Education blog by Pearson India

In today’s world, having a command over the English language has become incredibly important. No matter what your age-group might be, being fluent in English can be a great boost to your confidence and can help you in expressing yourself better. While there can be many ways in which you can learn English, interactive measures have proven to be quite effective in ensuring that your learning has a lasting impact. Keeping this in mind, Pearson recently launched MyPedia Skill in collaboration with Amazon Alexa.

The MyPedia Skill is essentially an upgraded version of your favourite ‘MyPedia Reader’. It is an audible storybook, a guide, and a gamebook for learners and enables them to be more imaginative while telling their stories in the English language. It shares interesting and creative tales by students detailing out their own experiences, problems and aspirations. The stories are hand-picked by celebrated authors and educationists and are narrated through students’ points of view. It enables students to think critically and write creatively.

As the World’s Learning Company, we understand the effectiveness of auditory learning. Most of us tend to remember things that we listen to, much longer than the things we read or see. This is why we have introduced MyPedia Skill. This interactive learning platform allows learners of all age groups and skill levels to enhance their vocabulary and comprehension with the help of engaging stories, fun facts and quizzes. To get started, all you need to say is  “Alexa, open MyPedia”, or simply “Alexa, I want to learn English”.

This program can be exceptionally helpful for young students as it can enhance their interest in the English language. The stories can give wings to their imagination and inspire them to be expressive and polish their story-telling skills. Moreover. the skill’s simple and engaging voice interface can enable them to learn in an interactive manner, at their own pace. 

Overall, the MyPedia skill can provide a holistic approach for students to enhance their language skills from home. Considering the current scenario as we follow the social distancing norms, students spend more time at home. MyPedia Skill can help them make the most of their time through this unique learning environment.

Pearson wishes to provide all age-groups with rich content and a learner-friendly experience, to enhance imagination and creativity. This is just another step to bolster this and help students polish their language skills from home.

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Preparing for a competitive exam can be an incredibly daunting experience. Aspirants are required to cover an extensive syllabus and learn complex concepts in a short amount of time. While coaching centres can provide a helping hand and guide students in the right direction, the present crisis in the world doesn’t allow students to attend their regular classes. However, an effective and convenient solution to this issue is utilizing online solutions.

There are many advantages of taking online assessments to prepare for a competitive exam. These assessments can be accessed as per your convenience and have an upper hand when it comes to matching with the pace of the student. This means that you can take an assessment as many times as you want to and strengthen your hold on any topic that you feel requires more clarity. With these assessments, you can work at your own speed without any added pressure from your teacher or classmates.

However, with the competitive exams right around the corner, students need to approach these online assessments with more dedication and strategic planning. This guide will help you identify a few effective ways to take your online assessments while preparing for competitive exams.

Do Not Take Your Online Assessments Lightly

The most important practice that helps you to take online assessments successfully is being dedicated and consistent. You need to be a self-starter and motivated to reach your goals. As there is no one chasing you to take these assessments, you need to be willing to take these up on a regular basis without slacking off.

The best way to do this is to have a fixed schedule. Obviously, you can reschedule it if need be, but having a schedule puts you in a habit of taking these exams regularly. This helps you in prioritizing these assessments and being motivated. Remember that when it comes to online assessments, you are accountable for your own self!

Manage Your Time

While the flexibility of online sessions and tests is what makes them excellent for students, one must remember that managing your time wisely is still essential. Online sessions give you the freedom of taking your classes according to your own convenience, however, you must not forget that you need to complete your syllabus on time. This is why managing your time and keeping deadlines is incredibly important.

It is a good idea to map your syllabus and have deadlines set to complete all the topics on time. This would help you get through with your syllabus, and avoid any last-minute hassles.

Create A Work-Space

Right now, considering the overwhelming conversations that are taking place about the global crisis, it can get a little hard to concentrate. However, it is important to have your goals set straight. Creating a regular working space could be a good step in this direction. This would create a ‘work-only zone’ and help you eliminate any negative thoughts once you have entered this zone.

Remember that the purpose of taking online assessments is that they allow you to recognise your strengths and weaknesses and provide you with the right path. That is why it is important to focus while taking these assessments. Studying at the same place everyday conditions your brain to get into the right mode and helps you pick up from where you left. You can also arrange all the required supplies around your workspace to prevent wastage of time once you get into the zone.

