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What started as a month-long lockdown has taken up the entire year. Thanks to our educator’s farsightedness, we entered the online classroom weeks ago, and hence are at a place of no major loss. Virtual learning has been challenging for both students and parents alike. Parents have replaced the role of teachers. Teachers only guide students to learn through materials that have been prepared through media. Parents are the ones who play an active role to teach their children at home. They have faced many challenges in this process of online learning such as limited time, the inadequacy of technical knowledge, balancing their WFH, and Home, etc. But it has been harder on the students, especially because while all the learning happens online, the exams are conducted offline. In the month of December, most of our kids are writing their pre-boards, for which, none of them have had any contact teaching. These exams are as stressful as they can get for a student of good bearing. Without classroom experience, pen and paper practice, and peer interaction, these exams can get extremely stressful The scanning, uploading, dysfunctional portals just add to the student’s hassle, elevating stress and alleviating scores. For the junior classes, the parent’s IT literacy becomes a big issue. Practically oriented subjects like Maths, Chemistry, physics, etc become more strenuous. In this unusual scenario, here is what you can do to get your child prepared to perform their best. 1. Before an online Exam: Prepare Know the test format What kind of questions will the instructor ask in the exam—multiple-choice, fill-ups, short answer, essays etc. Check your computer Verify all the correct hardware and software in advance. Make sure of an adequate Internet connection. Plan your time While writing, limit your time to that which will be allotted for the actual exam and decide how long you will spend on each question. Carve out a quiet test-taking spot with minimal distractions Turn off all notifications from IM, your phone, your email, and elsewhere. 2. During the Online Exam: Focus Clock your answers Set an alarm to notify you when you have limited time (e.g., 10 minutes) remaining in your testing period. Print and save copies of the test questions, and answers These will prove extremely helpful if you have technical problems during the test or if you encounter issues while submitting your answers. Don’t leave the test page Don’t use the same tab or the browser as you do for your exam —you may lose all your work. Open a second copy of the browser to search. Contact your Instructor In the case of technical problems, contact your instructor immediately, detailing the error messages. Take a screenshot of the error message as well. For most students, taking an online exam is a new and bewildering experience. They don’t know what to expect and aren’t certain of what skills and strategies will enable them to score their best. The online environment presents some challenges that warrant a bit of extra awareness and preparation. It is always better to be safe than sorry.

Habits begin with a cue, or a trigger to act. Walking into dark room cues you to perform an action that will enable sight. Next comes a craving for a change in state – in this case, to be able to see. Then comes our response, or action – flicking the light switch. The final step in the process, and the end goal of every habit, is the reward. If your performance does not satisfy you, it becomes your trigger. Then rises the need to improve it, the techniques for which we discussed in our last article. But it is important to actively let go of those habits that interfere with newly formed productive ones. Increase friction for bad habits Despite having all the motivation to study, we get digressed as we have a habit of logging in 3 hours on social media or Netflix, or PS4. If you want to waste less time in front of the TV, unplug it and take the batteries out of the remote. Doing so will introduce enough friction to ensure you only watch when you really want to. Validation through apps My all-time favorite is Forest. It functions by allowing you to plant a tree, which will grow with every half hour you spend avoiding your phone. Should you stray from the app, it’ll kill your tree, which may seem inconsequential but you get surprisingly invested. It’s actually incredibly sweet to expand your forest, knowing that everyone represents thirty minutes of hard work. Immediate-return environment Our brains are wired into the immediate-return environment of earlier humans, who weren’t thinking about long-term returns like saving for retirement or sticking to a diet. They were focused on immediate concerns like finding their next meal, seeking shelter. So when you are pursuing habits with a delayed return, try to attach some immediate gratification to them. Eg. when you have decided upon increasing your study time by 30 minutes every day, it will not make a difference in tomorrow’s class test. But if you miss the 30 minutes, that will gratify you. Replace this gratification with putting in 10/- in a jar every time you make the 30 minutes cut. This practice will give you 300 bucks at the end of the month which you can spend on whatever you like. In motion vs taking action “The most effective form of learning is practice, not planning” James Clear, Author, Atomic Habits Sitting to strategize your syllabus, making a schedule, downloading mock tests, forming a group study are all ‘being in motion’. While this is useful, it does not produce results on its own. No matter how many routines you form, you’ll not increase your score incoming exams if you don’t actively engage in studying and memorizing. Starting on schedule, finishing the target exercises of a chapter is taking action. It is producing results by getting off stuff from your to-do list and honing your skills. Student’s Takeaway The aggregation of marginal gains, suggests that there is a tiny margin of improvement in everything you do. Since bad habits interfere in developing good ones, it is important that we get rid of them.