Write an article on ‘The New-Normal’
Answers
Answer:
COVID-19 is bringing about a whole set of new challenges in every possible realm; higher education being just one. Given the rapidly evolving situation around the pandemic, has this forced shift from offline to online mode of teaching-learning given us a peek into the reality ahead? How will COVID-19 transform the future of teaching-learning?
Technology-enabled teaching is definitely the future we are looking towards, but will it be easy to make this transition? How should different stakeholders contribute to ensure a smooth transition?
It is important to identify key challenges for students and teachers in the current scenario. Once identified, academic leadership and the government can address these through innovations in focus areas. Here is a list:
Semester completion
Challenge: Since neither students nor teachers were prepared for this sudden lockdown, it has become difficult for them to continue as per the original plan.
Focus area: Emphasis should be given to develop a robust plan in order to complete semesters and ensure degree completion of final-year students. The academic plan needs to be modified in order to suit the current situation, changing both teaching and assessment methods. Shift from offline to online methods should be encouraged — building technology infrastructure to deliver content, strengthening the existing Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) content platforms like Swayam, along with promoting innovative personalised teaching-learning platforms, teacher training and student awareness will be key. As a short-term solution, allowing course completion via Swayam as a substitute for course requirements within universities can address this crisis.
In the long run, these investments will help ensure personalised teaching-learning in the classroom, along with reducing the workload on the teacher. However, ed-tech models pose a huge scalability challenge given the limited Internet penetration. Hence, a blend of traditional and online methods of teaching-learning could emerge as the more feasible and scalable model.
Jobs and internship opportunities
Challenge: Some companies are rescinding job/internship offers after being negatively impacted by COVID-19. Junior students are finding it harder to find internships, especially foreign research opportunities, which play a key role in interdisciplinary research and exposure to global research facilities.
Focus area: New project opportunities by universities and within government institutions should be floated and due recognition given. In the long run, leadership within universities and government institutions should push policies to motivate and support an entrepreneurial ecosystem within colleges by setting up more innovation and incubation centres, grants/fellowships to pursue start-up ideas and flexible policies for deferred placement for start-up enthusiasts.
Psychological disturbance
Challenge: It is normal for faculty and students to undergo stress because of the uncertainty they are facing. Not being able to carry on with a set routine will further add to their anxiety and affect their mental health.
Focus area: A proper psychological support system needs to be established through courses/curriculum and training. Focus should be on maintaining mental well-being in these difficult times.
Innovation through research
(COVID-19-related research)
Challenge: Even though many students and faculty are coming together to find a solution to COVID-19, the lack of financial support in the form of a dedicated COVID-19 research grant might hold them back.
Focus area: Faculty and students should be encouraged to undertake research, and proper funding for it should be ensured by the university, industry and government Institutions
Answer:
the new norma
Explanation:
New thinking will be required to adapt to the new normal life post COVID-19.
I hate to start this article on a negative note, but we are not going to back to normal after this extended period of lockdown. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed, and will continue to change, the world and the way we work, rest and play. Some readers might be old enough to recognise I have stolen those words from a certain chocolate bar’s advertising strapline which helps you to ‘WORK, REST and PLAY’. Borrowing from the impactful worlds, COVID-19 has completely changed the way the planet works, rests and plays.
So ‘going back’ to the way we were before COVID-19 is not an option. The challenge, and I think the opportunity, is now to start the process of thinking about a ‘new normal’.
“We cannot re-write the chapters of history already past, but we can learn from them, evolve and adapt. The new normal may even be a better normal, certainly a different normal”
New normal: life post COVID-19
A quote from Ian Davis, Managing Partner at McKinsey, in his article ‘The New Normal’, summarises this: “For some organisations, near-term survival is the only agenda item. Others are peering through the fog of uncertainty, thinking about how to position themselves once the crisis has passed and things return to normal. The question is, ‘What will normal look like?’. While no one can say how long the crisis will last, what we find on the other side will not look like the normal of recent years.”
These words were written 11 years ago, during the global financial crisis, but they could easily have been written about the current COVID-19 pandemic. We have faced many challenges as a human race and overcome them, however the other side of each of these challenges has looked very different.
This pandemic challenge we will get through, but we must face the fact that this will dramatically change the way we work, rest and play.
Theory of environmental analysis
To help think about what the new normal could look like, I have used a theory of environmental analysis first coined in 1987 for the US Army War College to describe different types of battle zone conditions. In the last few years, this principle has been picked up by many leadership experts and related the idea of the VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world to a corporate setting. If you Google VUCA, you will find much sage advice on what to do when faced with these four different situations.
I have highlighted a short synopsis of the conventional wisdom for each situation and contrasted that with an alternative view for the new normal world we will be creating soon. The definitions have been adapted from the Cambridge English Dictionary, 2020.
V for VOLATILE
Definition: Likely to change suddenly and unexpectedly, especially by getting worse.
Food and essential supplies have been in a volatile state of availability since lockdown.
The situation was made more volatile by the fact that people were not sticking to the instructions to stay at home.
Definition: Likely to change emotional state very suddenly, especially by becoming angry.
She had a volatile temper and could be difficult to work with virtually.
He has a volatile nature and can be unreliable and unpredictable.
Conventional old school wisdom: Counteract volatility with stability.
Post COVID-19 new thinking: How can we leverage the volatile world to look at new ways of working? Stability is good, but rarely a fertile space for innovation and creativity. The new normal will be different, and how we approach this volatile time will depend on how we adapt. To adapt means to change so let us think proactively about how that change might look.
U for UNCERTAIN
Definition: Not knowing what to know or believe, or not able to decide about something.
She is uncertain about whether she should take the dog to the park in lockdown.
He was uncertain whether to wear a face mask or not.
Definition: Not known or fixed, or