Poornima University is going with assignments as a part of the exams: Piyush, PU

These are first-hand student accounts on how our young population is managing to keep their exam prep or college course work going from the confines of their homes. In case you want to share your lockdown study experience, write to us at publish@shiksha.com.

Q.1) How is your college tackling the current situation, ensuring that this does not adversely affect your studies?

There is an adverse effect on all the educational institutes, the commercial sectors and all the essential services because of the lockdown. Daily routine has come to a standstill and everything is paused. The major challenges are being faced by the educational institutes. So, to tackle the current situation, the colleges and schools have decided to conduct online classes for the students.

Q. 2) Are there online classes being conducted? If yes, how effective are these? With what frequency are these held? Are they sufficient to cover the designated syllabus?

It’s a very challenging situation for everyone to tackle due to the lockdown. The colleges and schools, as well as the higher educational institutes, have come forward with an idea of providing online classes through the video conferencing software. The faculties are conducting online sessions/classes daily. We are provided with a schedule for our classes by the teacher. Different platforms for online classes are being used like Google Meet, Zoom App, Krackin platform, Hangouts and so on. The faculties ensure that the maximum number of students attend the classes.

Also, the HOD conducts regular meetings with the faculty members about the ongoing classes and audits about the topic covered during the classes.

I think these are effective as this is the only way to interact with the students and complete their course. The college is conducting classes daily of approximately three hours and assignments are being given as well. The syllabus is also completed on time and also the faculties ensure that students are being provided with all the study materials through the Google Class platform.

Also, for the fourth year students, the college is providing an ongoing major project under the guidance of the faculty members. There are also doubt clearing sessions and practical demonstration classes for the lab experiments. The HOD ensures that every faculty member is conducting online classes and reporting about the topic being taught to the students. Also, the students are given assignments as a part of the mid-term exams for the evaluation.

Q. 3) Are you projects or assignments to work on from home? What is the number of online submissions required to take place?

During this lockdown period, as the colleges and schools are shutdown, the exams are also either being postponed or cancelled. The online classes are being conducted daily. Due to the lockdown, the exams cannot be conducted so the Secrecy Cell of Poornima University came to a mutual decision of assigning the assignments as a part of the exams which can be evaluated and graded. Every faculty of the concerned subject is thereby assigning a total of three assignments to the students which carry six marks each. These assignments are question and answers based which are descriptive based or either scenario-based.

The students of the first, second and third year are being assigned the three assignments whereas the final year students are given two assignments for every subject. Even there is a major project to be done by the final year students from home. A project report has to be submitted by the final year students based on which they would be graded. The assignments are being uploaded on the Google Classroom by the concerned faculty and a specific date is being given before which it has to be submitted.

There are guidelines for the assignments as it has to be handwritten on the A4 sheet which has to be scanned and then uploaded on the Google Classroom or the Google Drive.

The students also have to submit the hardcopy after the reopening of the college so that it will be considered as a proof for the part of the exams. There are online quizzes conducted for the evaluation purpose along with the assignments submission which is also equally graded and considered as an important part on behalf of the exam.

Q. 4) How is the college making up for any lab/practical work? If at all?

Besides online sessions/ classes for the theoretical subjects, Poornima University has even made it possible for the practical demonstration of the lab experiments. The concerned faculty of each subject shares the list of the experiments which has to be performed so that they can be evaluated. The tutor shares the schedule for the online classes where the faculty can perform the practical demonstration of the practical work on their laptops and students can view it via video conferencing. The faculty while performing the practical also explains the step-by-step procedure so that student can easily perform the same on their laptops.

After performing the practical and the online session gets over, the faculty share the pdf of the lab manual on the Google Classroom. Also, there is a major project which has to be done by the final year students along with a project report to the University. Along with the theory classes, the practical classes are also important for understanding the concepts properly.

The students are asked to perform the same practical work on their systems and then write down the experiment step-by-step and upload a scanned copy on the Google Classroom for the evaluation of the lab experiment marks. Many challenges were faced initially but though faculties made it possible and provided a practical demonstration of the lab experiments. This way Poornima University has also tackled with the situation for practical work.

Q. 5) Anything else the college is doing in these times that is noteworthy that you would like to draw attention to.

Poornima University has always taken an active part in the social help and been a helping hand for the needy ones. In these times of the crisis of novel coronavirus, Poornima University has done many noteworthy things which make everyone to draw the attention to. Poornima University has helped the coronavirus patients with the medicines as funds.

Even the students from different branches have contributed towards self-awareness by posting the safety measures on a chart on every social media platform.

Also, the University shares e-newspaper, and digital books daily. Due to the rising cases in Rajasthan and on the orders of the state government, the hostels are converted into isolation wards for the coronavirus patients.

From time to time the School of Public Health has been publishing guidelines, safety measures, and preventive measures for the coronavirus. Also, the college is motivating the students to enrol themselves in certain online courses and online training. The college is also arranging the online internships for the pre-final year students. The faculties are boosting the morale of the students to enhance their skills.

During this lockdown period, the higher authorities are ensuring that the students are not facing any problem related to the studies or any academics. For the pre-final year students, the TPO Cell is working for the placement details to be provided to each student. The TPO Cell is working on collecting the details of the students of the pre-final year students. These all are noteworthy that Poornima University during this time.

About the Author:

Piyush Mittal is a final year student at Poornima University studying Bachelors in Technology with specialisation in Cloud Technology and Information Security