COVID-19 Experiences From Faculty

COVID - 19 Experiences From Students

S. Nagaraju

Faculty

Senior lecturer/ECE department

It’s an immense pleasure to share my experiences and faculty experiences of our ECE Dept during this lockdown period.

In the initial stage of lockdown, we only used WhatsApp, phone calls for communicating with the students to clarify doubts, giving assignments & materials.  We hardly got a response through the students in rural areas due to their non-availability of online resources. Finally, a few students used to respond to it in the initial days.

Vedic helped the faculty to use additional online tools like Google Classroom, Google forms, TTT Tools which created more interest and participation from the students. Some of the faculty used to zoom, WhatsApp video to teach students. The faculty gave weekly schedules for all subjects. This approach gradually increased the number of students communicating with faculty. Now almost all students got used to these available online platforms. Not only giving assignments, notes, clarifying doubts but also our faculty-guided students to do online courses like CISCO and motivated them for their future. This experience made us to realize that online teaching created more interest in students, reduced communication barriers between student and faculty, and less time taking in explaining things. More students raised their voices and doubts than in class. Apart from all these, some of the problems we faced with students are lack of smartphones from the students, unable to use it though having it, internet connection problems especially students in rural areas.

In addition to that the management always gave mental and moral support to all faculty. My heartful thanks to our beloved Chairman sir, Vice-Chairman sir,  Director sir who stood behind us in overcoming this pandemic situation. In this period we are doing online courses which are helping us to improve ourselves for better teaching and better communication. This is a time we also thought about the way we teach, we speak and kind of approach to be with students. This lockdown period gave us time to think about our upcoming students to give the best possible way to connect with them & improve their knowledge by using some of these online methods. We are all able to make some of the changes in teaching from our drawbacks. I hope we can get better output from students by using these methods and also by the way we teach.

The fact is that face-to-face ie teaching in the class with human interaction is needed and necessary for learning, for bonding, for sharing of experience. But due to COVID-19 Pandemic has forced the college to suspend physical classrooms and shift to online classes.

Hence faculty advised to grapples with new ways of managing this sudden transition to online education by switching into different teaching formats very quickly and students are left clinging onto their mobile phones and computer screens.

I have learned that I am flexible and that the most important thing for me is to make sure my students know that I am there to work with them and help them through this. As a lecturer/Advisor, I miss my day to day interaction and conversations with students outside the classroom.

Although I can’t see everyone face to face I have been in contact by phone or video conference with colleagues and students which has also helped to fit me up. I’m learning new technology and I will need to be patient.

Being at home with many distractions trying to balance a full, college workload has its challenges.

M. Lalitha Kumar

Faculty

Senior lecturer/EEE department

G. Bharathi

Faculty
Basic department

We, human beings have never experienced anything like this pandemic situation. I am sure most of us were not prepared for such a situation. As I am in the stream of Education, I must adapt myself to the changed circumstances. COVID-19 disrupted the total academic year, cancellation of classes, and postponement of Exams.

Teachers will not be replaced by technology, but teachers who don’t use technology will be replaced by those who do. By adopting these words I started changing my teaching strategies. I have known many online tools through the faculty who trained in VEDIC. They guide me to use different online tools for a better understanding of students.

Through WhatsApp, I regularly interact with my students by arranging study material, doubts clarification, conducting assignments, and evaluate what they have written. I guide my students in both academics and also motivate them to improve their confidence levels.

I would like to thank our beloved chairman sir for introducing Coursera. It’s a wonderful online platform to upgrade my professional skills. I have completed 6 courses and also going to complete some other courses.

Finally, I am very busy with online teaching and also upgrade myself by doing courses in Coursera and NPTEL.