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Question 01:
Every organization wants to make the most of its learning and development (L&D) investments, but they
don’t know what’s working unless they have the data to back it up. Training and development teams
should track all learning activities in how they drive performance and business outcomes. Here’s a quick
breakdown of the what and why:
Learning completion and adoption rates. Tracking attendance is the simplest metric but it’s still
important! Business leaders need to know how many of their employees – and often, specifically who –
are taking the available training, including compliance courses, specialized workshops to upskill, and
leadership development courses. Now, tracking attendance is a good place to start but organizations
need to dig deeper into the data to show the true value of their training programs.
Employee engagement impact. Employee engagement is a key metric that matters to your
organization’s leadership because highly engaged employees can boost performance, innovation and
productivity while reducing turnover and hiring-related costs. One way you can measure how L&D
impacts employee engagement is to track the retention rate of those who participate in voluntary
learning programs compared to everyone else. It can give you insights into how valuable employees
perceive this voluntary training to be, and whether that correlates to employee retention.
Links to employee performance. I’m going to say this a lot because we all need to hear it more:
Employees need to take on learning and training that aligns to the organization’s business objectives.
Tracking L&D to make the link between learning and performance is critical in showing the return on
investment (ROI) of your learning programs. Are your top performers participating in voluntary L&D
activities? Which ones? Are they – and their respective departments – hitting their goals faster and more
effectively as a result?
Creating a personalized learning culture for future success. A recent LinkedIn Learning report found that
employees prefer to learn at work, at their own pace, and at the point of need. By tracking how, when
and why employees participate in learning activities, organizations can glean the data they need to get
ahead of the curve and enable a personalized learning experience that gets results.In this age of digital
disruption, skills can become obsolete within months. So it’s critical that an organization prepares its
workforce for digital transformation.
Guiding employee-driven career development. Tracking training and learning activities shows an
employee’s interests and the skill gaps they’re bridging (especially the training they’re doing voluntarily).
When HR leaders and managers know an employee’s desired career path and can see the training
they’re doing to get from where they are to where they want to be, they can give feedback, coaching,
and present opportunities for role changes as they become available.

Question 02:
Have you decided to shift towards structured interview questions? Good call. Structured interviews
are twice as effective as unstructured interviews. Granted, they can take more time to prepare for. But if
you get it right once, you can boost your chances of making the right hire for every future position.
To craft structured interview questions, you design a set of questions that are connected to the job-
related traits you’re looking for. Then, you ask all your candidates the same questions in the same order
and rate their answers using a standardized scoring system
Why structured?
The more unstructured, the less job-related. If interviewers ask questions randomly and spontaneously,
they’re risking evaluating traits that don’t predict job performance. Biases could run loose; interviewers
might end up evaluating based on gender, race, physical attractiveness or, most commonly, how similar
a candidate is to them. Worse, they may end up asking illegal interview questions.
Structured interview questions are job-related. They’re friendlier to equal opportunity since all
candidates face the same questions in the same order. Structured interviews allow for greater
objectivity. They work well in team hiring environments and group interviews where individual biases
are less likely to interfere. They also make it simpler to provide interview feedback to candidates you’re
keeping in your talent pool.
Looking for a bonus? Companies that use structured interviews can defend themselves better in court.
By showing that they ask the same job-related questions to all candidates and rate with a standardized
system, they can show that they value equal opportunity.
How do I create structured interview questions?
Structured interview questions, and semi-structured interview questions, usually fall into two
categories: role-specific and general. Role specific questions explore if candidates can do the job.
General questions assess whether candidates fit your company.
Role-specific interview questions
Build role-specific questions to see if candidates meet a position’s requirements.
Step 1: Review job description
A well-written job description includes all important requirements. You should craft questions to
evaluate both hard skills and soft skills.
By using Workable’s interview kits you can group your questions into categories like creativity questions
or people skills questions. It makes it easier to see how a candidate scores in each quality.
Step 2: Develop interview questions
Two main questions per requirement is usually enough for an average interview. Follow up (or probing)
questions should also be pre-determined and scored with the same system. In the example below,
questions marked in red could be probing questions:

Hard skills interview questions often take this form:

