What are the measures taken by SRM AP to combat COVID-19?
From travel restrictions to national quarantines and self-isolation requirements, measures have been taken to ensure the safety of the students in the time of a swiftly transforming global health emergency. Immediately after the declaration of suspension of online classes, the students were requested to vacate the campus within 2 days, so that they can travel to the safety of their home and maintain self-isolation. The international students were advised to stay back in the campus and weekly health check-up by Medical Officer, Dr. Lakshmi Rajyam was organized and was made mandatory for the students. IT-Km Helpdesk was developed to answer the queries of the parents and students associated with the updates and decisions undertaken in view of the pandemic.
Furthermore, in lieu of the situation, SRM AP has sensitized the students, faculty, and staff by conducting a session on 6th March 2020 to create public awareness. Organized by the Department of Biology, the lecture session was coordinated by Prof. Jayaseelan Murugaiyan, Head of the Biology/Biotechnology Department. The lecture was split into 3 sessions- “Biology of Coronavirus” by Prof. C. Durga Rao, Dean-SLABS, “Coronavirus diagnosis” by Prof. Jayaseelan Murugaiyan, Head of the Biology/Biotechnology Department, and “Precautionary measures and handling the infection” by Dr. Lakshmi Rajyam, Medical Officer. The details of the session can be found here: https://srmap.edu.in/awareness-campaign-covid-19-coronavirus/.
Also, SRM AP has come forward to contribute to the Corona Virus Public Relief Fund. Please view the details here: https://srmap.edu.in/news/srm-ap-joins-covid-19-fight-with-a-donation-of-25-lakhs/
How technological innovation has paved the way for online classes?
Responding to the disruption in academics, in less than a week SRM AP has proactively joined what might be the world’s largest remote learning experiment. Given its infrastructural adequacy and openness to new technology, SRM AP could come up with the online classes in a limited window of time. To minimize the adverse impact of the outbreak on the learning graph of the students, SRM AP has collaborated with Zoom Platform where they host online classes to ensure that the academic progress of the students do not get compromised.
What is the present scenario?
At present, over 40-60 classes are being conducted online daily, where the students are intimated regarding their schedule a day prior. Faculty members are preparing online polls, quizzes, and assignments to engage the students. Moreover, various LMS platforms – GSuite Classroom, Moodle, etc. are being used by the faculty to share the reading materials with the students. SRM AP has developed an exclusive helpdesk for faculty and students to reach out to, regarding any support regarding the online classes. Regular feedback is sought from students and faculty members to enhance the learning experience through online classes.
How faculty and management has collaborated?
Quickly and proactively the management and the faculty community became adept at harnessing their technological expertise for managing virtual classrooms. It would be otherwise impossible to pull off this alternative pedagogy without rigorous and prompt action by faculty and staff members. Dr. Ragunathan, Professor and Head of the Department, Computer Science and Engineering and Dr. Murali Krishna Enduri, Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering along with support from the management took charge in preparing time-table, scheduling the online classes, and ensuring effective maintenance of the systems. Seeking to bridge the digital gap, the faculty ensured that students without access to internet bandwidth required to participate in live streaming classes or who are grappling with poor internet connections, are provided with lecture playbacks through the Zoom Platform.
What are the features of the online classes using the Zoom Platform?
The various features of the online classes through Zoom include:
1. The teachers have redesigned their lectures, considering the limitations of a virtual classroom.
2. The Learning Management System, Chats, Polls, Digital Pads, etc. are being used to make the session productive and interactive.
3. Virtual Labs are also being set for the benefit of students.
4. Faculty members prepare video lectures and upload to Google classroom. Discussions of the lecture materials are held through Zoom Platform. Some also conduct remote teaching.
What is expected out of students?
In the present scenario, students are advised to:
1. Access to the online classes through Zoom Platform. Students must download the application on their laptop/ tablet/ mobile phone to attend the classes.
2. Students are advised to take the classes regularly and seriously as the attendance is recorded and will be considered for the final examination.
3. Our dedicated faculty and staff are rigorously trying to make the online classes a useful platform to learn from home under the circumstances. Students are encouraged to utilise the facility entirely.
4. Students are advised to use their internet bandwidth thoughtfully to completely utilise this opportunity that is available during this suspended academic session.
5. Students are advised not to travel to a friend’s home or Internet Café or any place in the pretext of accessing the internet.
6. All suggestions and feedback may please be sent to itkm.helpdesk@srmap.edu.in. Students are also advised to stay connected with their respective HODs for recent updates.
