National Education Policy 2020 & Atma Nirbhar Bharat-PART 2 ( Importance of practical learning)
In Part 1, I shared about the positives of online classes due to flexibility, and richness in content through good online teaching tools that are easily available.
Having said that, it is still very important for students to attend their colleges to have hands on learning.
It is the time for flipped learning in blended fashion, i.e. have students work on practical’s in the morning for 4 hours, while the theory can be learnt later in the day, or from home with interactive software, or recorded videos.
For India to be atma nirbhar, and a global player in technology, more importance must be given to hands on learning, working on projects and product designs.
The new policy talks about Virtual Lab. This means that we adopt modern interactive PC based interactive and intelligent experimental setups rather than continue with old stand alone conventional setups.
The Virtual Lab is not a new coined name , it is already in existence but the utilization of these virtual labs for teaching and learning , conducting regular lectures over these virtual platforms is now on priority. This will make regular sessions which are to be conducted online more interesting. The take away of knowledge will be at higher level and will induct many skills like design skills , trouble shooting aptitude, selecting alternate options to perform task, etc.
Once the topics are well understood by students through digital means , they must work/experiment in real time in their college labs . It is a proven fact that unless one dirties ones hands , one cannot have a experiential learning.
The need of the time for colleges is to enhance their Lab Infrastructure with modern setups. A beautiful brick and mortar college building is not enough.
National Education Policy gives stress that every student has to perform experiment in real time individually. So far most colleges have had one experimental setup shared between 4 students.
This is not effective. Let us take the example of a car. A normal car can accommodate 4-5 passengers. There is one driver who drives the car and rest of the people are only sitting. The driver who drives, learns the real time driving skills and rest of the people are only doing passive learning or none at all. Some of them even may not understand how to drive. Thus 4 student performing experiment in group will never understand 100% . The one who is driving – doing the active role in experiment will learn something and there is high probability that rest of the partners will understand less than 25%.
Thus to have synergy with NEP and Atma Nirbhar Bharat Mission, the modern lab infrastructure in colleges will have to increase. We have to facilitate each student with experimental setups so that we strengthen each individual student.
To view some modern lab solutions, please visit www.ScientechLearning.com
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Thanks Mr.Sumedh & Mr.Jaydeep