With these tips and tricks, you can take up your online sessions effectively and prepare yourself to ace your competitive exams. If you are on the lookout for a good online course, Pearson MyInsights can be the one for you. MyInsights is a thoughtfully designed, intuitive assessment engine that customises  to each learner’s level of knowledge to bring them to where they need to be when preparing for competitive exams. MyInsights provides you with the leading edge of digital preparation based on the pattern of real-time exam experience. Half of the overall tests are proctored where applicants receive the actual rank that they are likely to get in the high stakes examination, giving them a clear idea on where they stand.

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NTA has been constantly in pursuit of updating and enhancing the level of its NEET examination. In general, NEET tries to test your understanding of basic concepts and their applications. They come up with some new challenges for you every year. To help you out with this, our team of subject matter experts have come up with the analysis of the last 7 years of NEET papers, wherein they have analyzed the level of the questions, the chapters of those subjects from which most of the questions are generally asked and so on.

When NEET was introduced 8 years back, the one exam theory was decided. Ever since then, the level of the questions asked of all three subjects has been different. Generally, Chemistry is the easiest section, and the questions from Physics are a bit tricky to attempt. So, you must have an absolute understanding of the concepts to attempt most questions. In the Biology section, the level of questions vary from easy to moderate almost every year. Of these three subjects, the questions are typically based on cognitive as well as difficulty levels, as tabulated below.

Cognitive Level
Knowledge	Easy	Medium	Difficult
Understanding	Easy	Medium	Difficult
Application	Easy	-	-

To know about the concept of cognitive level in detail, visit MyInsights.

Here, you can get an idea of the total number of questions that have been asked in NEET from Class XI and Class XII and the level of questions over the last 7 years of NEET exams.

Physics: In NEET, the level of questions in Physics generally varies from difficult knowledge-based questions to moderate application-based questions. A major chunk of the questions is based on Understanding Easy to Application Easy levels. Every year, Physics is considered the toughest paper to attempt in NEET.

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JEE Advanced 2020 is right around the corner—only 60 days left for D-day. You are not left with much time to go through with whole syllabus. So, how smartly can you prepare in the time that you have and by putting less effort to maximize your scores in the upcoming JEE Advanced exam?

The first thing to know is that NTA does not allocate any weightage to any chapter and that you should try to learn and understand all the chapters of all subjects. So, if you know clearly which chapter will be important and fetch you the maximum marks in the exam, then it will be easier for you to take the right route in completing the whole syllabus smartly.

Well, our team of subject experts have analyzed the pattern of the past years’ papers of JEE Advanced to give you a clear idea of the syllabus, by breaking chapters into 4 groups based on the effort required to learn and score in the exam as well as the weightage of each chapter.

EASY MARKS FETCHING –

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Further PTE centres approved to deliver secure English language testing for people wanting to work, live or study in the UK

Pearson has announced a second wave of locations, including India and the UK, where people can now take PTE as a Secure English Language Test (SELT) for UK Visas & Immigration (UKVI) purposes.

Today the UK Government approved Pearson to open bookings for SELTs in a further 72 locations. This includes the first 8 centres in the UK and 15 centres in India as well as centres in Japan, Egypt, Philippines, South Africa, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia and Singapore, amongst others.

Bookings can be taken at all locations, with 57 of these locations open now to deliver testing, and the remaining 15 to open once individual COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.

The tests will be delivered through the Pearson VUE test centre network. Pearson VUE test centres follow health and safety guidance provided by global health organizations and local governments. Amid COVID-19, the test centres operate with increased disinfecting and hygienic procedures and additional social distancing measures to support the safety of testing candidates and staff.

Pearson’s SELT tests are as follows:

• PTE Academic (UKVI) - a four skills language test accepted for work and study visas. It tests speaking, listening, reading and writing skills.
• PTE Home - a two skills language test accepted for family, settlement, citizenship applications as well as Sportsperson and Representative of an Overseas Business applications. It tests speaking and listening skills.

Today’s news follows our announcement last month of the first wave of locations to start delivering SELT. It is expected that all remaining SELT testing locations will become operational this summer.

For more information on the UK Home Office Visas and Immigration process click here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-on-applying-for-uk-visa-approved-english-language-tests

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As we are all sitting at home in the midst of a lockdown, we can not help but wonder what a post-COVID world would look like. It is clear that this pandemic has the power to completely transform the way we look at almost every aspect of our lives, including our professional careers.

