Faridabad News, 18 July 2020 : Due to Covid-19 pandemic, millions of students across the globe have been driven out of their university spaces, and professors are restricted to their homes. Higher education stands disaggregate, and faculty and students are coping with the sudden new norm of completely tech-mediated teaching and learning. Online higher education has been around for more than a decade now but still it has not taken over the conventional education system in the Pre-COVID era.
To brainstorm and explore the probability for the transformation of offline to online education system, DAV Institute of Management, Faridabad has organised a National E- panel discussion series on “UNLOCKING HIGHER EDUCATION: DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION” from 16th to 18th July 2020.
The Theme for the Day-3 i.e. 18th July 2020 was “The Pedagogical Innovations in Higher Education – A shift from offline to online”. In Initial deliberation, Dr Bhawna Sharma (Asst. Professor) threw light on the 23 years long Journey of DAVIM and the efforts been put in by the Institute in the field of education during the COVID- 19 outbreak.
Dr. Sanjeev Sharma, Principal Director, DAVIM welcomed all the distinguished panellists of the day and congratulated the organizers of the event: Dr. Ritu Gandhi Arora- Dean FDP Cell, Dr. Sunita Bishnoi-Dean-Research Promotion Cell, Dr. Pooja Kaul- Dean Innovation and Add on Courses, Dr. Ashima Tandon- Dean E-content and LMS Cell for conducting the E- Panel Discussion. According to Dr. Sharma after the deliberation, the conclusions drawn would be passed on to the various appropriate authorities for further course of action.
Dr. Sunita Bishnoi (Dean- Research Promotion Cell) very well explained the theme of the day and showed her concern for the present situation. She elaborated the takeaways of the last 2- days of discussion .
The Chief Guest of the day, Dr. Dinesh Kumar- Vice Chancellor, JC Bose University of Science & Technology, YMCA, Faridabad congratulated DAVIM for conducting such a valuable E- Panel discussion in the present time. He mentioned that 70% teaching – learning process has been achieved despite of certain challenges when everything was locked down only because our country is equipped with strong infrastructure for the same.
Dr. Ashima Tandon, (Dean- E-content and LMS cell) moderator of the day, introduced all the panellists of the day to the audience : Dr. Vikas Nath – Director BVIMR (New Delhi), Prof. Ravinder Kumar – Dean Faculty of Social Science Jamia Milia Islamia University (New Delhi), Dr. Raj Kumar Mahajan- Registrar GNA University, Phagwara, Punjab , Prof. Pradeep K. Ahlawat – IMSAR (MD University, Rohtak), Prof. Jyoti Rana – Dean, SFMSR & DSW, Shri Vishkarma University (Haryana), Dr. Namita Rajput – Associate Professor at Shri Aurobindo College (Delhi University) & Dr. Neeraj Chandok – CEO Building Block Customer Services.
Dr. Jyoti Rana discussed that in taxonomy of online education, there is a need to understand the learning, management, course delivery part, demand and inclination towards short term courses or skill-based courses. She focused on the 3Rs, Re-strategising the whole situation, Re-imaging the whole operating order of the education and Re-defining the value proposition
Dr. Vikas Nath said that the things are changing fast as there are various new software being introduced to help the teachers and students. AICTE is also offering various schemes to upgrade the infrastructure of the institutions.
Prof. Pradeep K. Ahlawat focused on the technological innovations and improvisation as it has always brought improvement in life of human beings. Universities, UGC, AICTE and other statutory bodies also need to redesign curriculum to be imparted technologically.
Dr. Namita Rajput drew the attention of everyone towards the challenges in front of the universities as every institution is not fully equipped with the facilities for effective teaching and evaluating the outcome. Head of the institutions should move further for MOUs with IT organisations.
Dr. Raj Kumar Mahajan emphasised on the challenges during pandemic like admissions and start of classes. Training of teachers and students as per technological need as well as Health and Hygiene condition are the requirement of the new system. He talked about CoCube software that could be the solution for conducting online examination in an effective way.
Dr. Ravinder Kumar discussed about conducting the online examination, a challenging task due to lack of facilities. Even conducting offline exam is also a big challenge due to lack of space and issue of social distancing. He suggested that Google classroom can be used for online test, online quizzes, and online viva voce and emphasised that it should be a balanced approach for the online mode.
Dr. Neeraj Chandok talked about how 21st century classroom learners are different from 20th century learners. He focused on the 3E’s namely Education , Engagement and Entertainment. The students are made to feel valued and there must be strong bond between the teacher and the learner.
On behalf of the audience, Dr. Hema Gulati (Dean- Curriculum Coordination), Dr. Gurjeet Kaur ( Dean -Out Reach Programmes), Dr. Anjali Ahuja (Dean -Training Programmes) raised relevant queries from the chat box and Facebook in front of the panelist. All the panelist effectively and efficiently handled the queries.
Sh. Shiv Raman Gaur, Director Higher Education, DAVCMC summed up the 3-days E- Panel Discussion Series on a very positive note by saying that the discussion held in these days have landed up to maximum possible solutions and guidelines in the direction of online education . He emphasised that there is a difference between online teaching and teaching online and so the teaching fraternity needs to put in their best efforts for bridging the gap and getting effective results.
Dr Sarita Kaushik, (NAAC- Coordinator) in her concluding remarks acknowledged and admired all the panelist, organizers and all the team members with a formal vote of Thanks.
