Published on March 30, 2020
Ahmedabad: No student is allowed to miss Prof Nigam Dave’s lectures at SLS, PDPU – even when it happens online.
“With advanced tools embedded on platforms such as Zoom online classes, Canvas or Google classroom, we can capture screenshots or gather data on students’ engagements during the virtual classrooms,” said Prof Dave, director of SLS, PDPU. “Discussion forums and assignments have also gone online completely.”
The Covid-19 global pandemic has changed the way several sectors work, perhaps forever, and one of the most obvious fields is education. More and more institutes have switched to online mode during the national lockdown. In the premier educational institutes in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar, virtual is the new normal for both lectures and evaluation.
Chirayu Bhatt, deputy provost (academics) at Cept University, said that several online platforms are utilized to connect faculties and students for studios. “All sessions are being conducted according to scheduled time slots in the regular semester. Students also interact with faculties in real time, completing the online class experience,” he said. “One-on-one video conferencing is also taking place to provide feedback on student projects.”
At MICA, the annual curriculum presentation to the second-year students of PGP course was made online where the faculty members presented their proposed elective courses and held a discussion. “Respective instructors have volunteered to design online examinations for their courses and the examinations are in progress. Assignments, which are part of planned evaluations, are to be submitted online,” said a MICA official.
Soman Nair, registrar of DA-IICT, Gandhinagar, said that there are several ongoing research projects where students and faculty members collaborate. “Our PG curriculum relies heavily on research work. In this lockdown period, the students and faculty members are collaborating online to work on research papers and simulations where labs are not required. Online meetings are conducted for the same,” he said.
Parth Shastri Archive 