An internal Tech Task Force ensured online migration took place within shortest possible turnaround, say experts

The outbreak of Coronavirus has had an adverse impact on businesses across the globe. However, a few sectors are trying to use this time as opportunities such as IT, Healthcare and Education sector. Pune-based FLAME University is also using today’s challenging times as an opportunity to inculcate the habits of online learning in the curriculum. The University could swiftly move to the online curriculum with the help of their task force and are now conducting examinations online. This way they are preparing students for unforeseen challenges in the corporate world. In a conversation with Shiksha.com, the experts at Flame University talks about their strategy to fight against the current pandemic situation in detail.

Here is the edited excerpt of the conversation:

Q: How has today’s scenario of lockdown and global pandemic impacted your education system?

A: These are unprecedented times disrupting every aspect of our lives. But, adverse situations like these become instrumental in giving rise to new thoughts, ideas and innovations.

At FLAME University, we have made a successful transition to the online mode of delivery, with minimal disruption to the student’s learning and examinations schedule. Since the middle of March 2020, we have conducted 194 courses online. The response from students, parents and even our faculty members has been very encouraging. Students participated enthusiastically from their homes across the country and abroad. Two of our exchange students from Germany wake up at 4:00 am to attend sessions, while a faculty who went back home to Europe took sessions at 4:00 am. Our exchange students could continue with their study abroad program with us because of our timely, successful shift to online mode.

Even as I write this, our students are taking their exams. We are ensuring we have an enhanced assessment process that allows students to demonstrate their learning without any compromise.

Our faculty, staff and students have been instrumental in ensuring continuity of learning and examinations. Given that it will take some more time to recover from this pandemic, we are working on putting together a calendar for the next academic year taking different scenarios into account. If the situation mandates, we would be ready to offer classes online to ensure students do not lose out on their academics, including the new incoming class. This will allow all our students to study from the safety of their homes and move into the campus when the situation comes back to normalcy.

Meanwhile, we are ramping up all our on-campus facilities to ensure complete safety of the students, faculty and staff on campus.

Q: What are some of the interesting initiatives your institute has taken to make it easy for your students and also contribute to eradication of this pandemic?

A: As I mentioned above, we have made a successful transition to the online mode of delivery within a couple of days as soon as we received the instructions for the temporary closure of campus from the authorities.

We formed an internal Tech Task Force comprising the Deans, Assistant Deans, faculty and professional staff, who ensured that the online migration took place within the shortest possible turnaround and have been monitoring it closely over the last several weeks.

This allowed students to study remotely from the safety of their homes and also be with their families during these trying times.

Q: How is the institute planning to conduct exams, evaluate and declare results online?

A: We are conducting our exams online currently. As FLAME’s liberal education curriculum focuses on continuous evaluations that are done throughout the semester, final evaluations have been smoother to conduct. Being sensitive to the fact that students would be facing challenges of network and family responsibilities at their homes, we have worked on our assessments and have made them submissions, presentations and project-based. Online examinations are being conducted using Moodle, our existing Learning Management System (LMS) that students were already comfortable with. Grading happens online too. Once the grading process is completed, students will get access to their results using their student login.

Our faculty have been innovative in evaluating during this unprecedented time.  For example, the faculty teaching the Dance course asked students to upload their performance videos that were shown during the class while she evaluated.

Q: How are students responding to new initiatives?

A: We’ve had very active participation from our students and the enthusiastic participation in class is a strong indicator of their acceptance of the online mode of teaching.

Q: What impact will it have on students’ interpersonal, team management skills?

A: The unprecedented situation calls for new initiatives.  An integral part of liberal education is preparing our students for the unknown future.  This also means that we groom them to manage adverse situations and turn them around to their advantage. I believe that this situation too will inculcate in our students the ability to reach out to people, empathise with them and work together in collaboration. This in practice will mean that they will develop their interpersonal skills and manage people and resources.

Q: What are the best practices that the college is adopting to ensure seamless online learning?

A: We realised very early, that the key to a successful online transition would require constant communication between the Deans, Faculty and Students. The Task-force identified online learning platforms and tools and trained both faculty and students to use them effectively. Multiple training sessions were held over a couple of days and FAQs for faculty and students were circulated and updated regularly. The Task Force held frequent ‘town halls’ with faculty and students to understand and resolve issues. Faculty who were experienced with online tools championed the cause and became mentors for others. In a few instances, students too mentored faculty during their online sessions and assisted them in making it more effective. 

We are keenly monitoring the situation, and since the crisis hit us mid-semester we catapulted over 194 courses online. These include courses in design and fine and performing arts, GIS, and cinematography which have been traditionally viewed as hands-on courses but we have successfully delivered these through remote instruction also. In a sense, because we hit the ground running, we are now able to anticipate our future needs with much more insight and are planning accordingly. Already our Summer Immersion Program for high school students has been moved online. For experiential learning, which is a big part of liberal education, mentorship and real-world challenge are essential ingredients. We are encouraging students to consider remote internships for now and faculty are mentoring students on projects, research and assignments in real-time through technology. We see online learning as complementary to learning in the classroom and are already building a blended model for instruction.

Q: How will today’s situation revolutionise online learning in India and abroad?

A: The unprecedented crisis has already revolutionised the way education is being imparted. All educational institutions, be it top-notch universities or schools have moved to the online mode of teaching to ensure that student learning does not get affected. Something like this was unimaginable even a few weeks before.

This has made all of us crisis ready and future-ready.