Daily Times

It is a fact that academic activities like other daily activities require proper planning and execution strategies. During the current pandemic, the way institutions have rolled out distance education or online education is itself a case study for the region and the rest of the world. There are various opinions about the new mode of study. Although the preparedness of the system was assessed by the HEC to minimize the gap and introduce the appropriate strategies and manage relevant resources for institutions, faculty members, and students. The efforts made by the institutions and faculty members during this period are commendable.

There is always a possibility to improve policy, standards, and execution strategy. It is worth noting that improper planning at an institutional level or faculty member’s level is going to disturb students and resultantly they will distract from the learning. In some cases, it is observed that faculty members are not given proper training for delivering online lectures as well as for required instructional methodology for their course through this new mode of learning. There are instances where faculty members are compelled to carry out lectures through synchronous mode. There is a possibility of combining both Synchronous and Asynchronous modes for providing an opportunity for students to interact during live interaction and read the course material whenever convenient. The faculty members have shown concern on monitoring of synchronous activity and consider it as a distrust of University administration on faculty members is not desired. According to them, IT staff who is monitoring their online activities doesn’t know the nature of the subject and frequency of interaction required for it. Further, it is not a good omen that the junior staff is assessing the performance of senior faculty members. The role of IT staff should be to train, guide, and troubleshoot the issues faced by the faculty members and students.

The conventional systems of student support should be digitized for better service delivery and close coordination with them. On the same pattern, some freedom of speech is required to be given to the faculty members for sharing suggestions or recommendations related to different courses and course-related activities

While on the student’s side, most of the students are complaining of frequent disconnection of internet, clarity of voice during the synchronous mode, very few or little support for online assignments, etc. They are right to some extent, as during the face to face class there is an environment of teaching and learning created by the faculty member, students (peers) and audiovisual aids whereas in online mode, a student is chatting on mobile or in the same application (in private mode) without notice of the faculty member. Due to slow internet speed, the teacher can not ask to turn on the camera for the whole time of class and in case of female students -it is more difficult for him to ask as male student record instructions of faculty members and then make fun of that. In such an inconvenient situation student is not under the control of the teacher but behaving at his own whatever behavior they have developed from our society.Faculty members also avoid too many restrictive directions as the same is recorded and forwarded with different interpretations to the authorities at University, therefore, they will just focus on conveying presentation slide material in a given time. As on-campus during conventional classes, students consult faculty members for their queries, and the same can be done through Learning Management System (LMS) but most of the students are not aware of this due to training. Who is responsible to train students? An institution or faculty member, it is the institution as well as faculty member, the IT support team may develop screencasts of different LMS activities relevant to the students and the keep these over LMS.

Students are spending more time on online activities i.e. attending lectures, reading material, chat with faculty, chat with peers, preparing assignments, submitting these assignments, and appearing in the online examination. Due to overwhelming online activities, most of the students are facing psychological pressure. There should be proper timing for each activity, how much minimum they must spend on online activities.Students have complained that some faculty members even ask them to attend classes on Saturday and Sunday as well. Apart from that if a student is enrolled in the morning shift, he may not be asked to join classes in the evening. Another major concern of students is about an increase in assignments which again compel them to spent most of the time over the internet. They are more disturbed when there is no feedback on these numbers of assignments and final evaluation is in the hands of the faculty member. Here the need for uniform rubric arises and Universities need to develop course rubrics according to outcomes of the course. This will help to develop transparency and competition among the students.

It is an institutional responsibility to work closely with faculty members and students during this pandemic and plan all activities properly and professionally. The amendments may be made in the plan as and when required. There are multiple good practices shared by the National Academy of Higher Education (NAHE) of Higher Education Commission (HEC) over its website, these can be used for developing customized teaching and learning plans. The concerns of students should be given priority by the institutions as well as by the faculty members, as the whole process of online teaching and learning is established for them, and if they are not satisfied from any academic or administrative activity then some mechanism should be in a place where they may express their concerns. The conventional systems of student support should be digitized for better service delivery and close coordination with them. On the same pattern, some freedom of speech is required to be given to the faculty members for sharing suggestions or recommendations related to different courses and course-related activities.

To engage parents, the Universities may share learning reports of students along with attendance and frequency of visit to LMS for creating an environment where parents will push students for further improvement or their opinion/suggestions may be collected about their learning experience with the online mode of instruction.

The writer is deputy director, Higher Education Commission