20 May 2020|Noida | Amity University, Noida
Contemporary Classrooms Decoded during webinar by Amity University
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A webinar on ‘Thinking inside the box: understanding how contemporary classrooms work’ was conducted by Dr. Craig Deed, Associate Professor, ASSC College of Arts, Social Sciences & Commerce La Trobe University. Dr. Deed shared his experience of teaching in various classrooms though his career and gave his thoughts on the durable idea of a classroom; what has changed and why; how to create a classroom.
“The classroom has been around for a long time. And there has to be a durable idea of the classroom. It’s important to ask whether kids have changed over the last few 100 years. If it’s a no then there is no need for the classrooms to change. The idea of a classroom remains and works in schools. But they look different now,” said Dr. Deed.
He further averred on how the varied factors affect the classroom including experience of learning; ideas; history; routine; culture; affordance; purpose and symbols. He also talked about the pedagogical drivers of change that focus on personalized learning; experiential learning; student-oriented learning; global orientation making them global citizens of the world and how schools are there wellbeing and holistic development of students.
“The socio-economic drivers of change include adaptable workforce; core skills and higher cognitive skills and focus on STEM/STEAM skills in school,” said Dr. Deed. With COVID-19 creating lot of challenges across the globe, the technological drivers of change gain significance including participatory and co-designed learning experiences; Immersive settings and multi-modal representation and communication. He also stated how educator led instruction was the most common form of teaching and learning prevalent.
A webinar on the ‘Impact of COVID 19 on HR Practices’ was conducted by Mr. Andreas Binnmyr, International HR and HR, Transformation Leader, Al-Futtaim, UAE. During his discourse, Mr. Binnmyr stated how COVID-19 is an unprecedented event and very different from the financial crisis of 2007-08. He discussed how economics hand-breaks have been applied on almost 10+ years of global growth. “Digital transformations and evolving business models will have a huge impact going ahead. Generational shifts and workforce demographics where the expectations of the future workforce will be different than the current status quo,” said Mr. Binnmyr.
Talking about the future in HR post covid-19, he averred that tomorrow will be there faster than one can imagine; the need for real HR is greater than ever; there will be focus on capability development and deployment; automation and transactional efficiency will be prominent and change management and organizational design will also undergo transformation and gain more significance.
“New and properly implemented technology will have a major impact post covid-19. There will be increased speed of automation, transformation pace will increase, there will be hunt for effectiveness and we will be embracing new ways of working post this pandemic,” said Mr. Binnmyr.
A lecture by Ms. Nousheen Mukhtar, CEO, Buraq Media Dubai was delivered on ‘Personal Branding During COVID 19’. While addressing the virtual attendees, Ms Mukhtar said that Purpose, Values, Practices and Behavior are the four terms that help one in self-discovery. “3 key components to determine brand strategy are distinctive, relevant and consistent. You need to address a problem as a brand because cause gives purpose. Plan of action is important as you need to be clear for your next step also. Recognize your strength and check what skills need to be strengthened. Passion with talent, Goals with aspirations, Problems with solution are the road map are your ingredients for branding yourself. Recognize strengths; skills foundation and learnings; understand target audience and assess competition and market,” said Ms. Mukhtar. She also advised students to experiment as it is important to know the reaction of people towards your brand.
She asked students to build their own spark and create attractive message or content. “Be authentic and don't go negative for your own self. Also it is important to have social media presence which connects you with many people. Build your website and once you have given message on social media platform then speak on stage, like a webinar. Share your experience and write a book of your journey. This will help people to believe you. Create people like yourself as this will empower you. This is the peak time of your branding,” added Ms. Mukhtar.