It’s a no-brainer that in the changed scenario, the expectations of employers would also change. The pandemic has brought a wide range of possibilities to the surface and employers are now looking for people who can fill in these need-gaps and meet the requirements of a post-COVID professional world.

The good news, however, is that we have enough time to make ourselves suitable for these new roles and responsibilities. Working from home saves our commute time and this time can productively be invested in upskilling ourselves and polishing ourselves to be suitable candidates for post-COVID employment.

But what are these skills and how would they be relevant? Let’s discuss.

Data Science and Machine Learning

If you are in the field of Science, Data Science is an excellent skill to have in the post-COVID world. In fact, anyone with an interest in data science can learn and practice it.

This science has already proved to be extremely useful for tracking and tracing COVID cases all across the globe and forming clusters to provide updated information to healthcare professionals and others working on tackling the outbreak.

With organisations already looking at plans to consider a robust working mechanism, which involves minimal office space and more elaborate and structured online working mechanisms, the focus on Machine Learning is bound to go up.

Management Skills

Considering the remote working culture that is prevalent (and is likely to be for a long time), organisations require managers that can manage remote teams efficiently. This requires excellent communication and management skills.

The post-COVID world would expect managers to be able to communicate with their teams effectively and ensure their productivity even as they work remotely. This is obviously an added responsibility on the shoulders of the managers.

Professionals with strong leadership skills and an ability to bring out the best in their teams by encouraging collaboration will be in demand.

Multitasking

As the competition is getting fiercer and companies are willing to operate on a lighter work-force, it would become a necessity for professionals to multitask. This would mean that no matter what your core field of expertise is, you would be required to take up diverse roles and functions.

Needless to say, those professions that have a diverse skill set will be given preference over those who are able to serve a singular function.

This is the time when you can recognise our shortcomings and upskill ourselves to meet the requirements of the post-COVID world. By adding diverse skills to your arsenal, you can strengthen your competencies in the areas that will be relevant as we get past the turbulence. This includes understanding and identifying the domains in which businesses will heavily invest in the near future.

An effective way to do so is by taking up online courses. Pearson Professional Program offers an extensive range of executive courses that are designed to provide you with the perfect platform to upskill yourself as a professional and be relevant.

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Horace Mann pioneered the promotion of Public Education. His father being a farmer he realized the need for public education way back in 1820s. As he gained public prominence he promoted formal education to provide knowledge and to establish mind sets.

With the growth of the system of Education it soon became a means of transmitting accumulated knowledge, skills & values from one generation to another.

Now the new age teacher with changing times has become a facilitator helping students to acquire skills, values, beliefs and also help in habit formation.

Education was never static .It grew with the growing needs of the global education systems- adopting new techniques and adapting to the new age requirements. Opening the mind, and generating new ideas has now become the focus of this new system of education.

Now with the shadow of COVID 19 once again education system seems to be challenged.

Change management is essentially important and the digital world has already made its foray into the field of education, so we are quite equipped to face the COVID challenge.

The new problems faced by the Education system are:

• Transmitting knowledge virtually, managing and gauging attention span of the students. So from transmitting information to getting feedback COVID19 seems to have challenged us.
• Understanding, studying and analyzing the situation we can say that COACHING & FEEDBACK methodology needs to change as per the changing need.
  

So we need to look at:

• Provision of virtual training equipment like Laptops, Tabs making it as imperative as the curriculum text.
• As for their usage the new age Facilitators & students are very well versed with these techniques .In case of using Zoom , Team or any other such facility it is easy to understand / follow /learn.
  
• Now comes the main task of understanding how to virtually connect effectively
  
• Pedagogical changes are required. Thus old lesson planning needs to change.
  
• Feed back in the form of questionnaires have to be constantly interspersed with every information given.
  

Road ahead:-

• Students need to constantly make presentations & do Voice Communication
• The entire lesson plans need to be revised and updated
  
• Lesson planning and teaching prep needs to change as per the requirement.
  
• Teachers here can also grade the written material as per the students need
  
• Seminars can now become Webinars
  

Now comes the part of meeting the students and directly training them / I am sure calling them just twice a week in batches could be equally effective.

The above has its advantages, like one can group children in a manner that the class is highly effective at the same time they can be divided into batches to maintain the social distancing norm.