“How have you used Venn diagrams in the past?”
You can also ask candidates to complete mini-assignments on a whiteboard or
piece of paper.
Soft skills interview questions can be general or specific:
“Tell me about a time you had to explain a difficult concept to a team member”
Or
How would you explain the term ‘capital structure’ to a non-finance manager?”
Behavioral and situational questions are good options when you want to hear longer answers and get
more information about candidates. Look for situations that crop up often in their profession.
You can find a large library of questions for each job title in  Workable’s interview question
resources section.
General interview questions
Role-specific interview questions evaluate hard and soft skills that vary by position. These structured
interview questions and answers can be used company-wide.
They’re relevant to culture and shared values. Because company values are often based on abstract
ideas, it can be difficult to turn them into interview questions. But, it’s possible
General guidelines for writing interview questions:
Use real-life situations
Be clear and concise
Avoid jargon
Ensure questions can’t be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’
Avoid questions that point to a right answer
Avoid adding excessive detail
Don’t try to assess anything non-job related (especially protected characteristics)

Question 03:
FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT
Formative assessment refers to a wide variety of methods that teachers use to conduct in-process
evaluations of student comprehension, learning needs, and academic progress during a lesson, unit, or
course. Formative assessments help teachers identify concepts that students are struggling to
understand, skills they are having difficulty acquiring, or learning standards they have not yet achieved
so that adjustments can be made to lessons, instructional techniques, and academic support.
The general goal of formative assessment is to collect detailed information that can be used to improve
instruction and student learning while it’s happening. What makes an assessment “formative” is not the
design of a test, technique, or self-evaluation, per se, but the way it is used—i.e., to inform in-process
teaching and learning modifications.
Formative assessments are commonly contrasted with summative assessments, which are used to
evaluate student learning progress and achievement at the conclusion of a specific instructional period
—usually at the end of a project, unit, course, semester, program, or school year. In other words,
formative assessments are for learning, while summative assessments are of learning. Or as assessment
expert Paul Black put it, “When the cook tastes the soup, that’s formative assessment. When the
customer tastes the soup, that’s summative assessment.” It should be noted, however, that the
distinction between formative and summative is often fuzzy in practice, and educators may hold
divergent interpretations of and opinions on the subject.
Many educators and experts believe that formative assessment is an integral part of effective teaching.
In contrast with most summative assessments, which are deliberately set apart from instruction,
formative assessments are integrated into the teaching and learning process. For example, a formative-
assessment technique could be as simple as a teacher asking students to raise their hands if they feel
they have understood a newly introduced concept, or it could be as sophisticated as having students
complete a self-assessment of their own writing (typically using a rubric outlining the criteria) that the
teacher then reviews and comments on. While formative assessments help teachers identify learning
needs and problems, in many cases the assessments also help students develop a stronger
understanding of their own academic strengths and weaknesses. When students know what they do
well and what they need to work harder on, it can help them take greater responsibility over their own
learning and academic progress.
While the same assessment technique or process could, in theory, be used for either formative or
summative purposes, many summative assessments are unsuitable for formative purposes because they
do not provide useful feedback. For example, standardized-test scores may not be available to teachers
for months after their students take the test (so the results cannot be used to modify lessons or teaching
and better prepare students), or the assessments may not be specific or fine-grained enough to give
teachers and students the detailed information they need to improve.
The following are a few representative examples of formative assessments:
Questions that teachers pose to individual students and groups of students during the learning process
to determine what specific concepts or skills they may be having trouble with. A wide variety of
intentional questioning strategies may be employed, such as phrasing questions in specific ways to elicit
more useful responses.
Specific, detailed, and constructive feedback that teachers provide on student work, such as journal
entries, essays, worksheets, research papers, projects, ungraded quizzes, lab results, or works of art,
design, and performance. The feedback may be used to revise or improve a work product, for example.
“Exit slips” or “exit tickets” that quickly collect student responses to a teacher’s questions at the end of a
lesson or class period. Based on what the responses indicate, the teacher can then modify the next
lesson to address concepts that students have failed to comprehend or skills they may be struggling
with. “Admit slips” are a similar strategy used at the beginning of a class or lesson to determine what
students have retained from previous learning experiences.
Self-assessments that ask students to think about their own learning process, to reflect on what they do
well or struggle with, and to articulate what they have learned or still need to learn to meet course
expectations or learning standards.
Peer assessments that allow students to use one another as learning resources. For example,
“workshopping” a piece of writing with classmates is one common form of peer assessment, particularly
if students follow a rubric or guidelines provided by a teacher.
In addition to the reasons addressed above, educators may also use formative assessment to:
Refocus students on the learning process and its intrinsic value, rather than on grades or extrinsic
rewards.
Encourage students to build on their strengths rather than fixate or dwell on their deficits. (For a related
discussion, see growth mindset.)
Help students become more aware of their learning needs, strengths, and interests so they can take
greater responsibility over their own educational growth. For example, students may learn how to self-
assess their own progress and self-regulate their behaviors.
Give students more detailed, precise, and useful information. Because grades and test scores only
provide a general impression of academic achievement, usually at the completion of an instructional
period, formative feedback can help to clarify and calibrate learning expectations for both students and
parents. Students gain a clearer understanding of what is expected of them, and parents have more
detailed information they can use to more effectively support their child’s education.
Raise or accelerate the educational achievement of all students, while also reducing learning
gaps and achievement gaps.
Reform
While the formative-assessment concept has only existed since the 1960s, educators have arguably
been using “formative assessments” in various forms since the invention of teaching. As an intentional
school-improvement strategy, however, formative assessment has received growing attention from
educators and researchers in recent decades. In fact, it is now widely considered to be one of the more
effective instructional strategies used by teachers, and there is a growing body of literature and
academic research on the topic.
Schools are now more likely to encourage or require teachers to use formative-assessment strategies in
the classroom, and there are a growing number of professional-development opportunities available to
educators on the subject. Formative assessments are also integral components of personalized
learning and other educational strategies designed to tailor lessons and instruction to the distinct
learning needs and interests of individual students.
Debate
While there is relatively little disagreement in the education community about the utility of formative
assessment, debates or disagreements may stem from differing interpretations of the term. For
example, some educators believe the term is loosely applied to forms of assessment that are not “truly”
formative, while others believe that formative assessment is rarely used appropriately or effectively in
the classroom.
Another common debate is whether formative assessments can or should be graded. Many educators
contend that formative assessments can only be considered truly formative when they are ungraded
and used exclusively to improve student learning. If grades are assigned to a quiz, test, project, or other
work product, the reasoning goes, they become de facto summative assessments—i.e., the act of
assigning a grade turns the assessment into a performance evaluation that is documented in a student’s
academic record, as opposed to a diagnostic strategy used to improve student understanding and
preparation before they are given a graded test or assignment.
Some educators also make a distinction between “pure” formative assessments—those that are used on
a daily basis by teachers while they are instructing students—and “interim” or “benchmark”
assessments, which are typically periodic or quarterly assessments used to determine where students
are in their learning progress or whether they are on track to meeting expected learning standards.
While some educators may argue that any assessment method that is used diagnostically could be
considered formative, including interim assessments, others contend that these two forms of
assessment should remain distinct, given that different strategies, techniques, and professional
development may be required.
Some proponents of formative assessment also suspect that testing companies mislabel and market
some interim standardized tests as “formative” to capitalize on and profit from the popularity of the
idea. Some observers express skepticism that commercial or prepackaged products can be authentically
formative, arguing that formative assessment is a sophisticated instructional technique, and to do it well
requires both a first-hand understanding of the students being assessed and sufficient training and
professional development.

