Ashish Arora, Academic Mentor & Guide, PhysicsGalaxy.com, recently joined NewsX for an enriching chat as part of NewsX India A-List. In the exclusive conversation, he spoke to us about the transition in learning and much more. Read excerpts:
Talking about the transition in learning and how fast it has been happening over the past couple of months, Ashish said, “If I talk about my teaching experience, I started teaching in 1992, when classroom models were the only traditional way of communicating in education. That was the time when in schools, the target of the teachers was to complete the syllabus. If we talk about today’s scenario, the focus of school authorities and teachers remains mainly on the completion of the syllabus before time. Particularly for examinations like IIT, JEE, AIIMS, students used to come to teachers like me for a deeper understanding of concepts and applications. In board or school exams, questions are asked directly from books, whereas in competitive exams, questions are based on application and deep thinking of concepts.”
“We used to devote a lot of time to every student. If I just take an example, there is a topic in physics, ‘Current electricity’, which is taught in schools within 6th to 8th classes. For a deep level of understanding, the questions, which are asked in competitive exams, we used to take 16-18 hour classes in the teaching of that particular topic. This is a gap in our overall educational system, which is gradually coping up and new educational policies and a lot of other things are coming up. Things are also getting evolved. That was a time when after devoting lots of hours, the main thing was the results that were produced by students, who themselves devote time to their self-face learning. After learning from class or by us or any teacher, students have to devote a lot of time in referring to multiple resources, academic content and practising questions. They do a lot of practice and finally, the results used to come up at that time,” he added.
Sharing his views on the changes in the education landscape in the past 18- 20 months with online learning, Ashish expressed, “It has become a necessity. We realise students can spare a lot of time for them. Earlier, before the pandemic, when students were devoting time to school and coaching, they hardly got enough time for their self-pace working. In this scenario after completely online guidance and set instructions, students are able to spare a lot of time. The difference we can see, this year in JEE main 2021 actual result, in the history of any education system, 18 students across the country got All India Rank 1. The first time, 18 simultaneous national toppers were there in this JEE examination. This indicates all those students, who were good learners and hard workers, devoted a lot of time and finally scored their desired marks. Earlier, there were hardly one to two students tied at All India 1 rank. This time, 18 students achieved the level. Just because online education is taking such a pace and it is a boon for good learners.”