Introduction of YO Questions Pro ensure easier learning through collaborative learning with help of snap card game, practice sessions and test sessions
In today's classrooms, various teaching-learning methods, strategies and tools are employed by teachers to impart the content. All these help the student to hone different cognitive abilities and aid content mastery. The desired result of all teaching-learning activities and experiences is to facilitate knowledge through recall and recognition, aid comprehension, increase the ability to apply the same, improve the ability to analyse and synthesise and enhance student-performance at the evaluation stage.
A study was conducted by YoKnowledge on Class 6 students of Jasudben M L School in Khar, Mumbai, to map the difference in performance levels of students after using YO Questions Pro and YO Questions Lite softwares (a recap and revision tool) as a teaching-learning aid. Both the softwares were introduced in the classroom to make learning easier and more retentive through a collaborative process, practice sessions and test sessions.
The chapter 'Antarctica', which is part of the Geography syllabus for Class 6, was used to demonstrate the software. The students from the three sections of the class were expected to answer questions (application oriented/ direct and multiple mono word eliciting questions) based on the entire chapter. Different strategies were used so as to involve group learning and individual learning while making optimum use of the varied features of the software, which have been designed with the purpose of aiding content-mastery through knowledge-enhancing activities. The YO Questions Pro Version was used with the following: Practice session, Test session, Snap Card game, and written assignment. Class 6-A&C were taken as a non-controlled group, while 6-B, was used as a controlled group.
The performance of students in the study revealed that the practice and test sessions had aided them dramatically in tackling the assignment. The non-controlled group (Classes 6-A&C) performed extremely well (over 75% of the students scored full marks), in the test after using the software. In Class 6-C of 39 students, 31 attained full marks; eight scored between 16 and 19 marks; and not a single student scored less than 15 marks. And in Class 6-A, among the 41 students, 32 attained full marks; eight scored between 16 and 19; and one between 11 and 15 marks.
In the controlled group, ie. Class 6-B, a dramatic change was witnessed in the results after the use of software, where the percentage of full marks scorers went up from zero (prior to the use) to 87%.
Before the practice and test sessions, not a single student had attained full marks; the performance varied and ranged between 5 marks and 19, which only one student had attained; and most of the students had shown average performance. While after the practice and test sessions, 34 students attained full marks; four scored between 16 and 19 marks; only one scored between 6 and 10.
It was concluded that the practice and test modules were effective teaching tools which made learning easier and more retentive. While dealing with longer and more difficult lessons, the same modules become very necessary as recap and revision exercises. It was also felt that repeated sessions would lead to thorough study of the course ware and complete content mastery. In fact, through an effective lesson planning, the practice and test sessions should be used as the concluding part of every lesson.
The module can even serve partly as a substitute to written homework. Occasionally, online tests could also be conducted which would make learning more effective and enriching with minimal stress for both the teacher and learner.
The performance of the students indicated that besides benefitting from the practice and test sessions that had been carried out, they had learnt from their mistakes too. This implied the benefits of repeated learning, which was enhanced by the modules. In the final analysis, it was observed that YO Questions Pro proved to be the most effective and easy-to-use software ever used in classroom teaching for collaborative learning, and as a tool for easy self-practice and self-testing. .
