Academics and Corona

        Dr. Suwarna Shidore
      Faculty – IndSearch
      23rd April 2020

It’s the beginning of April, 2020. Almost a month before, in March 2020, the arrival of the Novel Coronavirus in India disrupted the normal lifestyle of all the people in the country regardless of their power and position. Only essential services are exception to this case as per the Government Order in this horrible situation in India. Isolation is the ONLY solution to fight against this global enemy in the form of a virus.

Traditionally the months of March and April are very crucial in MBA teaching institutions as teachers are trying to complete syllabus and students are getting ready for submissions and preparing for Mid term and Final examinations.

But 2020 picture is exceptional and unique due to the pandemic…There is a fear…there is an uncertainty….everyone is worried and trying to maintain social distancing….people are opting to work from home, schools are closed, shops are closed, market is closed, hotels are closed and entire society is under threat…

IndSearch, leading MBA Institution in Pune is no exception to above situation…By overcoming the fear and following the order of Government, it was decided to continue academic processes and education using online –real-time – mode as one to one classroom teaching was suspended. Freeconfencecall.com application is used to deliver sessions as per regular time table. Thanks to the faculty member who has designed and developed customized software to monitor teaching-learning process in the Institute. Faculty members are providing lecture notes, question banks and conducting tutorials using this software. With learning resource option in this software, students are using notes and appearing for online tutorials.. A Big Thanks to electricity providers and telecom industry …Students are tech-savvy and all students are having their smart phones with internet connectivity which is very common in this student generation..Attending lectures during lock-down situation has also welcomed from the student community. Teachers are learning this online teaching platform with great enthusiasm and conducting sessions as per the time table. Black-boards are replaced with sharing of screen! This online participative teaching learning process has become simple and teachers are getting feel as-if students are in class asking queries to the teacher.

The online survey on online teaching and learning process by the faculty member of the Institute shows that 80% students responded to this survey. Around 42% students and faculty members were using this online teaching and learning pedagogy for the first time. About 50% respondents mentioned that they are using their laptops and around 41% respondents are using mobile phones for this teaching-learning activity. On the Five scale pointer , 63% respondents responded that they have good and very good experience about online teaching and learning. Regarding issues which respondents faced while using this methodology, apart from internet connectivity, only issue mentioned is of audio quality.

Overall the online teaching and learning process in this unique situation is a blessing in disguise!!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Raising of funds in times of battle and despair!

         Prof. Nilaya Murthy       Faculty, IndSearch       23rd April 2020 With a message that ‘Charity begins at home’ – Our Honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Ram Nath Kovind, Vice-President, Cabinet Ministers, Governors of all states and all Members of Parliament will take 30% pay cuts for a year and contribute to combat this Corona crisis and menace by signalling to all classes be it rich or economically backward that our aim is to emerge victorious in this grand fight against the pandemic. So folks, till when do we have to wait for the storm to pass or are we blinded by the adage- This too shall pass! Well, being positive is what we need in difficult times, but is our economy responding the way we wish it to? The Covid 19 has given us enough of reasons that economy is slowing down if not sinking altogether. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has stated that the economic uncertainty related to coronavirus is exceptionally high than any past pandemic. Our former
Read more

Few thoughts on aspects of economy in a situation of global pandemic

         Prof. Amey Tawde       Faculty, IndSearch       8th May 2020 Covid 19 has not just infected patients but the entire world economy at large. So much so that just thinking about what can be the scenario in the near future made the German finance minster commit  suicide. This defines the gravity of the situation even after keeping in mind that Germany is most economically and politically stable country of Europe particularly after Brexit incident. As the paramedical staff is working on the frontline to save lives, This pandemic has taken economic experts across the world back to their drawing boards  for discussing and designing strategies to kick start this near halted economic engine.  Now to start an engine one can make use of two techniques, cold start and warm start technique. If a car is standing still for a longer period of time there are high chances of battery getting discharged. So one needs to first charge the battery which takes some time and energy and then start the
Read more

Leadership Lessons from the COVID 19 pandemic

        Dr. Aparna Tembulkar       Director, IndSearch       13th May 2020 This blog is not so much about the COVID 19 pandemic, as it is about the Leadership Lessons that this Pandemic is teaching us. It clearly signals that we need more Women Leaders. Yet according to the United Nations, as of January 1, 2020, only 10 out of the 152 heads of elected states are Women, and less than 5% of Fortune 500 Companies have Women CEOs according to a research article published in the Harvard Business Review in June 2019 and the numbers are on the decline globally Over the last few weeks I have been reading several articles about Women Leaders and their response to this crisis. All articles pointing to how Women leadership has been able to tackle the crisis more efficiently and why?One article, I remember, was in the Forbes magazine, titled “What do Countries with the best Corona virus response have in Common? Women Leaders”. Be it Angela Merkel in Germany, Tsai -Ing Wen in Taiwan, Jacinda Ardren
Read more