TeachLeSs:Six-day hands-on Online Workshop on

TeachLeSs:Six-day hands-on Online Workshop on Effective Online Teaching Learning Strategies- 26th to 31st May 2020

The Department of Computer Applications completed the first of its kind online hands-on course on effective online teaching learning strategies, named TeachLeSs for the 50 faculty of Maharani Lakshmi 
ammanni college for women, bangalore to learn from home during the lockdown.

Prof Mini Shaji Thomas,Director, NIT, Trichy appreciated the effectiveness and timeliness of the course. NITT was recently made the national massively open online course coordinator for offering 
engineering courses at UG and PG level.

Dr. P.J. A. Alphonse, Head, Dept. of Computer Applications, reinforced that this course is the need of the hour as faculty and students transition into online learning with available resources. The next 
batch will include the faculty of the engineering colleges in and around trichy and faculty of the institutions covered under the margadharshan scheme.

Dr. B. Janet, course coordinator and member of SWAYAM task force at NITT, stated that this course used existing open-source resources and all the participants connected via different modes (laptops, Desktops 
and Mobiles). For those without connectivity, the recorded version of the course was made available for effective learning. Moodle, the open-source learning management system was explored by the 
participants as a tool to aid in synchronous and asynchronous learning. The other software included tools for student engagement in class, learning material generation such as quiz, mindmap, video, 
audio and animation. Game-based learning software was demonstrated. 

The participants were trained in outcome-based learning, lesson planning and a variety of pedagogic methods.  They submitted regular assignments and were graded based on their submissions and awarded a 
certificate of completionThe course ended with the demonstration of the participants of a 
virtual class using the softwares learned. Faculty from 17 different disciplines ranging from Journalism to Psychology to Science attended this course.  They were systematically trained in blended mode of 
teaching incorporating  both conceptual knowledge and behavioural aspects.

Dr. Sushama Bavle, Principal mLAC and Prof. Shoba Sunderesan thanked NIT, Tiruchirappalli for exclusively offering this course for their 50 women faculty.

The Coordinators are Dr. P. J. A. Alphonse, Dr. B. Janet, Dr. S. Sangeetha, Dr. R. Eswari from the Department of Computer Applications, NIT, Tiruchirapalli-620015.

NIT, Tiruchirapalli appointed as the National MOOCs Coordinator by MHRD

Ministry of Human Resource Development has appointed NIT, Tiruchirappalli as the
National MOOCs Coordinator for offering Engineering Courses at UG and PG level.
This recognition comes at a time when teaching and learning is moving to digital
platforms and there is great demand for good quality online courses.  NIT Trichy is 
the first Engineering Institute to be added as a National Coordinator, after the 
consortium of NPTEL, for developing Engineering courses.

Congratulating the Faculty, Students, Staff and Alumni of the Institute, Director, 
Prof. Mini Shaji Thomas informed that the courses planned by NIT Tiruchirappalli
will cater to  the needs of the Engineering students across India and the world.
The Institute is planning to produce videos of international quality and will utilize 
the expertise of the faculty available in the NIT system. She attributed this recognition
to the hard work put in by all stakeholders, Faculty, students, staff and alumni, 
which catapulted the Institute to the top 10 in Engineering and top 24 overall in the
NIRF Rankings, which is bringing in laurels, including the Supercomputing facility, 
Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship and the SWAYAM National Coordinator position.

SWAYAM is program initiated by GoI and designed to achieve the three cardinal 
principles of education policy viz., access, equity and quality. The objective of this 
effort is to take the best teaching learning resources to all, including the most
disadvantaged. SWAYAM seeks to bridge the digital divide for students who
have hitherto remained untouched by the digital revolution and have not been
able to join the mainstream of the knowledge economy. SWAYAM has courses
from 9th Class till

This is done through a platform that facilitates hosting of all the courses, taught in
classrooms from Class 9 till post-graduation to be accessed by anyone, anywhere 
at any time. All the courses are interactive, prepared by the best teachers in the 
country and are available, free of cost to any learner. More than 1,000 specially 
chosen faculty and teachers from across the country have participated in preparing 
these courses.

Already there are nine National Coordinators for SWAYAM,  AICTE (All India
Council for Technical Education) for self-paced and international courses,  NPTEL
(National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning) for Engineering, 
UGC (University Grants Commission) for non-technical post-graduation education,
CEC (Consortium for Educational Communication) for under-graduate education, 
NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training) for school education, 
NIOS (National Institute of Open Schooling) for school education,  IGNOU (Indira
Gandhi National Open University) for out-of-school students,  IIMB (Indian Institute of 
Management, Bangalore) for management studies,  NITTTR (National Institute of
Technical Teachers Training and Research) for Teacher Training programme. NIT
Tirucirappalli will be the 10th  National coordinator.

Courses delivered through SWAYAM are available free of cost to the learners, however
 learners wanting a SWAYAM certificate should register for the final proctored exams
that come at a fee and attend in-person at designated centres on specified dates. Eligibility
for the certificate will be announced on the course page and learners will get certificates
only if this criterion is matched. Universities/colleges approving credit transfer for these 
courses can use the marks/certificate obtained in these courses for the same.

UGC has already issued the UGC (Credit Framework for online learning courses through 
SWAYAM) Regulation 2016 advising the Universities to identify courses where credits
can be transferred on to the academic record of the students for courses done on
SWAYAM. AICTE has also put out gazette notification in 2016 and subsequently for adoption
of these courses for credit transfer. The current SWAYAM platform is developed by
Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and NPTEL, IIT Madras with the help of 
Google Inc. and Persistent Systems Ltd.