A global impact is been made by the ongoing Corona pandemic which has affected almost every sector, with education sector being one of the most impacted ones. We are living amidst what is potentially one of the greatest threats in our lifetime to global education, a gigantic educational crisis. Students across the globe are losing valuable time in their education during the imposed lockdown amidst fears of pandemic. The situation has forced the educational institutes to shut down temporary and the students to stay at home.
No wonder, the students as well as their parents feel emotionally and psychologically drained at this point of time. At such a time, the extended lockdown period and this pandemic has the potential to worsen these outcomes even more if we do not act fast.
Mansi Singh, student of First Year Fashion Design added “At a time when humanity is threatened by a deadly viral pandemic, we were looking at our teachers to get us through this crisis. And i can proudly say that like always, this time also, they didn’t let us down.” That’s why DIDT have come up with the idea of online classes for students to continue their respective academic years, instead of wasting time due to the delay in reopening of institution.
“We don’t grow when things are easy, we grow when we face challenges. Thanks to our teachers for teaching us this valuable lesson.” says Sneha Patel, student of Fashion Design.
A major factor that frames student life is a set routine comprising college, homework, co-curricular activities, and more studies with a dash of entertainment thrown in. But the ongoing lockdown and pandemic situation has completely been disrupted this routine. The boundaries between study time, play time and me-time are completely merged these days, owing to the governmental regulations.
Establishing a routine becomes crucial for students, especially while staying indoors the entire day, to which they are not used to. Our online sessions help to do just that. The students now can not only attend the online classes arranged from DIDT, they can remain in a routine, just like they used to be in pre lockdown days and can explore their creativity without any restrictions.
“Surprisingly I had a lot of fun in this lockdown period. there were so many interesting assignments which kept me occupied in creative work. My inspiration for design was cloud and because of which I started observing clouds daily and which turn out a great fun as it was such a great experience. Attending lectures were so fun, to see our teachers and to know more and exploring things.” says our Fashion Design student Yukta Gosavi.
This online environment offers unprecedented opportunities for students who would otherwise have been learning in the traditional ways. “I wish to share my experience of online learning initiative started by our lovely institute DIDT. The students got bored during the lockdown. so online sessions came as relief from boredom period of lockdown and we got to learn so much new things. Thanks you DIDT!.” said Ketki Kamble, our student of Fashion Design. It served as a new paradigm for our teachers in which dynamic teaching styles are being adopted by them to deliver the highest quality education, thereby overcoming the challenges put forth by the corona pandemic.
Aditi Borse, our Fashion Design student added “Due to lockdown learning was becoming difficult and study was completely stopped until online lectures started due to which it became very easy and interesting to learn and we had this new experience of technological based online working and many more.”
Fortunately, we are seeing a lot of creativity in our teachers as well as students. Rightly so, many parents are worried that relying exclusively on online strategies will imply reaching only students from better-off areas and not the remote ones. The appropriate strategy that we devised is to use all possible delivery modes with the infrastructure and technology that exists today. Use online tools to assure that lesson plans, videos, tutorials, and other resources are available for all our students, even for those who stay in remote locations or face connectivity issues, resources that require less data usage.
Mrs. Kanchan Singh, a parent perfectly summed up the scenario in her words as follows “DIDT managed the studies very well in this difficult pandemic situation. I am also attending the online sessions with my children and I can see that DIDT is not letting the learning and academics of students affected by the lockdown. The teachers are taking the sessions brilliantly and clearing all doubts as they arise and even giving time to the students to solve their doubts whenever they arises. I am very happy to see such devotion towards betterment of students.” Working with our all staff and team to constantly improvise in order to apply zero-delay and low data policies is facilitating the learning material to be downloaded on a smart phone, which more students are likely to have. “The online learning program by DIDT is very satisfactory as well as knowledge spreading. This institute gave an opportunity to increase knowledge of students in isolation situation. However the issues like poor network or other things were faced by the students somewhere. But the additional efforts taken by our teachers clarified all these issues.” said Rasika Bhamare, student of First year Fashion Design.
Maintaining the engagement of students, particularly in such stressful environment is critical. A long period of disengagement can result in a great loss. Going to college is not only about learning design and illustrations, but also about social relationships and peer-to-peer interactions. It is about learning to be a citizen and then a designer, and developing social skills which are required for lifetime. That is why it is important to stay connected with the college by any means necessary. For all students, this is also a time to develop socio-emotional skills and learn more about how to contribute to society as a citizen. The role of parents and family, which has always been extremely important, is critical in that task. So, we are encouraging parents to play an active role here. Website, Social media, SMS messages all being used by DIDT to provide tips and advice to them on how to better support their children.
Bhumika Singh, student of Fashion Design perfectly concluded this in her own words as follows “Due to lockdown the education system was disturbed. We were eager to learn and be in touch with our teachers and college. One thing what good happened in this time was that we got to learn new things and a closer look to see the things from a different perspective and learning became easy due to online sessions. During online lecture we got to learn about new apps and technology such as Autodesk sketchbook, PowerPoint, Canva etc which made our assignment work easy. In one of our assignment we were told to gather the information about the thing which inspired us and make designs out of it, initially I got scared but when I completed it I was so happy. I was nervous before but as I completed 1st assignment I got motivation and started getting interest in it and started completing my assignment as soon as I got them. At last I just want to say thank you too all my teacher staff who helped us, especially me in these quarantine days. Thanks a lot!!!”
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Images Respectively :
Shades of Autumn by Mansi Singh FY BSc Fashion Designing
Birds by Akangshai Singh FY BSc Fashion Designing
Clouds by Yukta Gosavi FY BSc Fashion Designing
Flowers by Sneha Patel FY BSc Fashion Designing
Floral by Ekta Ramjiyanil FY BSc Fashion Designing
Peacock by Bhumika Singh FY BSc Fashion Designing
Nature by Yoogita Rao FY BSc Fashion Designing
– Siddhartha Dharane
Faculty, Fashion Design Department
Wow, true feelings penned down on paper !!
Fulfillment of expectations of students, gives a sensational joy to any teacher !!
A true reward for a teacher. Awesome approach to have expressed your thoughts. 3 Cheers….