Challenges and active measures implemented in project-based learning on online mode during Covid 19 times of India
Challenges and active measures implemented in project-based learning on online mode
When the COVID 19 pandemic forced sudden transformation across all fronts of life and lashed out its full fury across the globe, the education system was one such majorly transformed sector, and it had to shift from traditional classroom pedagogical learning to digital online mode completely.
Though online teaching cannot be replaced with physical teaching, amid COVID-19, educational institutions were left with no choice but to shift themselves to a full online mode of delivery as the only alternative to keep students learning to go from home safely. Education institutions all over the world have ensured that “learning never stops” by holding virtual classes in video-enabled remote classrooms. Although Indian educational institutions were able to gradually adapt to the new unavoidable, it was difficult in India to provide devices that allowed teachers and students to interact and collaborate on a single platform, not just to connect over remote classrooms, but also to facilitate and provide access to learning tools to all students across India, regardless of geographical location.
As a committed faculty and have played an important role in educating students in the best possible way amidst pandemic on online mode. Almost all of the subjects in Engineering are taught using flipped classrooms and project-based learning models. The challenge was to deliver the course content as designed in an online mode. The project-based learning models had a different challenge to address. In project-based learning, students are challenged to develop a project and demonstrate it through hardware and software as required to address specific problems.
How can students get access to the required hardware and software? How can students do projects in groups while they are remotely based? How to assess the students? What are the evaluation parameters? What percentage of marks need to be assigned to a particular assessment? These were some of the challenges that came up when we tried to conduct project-based learning in an online mode.
As we know, every problem has a solution. All we needed to do was tweak it and find a solution for it. In this situation what worked well is to decide on the use of all the possible software that could enable students to do projects online and for free. Identifying the required software which was freely available for students to practise and develop the required project with minimum hardware was a second step for the problem-solving. Along with that, providing training by faculties to use the software efficiently was required to enable the students to use the software more effectively. Faculties from various subject expertise collaborated and came together to teach students in various fields of engineering. Though students found it difficult initially, later they got hang of it and when students were asked to do projects in groups, they already knew how to connect with their teammates online!
Yes, there were hiccups. We learned, unlearned our best practices, embraced new technologies, and adapted them just in time to facilitate learning through project-based learning on online mode! Though we deviated from our traditional methodology, we still attained the desired purpose, and hence, I take this opportunity to thank and congratulate all students, colleagues, staff, and management for working with passion and delivering their best during these challenging times.
