by Prashant K. Nanda, Live Mint
For us the most important thing is: have the students learnt. I think the quality of a pure online course can be better than the quality of an on-campus course. The pure lecture form of education is not working these days. In the online format, it could be more engaging. What we do is replace the lecture with learning sequences, inter-linked videos and interactive exercises. We introduced a games lab, allowed social forums for discussions, virtual labs and we promote use of simulation. The quality of our courses is good, but I believe we can improve further. We can teach through blended learning—a mix of both classroom and online—for a better result. Last August, we did an experiment in a university to offer blended courses—the results were stunning. Traditionally, the courses have a 59% pass rate, in the blended class it touched 91%. I think online education with a little bit of campus is a better model than 100% campus. I think 90% of virtual lab and 10% of physical lab is better. On the virtual lab, the number of experiments one can do is immense and it does not have limitations.
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