On 7th November, 2024, Pillai College of Education and Research, Chembur, organized a session on “Enhancing Educational Effectiveness: A Comprehensive Exploration of Assessment Tools” by Dr. Farah Shaikh, an IB Physics teacher and alumnus of PCER. The session introduced innovative strategies for designing meaningful assessments that promote critical thinking and creativity. Dr. Shaikh highlighted the “Blackout Concept,” a creative approach where students black out irrelevant ideas in texts or images to focus on key concepts, enhancing critical thinking and synthesis skills across subjects. The workshop also emphasized using command words aligned with Bloom’s taxonomy to design assessments targeting various cognitive levels. From this session, students learned how to connect classroom concepts to real-life situations, to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The workshop thus provided useful ideas for students and teachers to design better assessments.
