by IB schools across the UAE and all over the world.

Keeping this perspective in mind, the examiner needs to set the right ‘question paper’ by choosing topics that would add value to the student’s overall learning & development. Though the school curriculum is expansive the exam questionnaire can accommodate only a limited pool of important questions and hence it makes the job of the teacher rather difficult. In this current digital-age Markezy is a go-to assessment tool for many schools across the Middle East and especially in Dubai. Markezy is a hybrid platform that supports online assessments, as well as paper format and gives the teacher an option to choose questions from its own item bank. Through this article we aim to share some tips for executing impactful ‘questionnaire’ by choosing the appropriate question format.

Types of Examination Questions

Before we proceed, let us understand the different categories or types of questions generally asked in an exam paper. Well, there is no rulebook as such, but usually the format of the question paper is determined by the educational board department and schools need to follow the defined pattern. Broadly there are the following types of question formats; multiple choice questions, true or false, match the following, fill in the blanks, short answers, and essay answers. Let us elaborate on each of these types:

Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs)

Multiple choice questions have one question with multiple options as answers. Usually the practice is to give four options where one of them is the right answer and the other three are incorrect. Students can select the right answer by simply clicking on the correct option. Here are few points to keep in mind while drafting MCQs:

• Pick an important topic from the chapter which has a one word or one line as an answer
• For the incorrect options you can use alternatives that seem similar, but are not considered as the correct answer
• The aim is to clear the student’s misconceptions and drive down the sure-shot answer to remove any ambiguity
• Make sure the four options are all either ‘one word’ or ‘statements’ to avoid confusion and maintain consistency
• Consider giving ‘all of the above’ or ‘none of the above’ as one of the four alternatives if there are more than one correct or incorrect responses

Match the Following

Matching the correct options usually makes its way to kindergarten or elementary grade test papers. The student has to pair the correct options on either sides of the mid-line and draw a joining line from left column to the correct option in the right column. It tests the child’s memory with regards to knowledge recall and correct association. Children actually look forward to this section as it is easy to pair the options and they get the opportunity to score full marks. Teachers can refer to the following points while designing matching pointers:

• Don’t go overboard and give too many matching items, keep it between 5 to 7 entries
• Keep the cues on the left column crisp and short
• Have more options on the right column as against the cues on the left to add a bit of a challenge to testing children’s concepts
• Avoid having the paired options on the same row and shuffle the answers instead
• Some ideas to include as match the following are; definitions and their correct term or say a formula and its solvable solution

Short Answers

Short answer questions typically test the student’s understanding of the concept which he explains in 2 to 3 sentences. As against the match the following and MCQ format, short answers do not give any option to the student and the child has to use his memory to reproduce the answers. This gives the student an opportunity to explain his understanding more creatively, but also be precise and brief with no room for fluff. Curating short answers needs the following points to be kept in mind:

• Definitions can be considered for short answer questions
• Find topics that do not need elaborate explanations
• There should be no room for ambiguity in the question, so that the answer can be written precisely

Markezy offers a varied variety of assessment design options to make the teacher’s job easy. Educational institutions in the GCC have quickly adopted to this the trend and are streamlining their assessment & evaluation process for the dual benefit of students and teachers.

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Introducing a 3D printer to classrooms sounds exciting indeed and it is rapidly revolutionizing the way learning takes place. With 3D printed models’ children get to experience practical learning, as against the rote learning technique through textbooks. Learners use their sense of touch to feel the printed objects and can actually participate in the design & execution phase. So, before we have you marvel the ocean of possibilities with 3D printing techniques for schools, let us briefly explain how it works.

How to print objects with 3D printer?

Unlike the usual printer in offices that uses ink to print on paper, the 3D printer uses materials such as; plastic, rubber, metal, to print objects. The first step to printing mini models is to feed a picture into the system in order to help the printer identify what needs to be replicated. For example: If you want to print the 8 planets to teach children the workings of the solar system, you first need to scan a picture of each of the planets on a paper scanner or use a foam scanner to scan the existing toy model such that it can be replicated by the 3D printer. The scanned copy needs to then be cleaned via a 3D CAD software and the dimensions need to be checked before proceeding to actual printing. Now its showtime and the 3D printer does its job! In no time you would have objects created magically which can be used as an alternate to buying classroom aids online and spending oodles of money.

Effective learning through a hands-on approach

In a classroom full of inquisitive minds many a times the teacher has to tackle questions such as Why? How? What? because children need proof to the explanations given in textbooks. Hence, experimentation is the best teacher. When children actually get to see things before their eyes, their journey of self-discovery begins until they get satisfactory answers. 3D printing follows a hands-on approach and stimulates sensory-motor development which makes the learning process easy & leads to better understanding of concepts.