Seminars can be in the form of tutorials and speeches and debates can be done virtually.

This will lead to participative Education. Virtual classes can be made very interesting with Storytelling, quizzing and other such activities.

So let us positively move ahead facing the challenges, this is what education is all about.

Ira Sehgal
Educationist and Consultant

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NEET 2020 is hitting around the corner and less than 50 days left for the D day. You are not left with much time to go through with whole syllabus. So, how smartly can you prepare in this time to maximize your scores in upcoming NEET exam by putting less effort?

The first thing to know is that NTA does not allocate any weightage to any chapter and you should try to learn and understand all chapters of all subjects. So if you know clearly which chapter will be important and fetch you maximum marks in the exam, then it will be easier for you to take the right route in completing whole syllabus smartly.

Well our team of subject experts has analysed the pattern of the past years’ papers of NEET, to give you clear idea of syllabus by breaking chapters into 4 groups based on the efforts required to learn and score in the exam as well as the weightage of each chapter.

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As professionals, we all feel stuck at some point in our careers. This can be overwhelming and can make us feel unworthy or unproductive.

If you have landed at this piece, chances are that you too are going through the same feeling, probably at different degrees of intensity. And if it is intense enough, deep down somewhere you know you are ready to #AccelerateYourCareer.

But, what can we do to kickstart this acceleration? Let’s talk about a 3-step process you must fulfil before you take the leap of faith.

Declutter Your Thoughts

The period that falls between realising the need to accelerate your career and actually taking a step towards it can be defined by overbearing thoughts and emotions. One moment you are ready to give in your papers and the next moment you are doubting your decisions. 

These thoughts and emotions can get tangled in your head leading to confusion and doubt. This is why the first step towards a more fulfilling career is to declutter your thoughts.

You need to identify the exact things that are bothering you about your professional situation. Are you concerned about your slow career growth? Are monetary factors upsetting you? Are there specific people or processes that you are unable to deal with? Or are you simply seeking a more fulfilling and rewarding career opportunity? Ask yourself these questions and try to find the missing pieces of the puzzle. After all, the first step towards finding anything is to know exactly what you’re looking for.

Find A New Goal

With your issues set clear in front of you, it’s time to set a new goal. Try to identify what would provide you with all that you need. For instance, if you were worried about your slow growth in your previous work setting, where would you want to be in order to accelerate your growth?

Having a goal motivates you and puts a clear reward in front of you. It shows you where you would reach if you are dedicated. This should be accompanied by extensive research about your industry. Find out about the most in-demand skills in your industry, discover the latest industry trends, talk to experts and discuss your career plans. Once you have conducted your research, you’ll be able to identify your goals.

Set attainable goals but do not be complacent while doing so. Remember being complacent is just one step away from feeling stuck again. So, don’t be afraid to dream big.

Upskill Yourself

Now that you know where you want to be, it’s time to identify your shortcomings and work towards filling those gaps. This would require upskilling yourself and picking up newer, more advanced skillsets.

Another advantage of upskilling is that it opens up a wider range of opportunities for you and allows you to push yourself to the best of your abilities.

A great way to do this is to take up online courses relevant to your requirements. Pearson provides an extensive range of executive education programs that are thoughtfully crafted to provide you with the perfect platform to enhance your skills as a professional and upskill yourself to be able to reach your goals. Know more about these courses here.

Feeling stuck in the professional front can be incredibly overwhelming and can also take a toll on your personal life. It is important to tackle this problem at the right time and take appropriate measures to make sure you are reaching your true potential. With this 3-step process, you will be able to increase your productivity while dealing with this problem.

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NEET 2020 is now going to be conducted on 26th July. Considering the current scenario, it is easy to give in to the distractions and lose focus. But, on the bright side, since schools are now letting students to study from home, it has bought you some extra time to focus on your bigger goal and take your preparations up a notch. The current health emergency has made it clear that the country (and the world) needs as many medical practitioners as possible, making it more important for NEET aspirants to showcase their A-game and sail through these tough times with confidence. 

However, it cannot be ignored that amid this lockdown, it has become impossible for you to attend our regular coaching sessions and interact with our teachers on a regular basis. That does not mean that your preparations need to slow down or face any kind of backlog. Here are a few tips and tricks that you must keep in mind while preparing for NEET, especially in 2020.

Break Down the Syllabus

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