The general attitude among students towards learning is an attitude of dread. Lectures are usually boring and so are many of the textbooks. Very few students actively want to learn. Given the choice, most of them will prefer spending all their time playing games or watching TV instead of doing their homeworks. It’s not completely their fault though. Most lectures, textbooks and homeworks are, in fact, just too boring! On the other hand, Hogwarts---the magic school from the Harry Potter novels---seems to excite the kids a lot. If asked to redesign their school so that it becomes more enjoyable, they might just make it more like Hogwarts. This is also quite understandable. Hogwarts is a  magic  school, for god’s sake! They teach you to do  magic  in there! If you learn a course properly, you can show off your skills by turning your friend into a rat! The skills you learn at a magic school are immediately applicable to your daily life---the things you really care...

  Watch the video below: Ducks enjoying their work in sync with nature. It shows that nature has given us all that we need. Now, watch the below video. Some abundance created by people throwing food in water, and the peace is lost. Yes, there were few ducks who chose not to lose their peace and remained focused on their work, but rest of them were confused and tried to take all that they could take.  We can relate it with many similar situations involving human beings around us. But let us be on learning strategy. Ducks in the first video know their requirements. They chose to be at such place where they get what they need. They are enjoying their work and doing good. As a student, one needs to understand oneself. He should try to understand what is required to get what he needs. He should choose the right place and right strategy to get them. In such situations, learning will be mostly enjoying, stress free and full of excitements.  Second video shows the situation ...

  Above image shows some data related to a walk. It says that the person has walked a distance of 7.05 km in 1 hour 8 minutes 49 seconds. Average pace shown here is 9 minutes 45 seconds per Km and the time taken in different kilometers are given just below that. This average pace can be simply computed by dividing the total time (1 hour 8 minutes 49 seconds) by the distance walked (7.05 Km) and doing the required conversions between hour, minutes and seconds. This means, if I walk each of the 7 Kms at the same pace completing them in exactly 9 minutes 45 seconds then the total time taken by me to walk 7.05 Kms would be 1 hour 8 minutes 49 seconds. In the last .05 Km too, the pace has to be same.  Time taken in each of the 7 Kms are given in the image. Let us check, whether the walking pace was higher or lower than the given average in the last .05 Km. Before reading further, pause a bit and think about the process you would like to follow to do this. I plan to check wheth...

  L et us talk about this Cycle. Those who know how to ride it know how easy and enjoyable it is to go for a long ride in nice weather and location. They can also recall;  how difficult it was to even hold it when they were not knowing how to ride them. Most likely, they didn't become comfortable with cycle immediately. They might have fallen few times, might have struggled to balance and might have even lost motivation to learn cycling. But  now they might be looking for opportunities to ride a cycle. Learning Mathematics is similar to learning cycling. You make errors, struggle to get the concept, lose interest and it becomes more difficult. But once you overcome these, it becomes a favorite subject. Solving Mathematics problems can even become stress buster. When someone is training you how to cycle, he may make you familiar with a cycle. He will tell you about seat, handle, peddle etc. He will tell you about how to sit on the seat, keep the foot on the peddle, ho...

  Here, we are taking an example to demonstrate how students are answering the questions right, getting good marks, letting the concept level problem continue and getting stuck in their studies or career at later stage. We also discuss, what approach can help in making learning right.  I hope, readers are aware of linear equations in one variable. Something like 15x+5=90, or 3x+5=2x+9.  Let, a student is asked to solve the 2nd equation 3x+5=2x+9. It's easy for most of the students. He solves this equation using right method and gets the answer as 4. Correct and full marks. Does it mean that he knows the concept of linear equations in one variable good enough?  Why should he solve such equations? Where can these concepts be used? Can he frame a question based on real life scenario where such equation may be needed? Can he visualize the impact of change in coefficients or constant values on the nature of the equation? If he is not clear about all these, then solving la...

  Here, we take a question and create three learning environments. You can check yourself, which environment offers what benefits. We talk about a formal learning environment where student is a part of school/ college/ coaching/ tuition etc. and is helped by the teacher in learning various topics as per the prescribed syllabus. These learnings are immediately helpful in getting marks in the examination but are also highly required in various applications and competitive examinations at later stage. So, learning them right at the time they are being learnt is necessary to avoid various blockages that can restrict the growth later. Let us take 3 scenarios: Scenario A:  Student asks a question. Teacher answers that. Student is now able to answer that question. Scenario B: Student asks a question. Teacher also asks few questions to understand why the student had to ask it. He determines the area of difficulty for the student and helps student to answer the question by addressing t...

During morning walk, I saw a bench on the right side of the path, something like below image. As I walked further, I found another bench but on the left side of the path. Something like below image. I found that these benches were placed at some regular intervals. There were few places on the path with benches on left side and right side both. I found this quite interesting and useful. Persons walking on the path get place to sit and relax at some intervals with views of right side or left side. Whereas, there are places where people can sit in front of each other and relax.  I decided to get some idea about the distance between two consecutive benches on either sides of the path. I counted the number of steps required to move from one bench to other and got estimates of intervals between two consecutive benches. Left side benches were placed at interval of 200 meters whereas right side benches were 140 meters apart.  There can be several interesting questions in this scenario...

  My fitness app gives me monthly challenge related to exercise each month. In June, the challenge was to complete 3600 minutes of exercise in the month. This averages to 120 minutes/ day as there are 30 days in the month of June. That means, If I do 120 minutes exercise each day of the June month, I total 3600 minutes which is equal to the challenge minutes. Average does this only. If average monthly expense in first 8 months of this year in your family is ₹25000, that means the total expense is ₹25000*8 = ₹200000. It is not necessary that the monthly expense is ₹25000 each month to keep the average same. Expenses may be high in some months and may be low too in some months. If the total expense in 8 months is ₹200000, then the average monthly expense is same ₹25000. Coming back to the exercise challenge. Doing 120 minutes of exercise each day was good enough for the June challenge. But, it's quite uncomfortable to keep doing that each day for 30 days. So, I divided the target of ...