Exploring Earth and its Geographical Phenomena through 3D printable objects

Imagine having to study all the 195 countries of the world and their respective flags. It seems like a herculin task to memorize all of it. However, if children are introduced to the World by actually printing the maps, flags, and topographies, they will be in a better position to remember facts and apply them during exams. With 3D printing technology from Mayku it is easy to build models of rocky mountain ranges, discover some of the most remarkable islands and even marvel fascinating landmarks like the Burj Al Arab in Dubai.

Recreating Ancient Historic Civilizations

Wouldn’t it be fun to remember the events of the Egyptian Civilization or say the Indus Valley Civilization by actually having a dramatization session in class with epic monuments and historical figures in the background to give relevance to the scene. 3D printing brings new experiences and helps children interact with the subject, instead of having to study dates and complicated names of Emperors from boring presentation slides. Many IB Schools in GCC including UAE now rely on interactive techniques to teach the class about culture and history.

Understand the Complex Functioning of Human Organs in Biology Class

The skeleton that you see hanging in every school’s biology lab can be replicated using a 3D printer. What better way to understand the human anatomy than by actually printing the organ before your eyes? The best part is that 3D printers are so detail oriented, that it captures each attribute which makes learning more meaningful. Printing the human skull on a Mayku 3D printer would enable children to study the dimensions of the jaw bone, structure of the teeth, and other anterior features which would have been impossible to comprehend from an image in their textbooks. This hands-on approach leads to biology lessons getting ingrained in the child’s long-term memory without much effort.

Practicing Math Lessons with 3D Demonstrations

When students hear the term Math, the first reaction is a cringe-worthy smile. To brighten-up the smile simply introduce them to 3 dimensional shapes printed on a Mayku printer and let them play with it for as long as they want. This is an exciting way to actually watch the making of a sphere, cylinder, prism and other shapes alike. Another Math topic that children at first find difficult to grasp is fractions. Well, not if the objects looked colorful and could be easily assembled & dissembled in a jiffy. Across the Middle East 3D printing has gained so much popularity, that even parents are intrigued to purchase a Mayku for their homes to ensue their elementary school goers continue to have the same passion and zeal for studies at home.

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As we all seem to switch to the digital world you might be concerned about your child. Several questions might be emerging in your mind frequently like how much screen time should you allow your child? Is it impacting your child’s attention span? It is very obvious for you to be worried as a parent. Nonetheless, it is all about setting a time limit for your child to spend with the screens. Anything is bad if the limits are crossed.

Nowadays, teachers are suggesting E-Books (digital books) for children to not just gain knowledge but also read stories. ‘Highlights Learning’ offers E-Books for your children and is gaining popularity in the Middle East including Dubai. They have a wide range of fictional and non-fictional E-Books. You can pick according to your child’s interest.

Just like every coin has two sides to it, E-books and Paperbacks, both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Basically, reading E-books for long hours without any breaks can affect your child’s attention span. Continuously looking at the screen for long hours might affect them mentally and when they don’t get their laptop next time, they might get cranky or have mood swings. Make sure you don’t let them build a habit of reading e-books more than few hours because it will affect their eye health as well. Sit with your child when they are reading the book and share some of your real-life stories by narrating the story to them.

E-books have the advantage of having background music and animations so that children can not just imagine but feel like everything in the story is really happening as it builds virtual reality. Another advantage is that they can read E-books again and again. If your child doesn’t understand something, they can open the dictionary online and understand it. Quite a few schools in the UAE are taking advantage of technology and recommending E-book readers to parents so that children are constructively engaged even when they are not in school.

However, the drawback of E-books is that sometimes ads might keep popping up and numerous video links that ask you to play games. These links can be quite distracting for your child and they might end up clicking on such links. This can be distracting because your child will not be able to focus on the story.

On the other hand, Paperbacks have various advantages like it won’t affect your child’s attention span even if they choose to read the book for long hours. Your child can use a highlighter or a pen to underline a topic that they didn’t understand and come to ask you about it. This way, it will become interactive for you and your child. You can also give them a task that once they’re done with reading, they have to narrate the story back to you and elaborate on the favourite part from the story. This will help you stay rest assured because they will definitely pay attention while reading.

Some drawbacks of reading Paperbacks could be that your child can lose their book or misplace it. Secondly, they might find Paperbacks boring because their friends are reading E-books. Lastly, there won’t be background music when reading from Paperbacks so, there are chances that they might lose interest in the story.

However, everything has its pros and cons. You should decide if you prefer E-books or Paperbacks for your child because there’s no one other than parents who can understand what’s favorable for their child.

Highlights learning allow parents to choose between E-books or Paperback from amongst its collection of 1000s of workbooks, stories, magazine, and activity books. They also have gifting options available in case your child wants to gift a book to his/her friend and can be conveniently shipped across the GCC and other parts of the world!

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