A digital replica of the traditional classroom session will be the new normal in the teaching-learning process at the Cochin University of Science and Technology (Cusat) in the aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Each classroom session will have a simultaneous digital copy once the regular mode of teaching returns, to enable students adapt to the emerging challenges in the higher education sector triggered by the pandemic crisis.
“In any exigency, they will have the option to go back to the digital format of the classroom sessions. The idea is to use both the traditional and digital teaching-learning methods simultaneously even after the situation turns normal,” says K.N. Madhusoodanan, Vice Chancellor.
Online exams
“The digital classrooms will help in creating a discussion-based learning process inside the traditional classroom. Students will then find it easy to switch from one mode to the other,” he says.
The varsity will give a major push for conducting exams, viva, and PhD thesis defence sessions online. Prof. Madhusoodanan says the success of the final semester postgraduate exams held online amidst the ongoing crisis has encouraged them to extend it to the forthcoming second semester postgraduate exams. “The students will have no room for any malpractices as each question has to be answered within a prescribed time limit and the next question will be given only after its completion,” he says.
The interviews for recruitment of teachers would be held in the online mode in view of the reality that external experts from prestigious institutions across the country may not be ready to come down to the campus in these difficult times.
Online interviews
“We have already completed the promotion interviews for teachers in the digital mode. Experts from institutions such as the Indian Institute of Technology had participated in it,” the Vice Chancellor says. With no clarity yet on when the situation would turn normal, the viva and the open defence for PhD thesis would also be carried out using the digital platforms, he says.
