Ananya Kumari

Geetesh Mahobia
Sunidhi Pandey
Vaishali Gupta
Sagar Vijay

Live Project: The Experience of 1st Year MBA Students (2020-

22) on Online Learning

Introduction:

The journey of two year MBA program is very crucial and memorable for each and every student as for
most of the students this is the last and final stage of student life. From these two years every student
has some expectations from the B- school that he/she has gone to, But this year as we all know is not
the same as every year it use to be. Everything since from entrance exam to induction has been
conducted virtually and all one can experience is in front of a laptop screen.

But despite all the constraints, we IFMR GSB KREA UNIVERSITY along with the support of esteemed
faculty members, committed non teaching staff members and positive attitude of students have been
able to follow the curriculum successfully. As we are going along it is important to know the journey of
first year students about how things are going for them and what all can be done to improve the
learning process.

Data Collection:

We started this project by first interacting with them casually and then we did a survey for taking their
viewpoints about the learning experience so far, we got total 50 responses from them and here are the
survey results:

Which type of projects do you prefer?

22%

78%

Yes No

78% students agreed to have group projects, whereas 28% preferred individual assignments
 How satisfied are you with the online teaching methods?
60.00%
51.40%
50.00%

40.00%

30.00%

20.00% 17.10% 17.10%

14.10%

10.00%

0.00%
0.00%
1 2 3 4 5

-10.00%

Almost 50% students stated that they are moderately satisfied with the online teaching method, 14.1%
stated they were a bit satisfied. Whereas 34.2% showed dissatisfaction, rating 2 or 1, and no student
gave a rating of complete satisfaction (5).

5 being the highest rating, and 1 the lowest

To what extent do faculties try to help/clear your doubts?

60%

50% 49%

40%

30% 26% 26%

20%

10%
0% 0%
0%
1 2 3 4 5

25.7% students showed complete satisfaction towards

 How satisfied are you with online exams?
35.00%
31.40%
30.00% 28.60%

24.70%
25.00%

20.00%

15.00%
11.40%
10.00%

5.00% 2.90%

0.00%
1 2 3 4 5

How satisfied are you with your evaluation process in

test/quizzes?
50.00%
45.70%
45.00%
40.00%
35.00%
30.00% 28.60%

25.00%
20.00%
14.30%
15.00%
10.00% 8.60%

5.00% 2.90%
0.00%
1 2 3 4 5

Would you like to have breaks in between the class?

 Yes No

Yes
100%
100%

What must be the duration of the breaks?

(in minutes)
70.00%

60.00% 57.70%

50.00%

40.00%

30.00%
23.50%
20.00% 18.80%

10.00%

0.00%
5 10 15
 What is you interaction level with your peers?
60.00%

50.00% 48.60%

40.00%

31.40%
30.00%

20.00%
14.30%

10.00%
2.90% 2.90%
0.00%
1 2 3 4 5

How often would you like to have doubt clearing sessions?

80.00%
74.30%
70.00%

60.00%

50.00%

40.00%

30.00%

20.00% 17.10%

10.00% 5.70%
2.90%
0.00%
bi-monthly monthly bi-weekly weekly
 How satisfied are you with the E-Books?
1800.00% 17.1

1600.00%

1400.00%

1200.00% 11.4

1000.00%

800.00%

600.00%

400.00%

200.00%
0.71
0 0
0.00%
1 2 3 4 5

Would you like to have feedback after every quiz regarding your
answers/ areas of improvement by faculty/TA?
No

Yes
Any suggestions to improve your online experience?

 Classes to be of 60 mins
 Slow up a little bit. Some faculties teach in such a hurry that we are unable to cope with
their speed. Like Nagarani ma'am.
 Given the situation, we already have to spend a lot of screen time. So the projects and
assignments should be limited to what is absolutely necessary for evaluation. Also, e-
books don't help much. It only puts more strain on the eyes.
 Conducting quizzes and assignments should be done is a systematic manner. All these
should be spelt out at the beginning of the week (max by Tuesday even though the
subject is not yet covered) and should be collected with a deadline of week end so that all
the students can plan their schedule accordingly.
 Quiz should be conducted at a uniform time for all sections. It was noted that in some
subjects the timing of the quiz differed for some sections.
 Physical Books should be provided.
 C&C activities should be allowed to kick in with other activities.
 For Group projects team members should be allowed to collaborate with other sections
too so as to enable peer learning and also break the ice. This is because since the day
sections are formed people are confined to their sections and thus many of us don’t know
our batch mates from other sections.
 Weekly sessions should be conducted along with the presence of faculties from
respective Subject areas so as to discuss the things happening in the corporate market,
discussing strategies implemented by the corporates, discussing key events like RBI
policy meets etc.

Data Analysis:
So from the above survey it is clear that there are some gaps which needs to be fulfilled.

Students don’t expect only theoretical knowledge but also practical applications of those concepts
which is now a days become more difficult to absorb as they are having online classes/ lectures.
• As everything went online, MBA first year students are expecting to have some project that has
practical applications of the concepts they are learning.   
•Despite of having classes of 1.5 hours, it will be better to have classes of 1 hour.
•Classes should not be monotonous with continuous delivering of concepts and theory, there must be
some video or audio player related to topic so that they find the class interesting and can absorb things
better
•They want some class projects/activities with video on so that they know their batch mate in a better
way.
•They have never been to college campus and explore the real MBA environment, so to have better
experience of this programme they want take part in extracurricular activities organised by clubs and
committees. They want some events that can be organised virtually so that they take part.
•They are expecting the faculties to be easily approachable in case of any queries.
  One thing that came from during the interaction with the students that it is quite difficult to manage
their time as when we are at home we have some personal commitments to fulfill, so when there are
some quizzes or projects are there it is quite difficult for them to concentrate and meet the deadline.
 The man problem which they are facing is there are too many things at a time, like in one week
quizzes, assignments, projects and after 2 days exams are there.

Recommendations:
1. Make it a Group Effort
2. Focus on Active Learning
3. “Chunk the Lessons”
4. Keep Group Sizes Small
5. Parse the duration of classes
6. Embrace “Multimedia Assignments”
7. Teach as if there were “no walls”
8. Foster Lively interaction
9. Engage the passive students
10. Play short games
11. Keep a consistent line of communication with the students
12. Incorporate Feedback from students
13. Setting a time each week for students to just connect and chat. This might be Tuesday tea or a
weekly chat and chew. 
14. Teachers also should provide timely, relevant, and actionable feedback.
15. Diversify the assessment methods.
16. Embrace a synchronous/asynchronous blend

Conclusion:
Teachers across the globe made a rapid transition to online learning in 2020.Online classes are very
different from traditional classrooms, so they need a very different approach. Since the students are not
physically present, their needs are different and the teachers or faculities need to support them by
putting themselves in their shoes. Giving clear instructions, guidelines and boundaries, alongside
clarifying how the course will be structured will help you create and maintain a good teaching
environment. 

The online classroom is different enough from the traditional one that faculty members and adjuncts
need to create courses for digital delivery that are substantially different from those they teach on
campus. And they said teaching online requires an even keener focus on student engagement than the
face-to-face model does. Teachers can also try to create the course with a mix spurts of discussions,
collaboration, video and audio clips, and hands-on exercises with text and possibly brief video lectures.