MOOC Courses & Peer Tutoring at NCU make students market-ready

The NorthCap University of Gurgaon offers a range of Massive Open Online Courses ( MOOCs ) which are delivered through the world’s largest online learning platforms – SWAYAM, Coursera, EdX, Udemy where lectures are available in different formats i.e. Videos, reading material. This move of the university is helping students to enhance their knowledge base. University has also integrated this with Peer Tutoring which is a type of collaborative learning and is based on the peer-mediated strategy that involves students serving as academic tutors and tutees which allows direct interaction between students and promotes active learning.

In today’s world of Technology, a lot of new technologies are getting introduced daily because of which it becomes the necessity to adapt to the current demand of the technology to be competitive in the market. The University understands well about the paradigm shift of the education system and hence to provide the best teaching and learning practices to their young aspirants, the university has introduced the MOOC courses in their curriculum and has made it mandatory to opt-in every semester in all the departments as per the UGC guidelines.

Options of MOOC Courses at NCU

MOOC or Massive Open Online Course and as the name suggests these are the web-based courses that are available through an online portal. The sole purpose of the MOOC course is to impart the skill-based and advance technology-based online courses to the learners. These are introduced with the motive that courses can be accessed by anyone from anywhere at any time wherein an individual can go and enroll online for these courses.

In India these MOOC courses are available through a platform – SWAYAM (www.swayam.gov.in) for free online courses. It is an initiative of Government of India’s MHRD which integrates the different players/content providers like UGC, CEC, IGNOU, NPTEL, NCERT, NIOS, IIBM, NITTR  on a common platform who ensures the quality and standard delivery of the content through Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The Swayam ensures that the curricula of these courses should meet the life long needs of the learners and the learners can opt these courses independent of their defined curriculum for their upskilling.

The NorthCap University is working closely with one of these players - National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) Local Chapter for the smooth conduct of these courses at the university level. NPTEL is a joint initiative of the seven IITs and IISc for providing the technology and management-based courses online. The content of these courses is developed by the experts of their domains from the pioneer institutes like IITs, IISc and CMIs, etc. Through this local chapter, the students of NorthCap University will get the following benefits:

• They will have access to the largest and most viewed repository of online courses
• Along with the online trainer, a mentor from the university is also provided for peer tutoring
• Courses are flexible and students can study at their own pace
• Students can analyze their continuous progress and mentors will also be able to analyze the progress of their mentees using this portal
• Availability of SPOC to provide on-time information regarding the upcoming online courses, to help the students in course enrollment and to remind them of every announcement related to the course
• SPOC also provides abundant support to students and course mentors since this individual acts as a bridge between NPTEL and university

NCU always wants to enrich the learning experience of its students, thus they are using this platform for blended learning in their advanced courses to provide informative supplementary content to the students. This will help students in getting an in-depth understanding of their subjects.

Options of Peer-Tutoring at NCU

This is a flexible, peer-mediated strategy that involves students serving as academic tutors and tutees. Through this, students of the same or different groups can interact and share their knowledge in their areas and seek feedback. This will help in enhancing their leadership skills, boost their confidence, gain personal insight in self-reflection and discovery. Peer-Tutoring creates an opportunity for the students to utilize their knowledge and experience in a meaningful way. In this process, the tutor reinforces their learning by reviewing and reformulating their knowledge. O the other hand, the learner or Tutee gets one on one attention. This also helps students engage their active learning and critical thinking skills.

The University aims to bridge the digital divide for students who have so far remained untouched by the digital revolution and have not been able to join the mainstream of the knowledge economy by opting for a developed IT-Technology platform for the courses being taught or not interactively taught in the classroom.

About the author

Vaishali Kalra is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science & Engineering of The NorthCap University, Gurugram.

Note: The views expressed in this article are solely author’s own and do not reflect/represent those of Shiksha