COVID 2019 - ROLE OF FACULTY MEMBERS TO KEEP MENTAL ACTIVENESS OF STUDENTS.

World Health Organization (WHO), declares as on March 30, 2020, globally 693,282 confirmed cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which includes 33,106 deceased (https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200330-sitrep-70-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=7e0fe3f8_4; Coronavirus Outbreak, 2020a,b). The virus was first identified in Wuhan state of China during December 2019 and it was started to spread across the globe. The virus will affect the respiratory system with fever and cough (Wuhan Municipal Health and Health Commission, 2020). The World Health organization (WHO) termed this virus as 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV). Though, initial patients were due to animal-to-person transmission and Sooner more cases were reported are medical staff and others, indicates human-to-human transmission of virus (Liu et al., 2020). The virus mainly spread via respiratory droplets from sneezing or cough of infected people during close contact with others.

In India, the first case was reported in the last week of January 2020 (https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/kerala-reports-first-confirmed-novel-coronavirus-case-in-india-1641593-2020-01-30). The outbreak has been declared an epidemic by World Health organization (WHO). To reduce the spread of the virus, the Government of India issued the various guidelines include hand hygiene practices, wearing masks, avoiding public gathering, social distancing and quarantines etc. and through different media, the message has been broadcasted to all the people (https://www.livemint.com/news/india/govt-calls-for-social-distancing-as-confirmed-coronavirus-cases-rise-to-124-11584384445401.html).

During the 2nd and 3rd week of March 2020, many State Government were shut down the educational institutions including schools and colleges upto 31.03.2020. On 22.03.2020, as insisted by the Prime Minister, India has observed a 14 -h voluntary public curfew. On 24.03.2020, considering the nature of virus spreading, the Prime Minister of India announced a complete nationwide lockdown, starting from midnight for 21 days till 14.04.2020 (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/india-coronavirus-lockdown-modi-speech-cases-update-news-a9421491.html). As the Health of the Nation is very important and social distancing reduce the spread of the virus, the steps taken by the Indian Government are highly appreciable.

From the above facts, it is observed that more than 4 weeks has been declared holiday to the student’s fraternity. In general, the classes for the Even semester will be held between December to March and in April End Semester Examination will be conducted. During even semester festivals including Christmas, New year, Pongal will be celebrated. Also, Co-curricular and Extra-curricular activities including Cultural, Sports, Hostel Day, Institute day, Department symposium etc., are also conducted during this semester. As the part of performance evaluation, Internal assessment, Model examinations, Laboratory examinations, semester examinations etc are also conducted in March.

In this present scenario, if the students are not attending the classes, then the students will spend their time in watching Television, playing games, internet surfing, chatting etc. The Faculty member plays a vital role in keeping the young budding professional in active mode. The students are to be engaged in a proper manner and they have to utilize this time in a productive manner.

On 25.03.2020, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has issued the circular in connection with ICT initiatives of MHRD and UGC (https://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/1573010_On-Line-Learning---ICT-initiatives-of-MHRD-and-UGC.pdf). These initiatives are highly informative to the Faculty members and the students to enhance their knowledge either in their fundamentals course (or) in advanced course (or) in preparing for a competitive examination (or) in a specific field of his / her interest. The initiatives include:

Swayam Online Courses

UG/PG MOOCs

e-PG Pathshala

e-Content courseware in UG Subjects

Swayamprabha

CEC-UGC Youtube channel

National Digital Library

Shodhganga

e-Shodh Sindhu

Vidwan

However, if the faculty members want to disseminate knowledge in their course to the respective students, the following online methods can be adopted for various steps in Teaching-Learning process.

TEACHING

Teaching can be either Offline or Online. In offline mode, the lecture video will be recorded using powerpoint, webcam with good quality noise cancellation microphone. A digital drawing tablet with pen would add value for mathematical teaching, derivation, numerical examples etc. The video can be uploaded in YouTube and the link can be shared to the students. The limitation is the faculty member cannot ensure whether all the students viewed the lecture video or not.

In Online mode, tools like Google Hangout, Skype, Zoom etc can be used. The faculty member can schedule an online class and ask all the students to present. This would require a good broadband internet connection for video streaming. The faculty member can able to clarify the doubts raised by the students.

ASSIGNMENTS AND EVALUATION

After the classes, in order to understand and evaluate the student, online assignments and online evaluation can be made. The quiz can be created using Google Forms, either multiple choice question or short answer. The faculty members can able to provide feedback, marks secured, instruction etc.

PEER GROUP INTERACTION

With the help of Microsoft Teams, the students can collaborate and do group assignments, prepare and edit of their project report. For student interactions among themselves, they can use Google Hangouts, Skype, Zoom etc. Social media like Facebook, WhatsApp etc., can also be used without invading their privacy.

RESOURCE SHARING

Lecture materials, notes, presentation, short videos and other related information can be shared to the students using Blackboard, or Google Classroom, Moodle etc.

Though, many ICT tools are widely available (https://en.todaysteachingtools.com/list-of-ict-tools.html), to the best of the knowledge of the authors, a list of ICT tools to engage the students actively inside the classroom and outside the classroom are given below (in Alphabetical order). ICT tools includes

Conclusion

In this situation, as per the direction of Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), India, the faculty member should engage the students academically through online for the benefit of their career. Also, the faculty members should engage themselves actively in upgrading their knowledge, writing research papers, attending webinars etc. This will gain their confidence. Also, students will be in phase with the academic calendar. This constant student engagement activity will strengthen the Teaching-Learning and it is sure that it will break the chain of spreading of COVID 2019.

Funding Statement

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Contributors

All authors contributed equally.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

A. Web conferencing to conduct online class	D. Online collaboration for project report preparation
1 Apache OpenMeeting 2 Google Hangouts 3 Skype 4 WebEx 5 Zoom	1 Google Docs 2 Google Slides 3 Google Spreadsheets
B. Learning Management System
1 Canvas 2 Edmodo 3 Google Classroom	E. Assessments
	1 BookWidgets 2 Classkick 3 Classmarker 4 Flipgrid 5 Formative 6 Google Forms 7 Kahoot 8 Plickers 9 Quizstud 10 Socrative 11 SurveyMonkey
C. Presentations1 Google Slides 2 Mentimeter 3 Microsoft Powerpoint 4 Nearpod 5 Prezi 6 SlideShare