Rajnikanth and a viva voce examination

So what does an old joke you heard back in December 2013 have to do with something interesting in the present times?

Well, a lot if you apply the lesson well.

So, I was asked to help out with the viva voce of a group of students in the MA in emotional intelligence, life coaching and human relations course last weekend. The viva voce was centered around their lessons in neuro-linguistic programming (NLP).

Now, I have been unconventional all along. People close to me know that.

So I created a bank of 20 questions and requested each participant to choose a question number randomly between 1 - 20 and then I would ask them that question and if need be a couple of follow up questions to test in depth their personal resonance with the concept as well as the practical application of that concept in their life.

Sometimes I would ask a question to the entire group based on what a participant had said in the viva voce. This gave me further opportunities to test what else they knew as well as to see how they all had processed the concepts in their own unique ways and made meaning out of it. It also gave me the opportunity to check for the cross-linkages they had formed between the different concepts in NLP.

This allowed me to fairly award more marks to individuals who had otherwise not been able to perform great in the question that landed in their kitty by chance but otherwise knew a lot more about the other topics within the course.

We had great fun and it was one gala time we all had. It ended well even though students (young and mature alike) in each of the four groups had started off nervously.

Some of them said that it was their best ever viva voce examination.

I laughed and shared my philosophy behind the way I did it.

I believe that the purpose of any assessment is not to fail as many as you can. It is not about selection through maximum elimination.

Instead it should be to really know what and how much has each student learnt the topic uniquely. It is to bring out all that the student knows than to have the sadistic pleasure of catching them off guard. A standardised, one-size fits all mechanism is not only an irrational assessment system it also is detrimental and doesn't really help us know what the student really knows.

And hence the way we design our assessment and the way we design our questions/ assignments and the way we take them through the process should bring out the best in them without compromising on the sanctity of the examination purpose. There has to be an element of surprise, uncertainty and randomness. And that's why I asked them to choose any number between 1 - 20 without knowing what that question might be all about.

And I made it a point to make all the students comfortable so that the best in them could come out. I also went in with an open mind to be surprised by them given their unique backgrounds and therefore the connections they have would have with the concepts.

In the end I shared that Rajnikanth joke that summarised my approach to studying and assessments during my times in college and even today.

Rajnikanth once sat for a college exam that followed the standard pattern: You get eight questions out of which you need to answer any five.

Rajnikanth answered all eight questions and wrote a note to the examiner at the top of the answer sheet: "Check any five."!!!

Thanks a lot Kusum Ma'am, Sulogna for the occasion.

_/\_

Image source: https://ablesim.com/the-viva-voce-examination/