SRM AP wishes all the students a safe stay and hope that they productively engage themselves in this online teaching-learning opportunity to maximise the learning experience.
The university is confident that the relentless effort and commitment of all the faculty members and staff to make this endeavour successful will be apprehended, and students will undoubtedly reap the benefits.
This pandemic has compelled us to revolutionize the pedagogy to mitigate the challenges, which is also believed to shape the future of education. We also trust that we will emerge as a more equipped educational system by the end of this pandemic. Till then, hang on, extend the required support to the government and society by maintaining self-isolation and basic hygiene.
Feedback from Executive Leaderships and Faculty Members
Dr. D. Gunasekaran
Registrar
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Dr. K Mohan
Director, IT-KM.
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Prof. C. Durga Rao
Dean, School of Liberal Arts and Basic Sciences
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Prof. T Ragunathan
Professor and Head, Department of Computer Science and Engineering
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Prof. Ranjit Thapa
Professor and Head, Department of Physics
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The term online class is related to the virtual class through World Wide Web technology. The teaching and information of experts are captured in various forms and deliver to the viewers in multiple ways. Out of all type of online classes, the live online class using some software platform is a big challenge for teachers and universities. It needs considerable time to understand the live class protocol and execute it properly by any university or organization. SRM University –AP has implemented the live online class in a record time of ten days. The SRM University –AP has declared emergency shutdown and work from home due to COVID-19 on 16th March 2020, and the live online class to more than 2000 students by 100+ professors started on 26th March 2020. This fast implementation was possible due to the vision of higher management, authority, and teamwork of faculty members. The students of SRM University – AP took this initiative in a positive way and came forward with more than 95 % attendance in the live sessions. Few of the faculty members stayed back on campus, which is completely isolated from the rest of the places and did their best to implement the live online classes from 26th March 2020 onwards. In short, the faculty members are the key makers and the IT team is the backbone of this effort. Now more than 200 live online classes are under progress per week taught by 120+ professors and attended by 2400 students.
The live online class for Research Methodology for PhD students is started on 31st March 2020. This is to ensure that all academic plan of SRM University – AP goes parallelly.
Students of SRM University – AP did a wonderful job by cooperating with the new initiative, and the engagement is more than 98 %. Students are interacting with the faculty members in the live sessions and attending the polling with maximum possibility. Access to the live online platform is quite easy to adopt by any new participant.
I personally found that for better live online sessions, few essential techniques are: Presentation mode should be either ppt or pdf format. Writing on the pptx file during any doubt helps students for easy understanding. Writing pad is a necessary device for the live online class to derive the equation, drawing of a few important phenomena, solving numerical, etc. We need to prepare our self-more before each online session to communicate our understanding in an easy way for the students. Polling in a google form helps me to be more interactive with the students.
SRM University – AP management is always unhesitant to support any initiative taken by the faculty members or students. As I have mentioned that, without the vision of the management, it was impossible to implement the LIVE ONLINE sessions.
I am enjoying my teaching in this lockdown, and I am happy to help SRM University –AP for such initiative.
Dr. Goutam Dalapati
Associate Professor, Physics
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SRM AP has introduced online classes in this time which I feel is an effective way to engage students. The classes are interactive and I find the students to be keen on learning through these classes. We are using polls and quizzes along with preparing slides, presentations, and study materials to ensure that the students are able to clear their concepts and doubts.
