Engaging tech-savvy students

Pervin Malhotra

email your queries to [email protected] 

Q.I teach mathematics at a leading high school in Chandigarh. I find that students being so connected and dependent on technology these days, tend to get bored easily in the classroom. At times, they’re better informed than their teachers. Given this scenario, can you suggest any online platforms or ways to help make teaching more interesting that will help me to connect with them more effectively? — Charu Malhan

A. You’re right, children today are far more tech-savvy than we used to be. However, the good thing is that with increasing adaption of technology amongst school-going children, a lot of learning platforms have come up that help student and teachers alike. Whether it’s using Whatsapp groups to send homework reminders, inform them about forthcoming deadlines and sharing important information with the student and their parents, technology has stepped in as a facilitator.

Some learning platforms that can be used by both teachers and students to better and more fun learning are:

Snap Homework: this mobile application allows teachers to instantly communicate classroom news, assignments and events to parents and students. The app allows you to create and post class updates, homework and even snap and share a fun video or picture from the classroom. Your students and their parents can benefit from these regular updates. Moreover, all this communication is also accessible on the phone.

Khan Academy: Through the Academy’s website and mobile app, teachers can now assign videos, articles, and exercises across a range of subjects and grades. You can make these assignments for an entire class or send them to specific students. As students complete the assignments, teachers get completion reports that let give them a detailed status of the   whole   class   and   that of   each   of   their   students. The reports are not only real-time and simple to use, but also very helpful in assessing their students’ performance. 

The teacher can accurately identify the most challenging problems for their class as well as the learning gaps/needs of individual   students. Incidentally, there’s now a dedicated Khan Academy India which you must check out.

There are also some other apps like Coursera, Duolingo and Lynda that are good learning platforms, depending on what subjects you want to learn.

Other options that will help you organise your teaching methods include apps like Evernote. This app will help you keep everything in sync. 

And don’t worry, technology is only bringing the world closer — children today might be learning more from the apps but the role of a teacher can never be negated. No app can replace the relationship between a teacher and a student.

GMAT, GRE scores for MBA from Harvard

Q.I’ve always dreamt of doing my MBA from Harvard. I had earlier taken the GRE for pursuing an MS in engineering in the US — like many of my engineering classmates. What kind of GMAT and TOEFL scores do I need? Are there any chances of getting a scholarship as I’m told it costs more than a crore? How many years of work experience do they require? — Chander Thareja

A. Actually, the GMAT is just one piece of data among several others (e.g. your essay, interview, work-ex, transcripts, LoRs (recommendations) etc that Harvard Business School uses to evaluate an application.

Understandably the competition is stiff – what with the application volume exceeding 10K in a single cycle.

No minimum GMAT / GRE score is specifically mandated for applying to HBS. However, the median GMAT scores of the Class of 2019 is 730+ (out of 800).

In case you take the test multiple times, you can report your best score, and only the score you report in your application will be considered.

Neither does the B-school have a bias toward one test or the other GMAT/GRE).

When it comes to TOEFL/IELTS, only the Internet-based (IBT) version of the TOEFL is accepted.

Again, while no minimum score is mandated, those scoring below 109 on the TOEFL, or below 7.5 on IELTS, or below 75 on PTE (Pearson Test of English) are discouraged from applying by the HBS Admission Board.

The HBS MBA Programme is designed for students who have full-time work experience. College seniors are encouraged to apply through the 2+2 online application for getting a "Deferred Admission", i.e. an offer of admission to a future class conditional upon acquiring full-time work experience. You can check out the details on their website: www.hbs.edu/mba

Studying at Harvard can cost you an arm and a leg. However, besides the external scholarships and loans that you can access, HBS itself offers a fair quantum of need-based financial assistance (in the form of Tuition Assistance, Summer Fellowships etc) to students from a wide range of cultural, professional, and socioeconomic backgrounds to keep diverse perspectives in the classroom and student community. Nearly 50 per cent of HBS students (800-900) are eligible for need-based fellowships majority of which are in the range $30–50k.