Question 04 :
Distance education in Pakistan

The world is a click away” is the phrase that aptly defines the concept of a globalised world, in which
countries and people are interconnected by communication technologies. The communication
technologies — radio, television, print media, Internet, cellular phones — provide access to the flow of
information around the world. The world is rapidly changing, and to keep up with that it is important to
remain updated, which can only be possible by educating oneself. Education means to gain knowledge
by enlightening oneself with surroundings as well as with the world.
Distance education is not only for students but also for everyone who wants to pursue education,
whether they are working, are homemakers, or are somewhere out of the country. It is in hands of a
student to determine the place and time of his/her study. Moreover, it is a learner-to-learner
communication that also anticipates two-way communication by open learning as well as
correspondence study, saving money and time.

Distance education has developed more intensively in South Asia than in other regions. In South Asia,
generally with the exception of Sri Lanka, the literacy rate is relatively low. Many citizens, particularly
women and those in rural communities, are unable to study owing to the socioeconomic problems of
the region. Various countries have realised the value of distance education, and policies are continually
under development for using distance education as a means of enhancing educational access.
Distance learning is found both in advanced as well as in developing countries, but the advantage for a
developed country is that its advancement supports the widespread influx of technology associated with
the distance education, while the developing countries lag behind due to a huge rate of illiteracy and no
sign of improvement.