Dr. Anil K Suresh
Associate Professor, Biotechnology
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Dr. Srabani Basu
Associate Professor, Career Development Centre
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Dr. Tousif Khan N
Assistant Professor and Faculty Coordinator, Department of Electrical Engineering
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Dr. Anirban Ghosh
Assistant Professor, Electronics and Communication Engineering
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Dr. Bhanukiran Perabathini
Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
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Online Teaching – a new paradigm of teaching:
From decades of Indian experience of mass-learning, there is no question that the conventional style of teaching and learning has seen serious limitations. Over the last couple of years, there’s been a lot of debate in academia surrounding the replacement of conventional methods with active learning and flipped classroom techniques. Not surprisingly, the idea received as much resistance as acceptance by all the parties (teachers as well as students). People who resisted this idea initially were sceptical about its effectiveness. Needless to say, a sudden transition from a physical classroom to an online virtual environment is drastic and radical, and their scepticism is quite reasonable. However, with growing concerns about the ineffectiveness of the conventional education system, it is very hard not to look for alternatives. At SRM AP university, we have been playing around this idea for over a year. Last semester (June 2019), we introduced two courses on Minvera platform for the first-year students. Despite the little inconvenience perceived initially, all the parties got used to the new mode of teaching and learning and it ended up as a success. Although, some of us did feel that the material used should be organically prepared by teachers within the system rather than by a third party. Apart from that, it was an extremely gratifying experience for me (and I can vouch for several others) trying out this new mode of interacting with students. As a consequence of this experimentation, 90% of the first-year students have already gotten used to this mode of learning. Also, several of the 2nd year and 3rd year students (hundreds of them to be precise) were employed as teaching assistants (TAs) during these courses and they also got acquainted with the platform. Nonetheless, the percentage of faculty members who tried this platform was small and there was still significant resistance towards a paradigm shift. The pandemic of COVID-19 most certainly is devastating and challenged every aspect of modern human life. It challenged the public health sector, governance, transportation, businesses and also academia! As far as its effects on academia are concerned, I tend to take an optimistic view and I believe it has come as a blessing in disguise! The pandemic forced academia to reinvent teaching and learning. It has forced teachers to reinvent their methods to adapt to virtual classroom environments. Thanks to the prior experience at SRMAP, we have been very efficient with adapting this new paradigm in no time. Without this prior experience, it would have been a cultural shock! Sitting in front of a computer and interacting with students virtually is a new ball-game altogether but it is totally worth it! However, care must be taken so that these online sessions won’t become monologues. Students who are usually timid in the classrooms are less hesitant to answer a textual poll. That way we can maintain their attention as well as keep getting good feedback.
Some Challenges:
It remains a challenge to engage unmotivated students with attention disorders.
However, this was always a challenge, even in a traditional setting.
A significant additional effort needs to be made by every faculty in curating and preparing reading materials for the pre-classwork study.
Without pre-class reading, this mode of learning will not bear its fruits.
There’s always a scope for cheating and malpractice by the students and that can only be rectified by making learning sincerely more interesting!
Dr. Manjula R
Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
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Dr. Anuj Deshpande
Assistant Professor, Electronics and Communication Engineering
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Dr. T. Manjunatha
Assistant Professor, Biology
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Dr. Imran Pancha
Assistant Professor, Biology
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Dr. Writoban Basu Ball
Assistant Professor, Biology
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I have just started teaching classes using the online platform Zoom. I find this platform very convenient for the ease of engaging students throughout the class. It is very easy to engage students as this can be done by dividing students into break-up rooms and giving them small tasks to perform. The platform gives the teacher effective means to control the class with various plug-ins. The application itself is very intuitive and easy to access across different platforms (smartphone or PC). The ease of access to this application has given me a lot more freedom to explore different means of imparting education. For example, I can give real-time assessments to students in the classroom and have an idea of how they are grasping the topic. It is easy to break students into small groups without much difficulty and engage them in group activities. However, to say the least, the support that I have received from the university administration goes a long way in equipping myself with this new mode of giving lessons. The University had arranged adequate and thorough online training sessions, faculty meetings, as well as feedback sessions to ensure my effortless transit to this new platform.
Dr. Deepak Kachave
Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
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I am not photogenic, so initially, I was concerned about how students will perceive my image during online classes (the image of a faculty must not be distorted at any media). However, I have observed that most of the times, we are sharing our slides. So, my hesitance was gone as students were helpful in the beginning. Out of their curiosity, students tried to annotate while I was explaining something. However, in the second session, as we get familiar with the tool, we learn how to allow only the host to annotate. As I am using the campus internet, there are no internet-related issues. With the help of Prof. Ragunathan and his team members Dr Murali, Dr Atik, who conducted meetings daily to discuss our experience and participation/feedback/queries of each faculty member, it was quite easy to learn the features of the ZOOM tool. Overall, it has been a good learning experience so far for all of us (faculty as well as students).
Feedback from Students
Priya Yasaswini
2nd year, Computer Science and Engineering
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I believe online classes are more comfortable as the environment allows us to concentrate more. We have more time to train ourselves and take extra courses. We also can plan study time around the rest of the day. We may not get the personalized attention like the normal classes but in online classes it improves the Student-Teacher Communication. Attending the online classes during this time makes us more punctual and disciplined.
K N Mohan Reddy
2nd year, Computer Science and Engineering
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These online classes are benefiting us the most as we can complete our syllabus in time. The interaction between teachers and the students is also like that of real classrooms. At the time of a pandemic like COVID-19, these classes are benefiting us the most.