According to the goal two of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, primary education is
important for all children, and it should be widely implemented. However, developing countries have
less access to printing knowledge as well as technology to improve their standard of education. The
inequality in the access of education in addition to the cost and the quality of education has become a
barrier for developing countries.

The new distance education theory deals with the concept of distance. The theorists elucidated the
difference among distance education and conventional ones: the former one does not entail attending
educational institutions, whereas in the latter it is required to attend universities
or colleges.

Education is considered a major priority in South Asia, and a means to socioeconomic advancement by
all citizens — urban and rural, rich and poor. This attitude has created a demand for education with
which traditional systems have been unable to cope, and the introduction of distance education has
been intended as a solution. There are various types of distance education in which correspondence
courses lessons are mailed to students, and assignments are mailed back to teachers. The need for
education in health, agriculture and environment has increased the demand for distance education.
Efforts to increase acceptance and use of distance education in South Asia so as to solve the educational
and literacy problems are being made by various colleges and universities.

With the advent of new technologies, the delivery of distance education is rapidly changing. The
introduction of information and communication technology (ICT) in developing countries has benefitted
students and teachers to acquire education while living geographically as well as physically away from
the place. ICT, defined in a broad sense, includes mediums of radio, TV, telephone, computers, the
Internet, and methods including web-based education and interactive collaborative learning. Many
countries have introduced ICT-based distance education programmes combined with traditional
methods, such as correspondence courses and face-to-face teaching through the Internet.

The distance-learning programme with the use of different communication technologies have made it
possible for the South Asian countries like Pakistan to be equipped with new and enhanced education
system.

The introduction of ICT is a key element in the growth of Pakistan in terms of new jobs, wealth
redistribution and education. Distance education has been a great initiative for Pakistan, as its
socioeconomic situation has prevented a high enrollment in formal education by people in rural areas
rural, females and some professionals; the idea of establishing distance education and open university
systems have been developed to address this problem. As a result, there are many steps that have been
taken by government of Pakistan for education, and one of those is to initiate virtual classes in schools,
colleges and universities. The world’s second open university was established in Pakistan by a federal
charter in 1974. The Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) is one of the largest universities in Pakistan
that use distance education programmes to facilitate those students who work outside Pakistan or are
home-makers. The AIOU has conducted pioneering work in the fields of mass education, female literacy,
teacher education and media-based distance education, and is currently harnessing ICTs in order to
reach out to 65 percent of Pakistan’s students who live in remote and rural areas. The classrooms in the
AIOU use audio and video facility as well as satellite Internet for interaction with learners from all across
the world. Electronic libraries have also been introduced that are linked to books, journals and articles
worldwide.

In 2000, government of Pakistan developed a new initiative to enhance the country’s online education
capacity, as a result of which the Virtual University of Pakistan (VUP) was established in 2002. The VUP
uses the national telecom infrastructure, and delivers its lectures through satellite broadcast TV
channels with interaction provided over the Internet. Moreover, the Aga Khan Education Services also
use computers for distance education, especially in rural areas.
These services also improve the method of teaching by collaborating with international educational
institutes.

Furthermore, there are two research programmes such as PERN and IEARN that have linked the
research and education of Pakistan with the world. They use digital libraries to participate in online-
based curriculum projects, which enhance the potential of students to share knowledge and research
globally. Radio programmes are also developed in collaboration with UNICEF to raise issues that create
awareness in society regarding gender discrimination, corporal punishment and other issues.

Technology has been an effective tool for distance education in Pakistan, but there are certain
limitations that need to be addressed along with its use and importance. The literacy rate of Pakistan is
very low, and is one of the biggest constraints for distance education as it affects the comprehension
level as well as quality of instruction. Firstly, teachers are not well-versed with technology skills, and
they are not even well-trained. Secondly, the Internet is expensive, and most of the rural students
cannot avail this opportunity. And lastly, there is the issue of misuse of technology as many technicians
are not well-trained. All these issues can be a hindrance in distance education programmes.

Being cost-efficient, distance learning has become a potential source for rural population to empower
themselves and interact with the world. Moreover, it is important to overcome hurdles by making
education essential for everyone, and support different programmes that promote distance learning.

References

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