Pedagogical Competences: Key to Effective Teaching-Learning

Pedagogical competence is defined as “the skill of an individual to practice a  coordinated, synergistic combination of concrete resources (e.g. instruction materials such  as books, articles, and cases and technology such as software and hardware) and  insubstantial resources  (e.g. knowledge, skills, experience) to attain efficiency”.

 It also presumes an insightful and critical method to teaching, learning and pedagogical development over time, as it is attached to one’s own professional role.

The  prominence  in  understanding pedagogical competence  should thus fall on the  combined features which outline the capability to solve pedagogical  problems and typical pedagogical responsibilities occurring in  situations  of  real  pedagogical  activities  by  applying  knowledge,  professional  and  life experience, values and talents in a creative way so to acquire suitable and operative results.

There exists various types of learning aids and learning medium. The three essential interaction processes that can be used are the visual, auditory and (hands-on) kinestetic processes.  Likewise, there is also diverse level of command of the learned knowledge. As per first level of command the student have perceived the concepts. In the next level the student can describe to others and in the most radical command level the student can practice, relate and combine knowledge.

The teacher should be able to understand these gradation levels and also being able to explain the practical meaning of these levels in their own fields of proficiencies. They should be able to cultivate different type of pedagogical tools and interaction approaches with the students in order to interact with the different learning approaches.

Pedagogical competence needs those teachers who actively think about and interrogate their own practices in the classroom, keeping in mind the possible strategies for engagement, and keenly selecting the methods that best fit their objectives and topics.

 Ms. Shikha Kukreja

Assistant Professor

Dept. of Communication Studies

Effective Time Managements for Students

Time is money .It is an essential resource; it is irrecoverable, Limited and dynamic. Time management refers to a range of skills, tools, and techniques used to manage time when accomplishing specific tasks, projects and goals. Initially, time management referred to just business or work activities, but eventually the term broadened to include personal activities as well as managing time for study.

Attributes of Time

• Time is most scarce resource in the universe

• Time cannot be accumulated like money

• Time cannot be turned on and off like Machine

• Time cannot be stock piled like raw materials

• Time passes at a pre-determined rate whatever happens

• Everybody is equally endowed with the same amount of it irrespective of his position.

Time Management Techniques for Students:

1. Study difficult or boring subjects first.
2. Be aware of best time of day—study when one will be alert.
3. Use waiting time (study note cards while on the bus or standing in line)
4. Use a regular study area or a library.
5. Pay attention to attention—are you focusing?
6. Get ready the night before
7. Notice how misuse of time occurs and change habits accordingly.
8. Agree with roommates or family members about study time.
9. If a task seems hard, get started. Half the battle is beginning.
10. Schedule time for errands, and for fun.
11. Start projects early rather than waiting until the last minute.
12. Allow flexibility in schedule.

Principles for Effective Time Management for Students:

The first step to good time management is to prioritize your tasks. To prioritize successfully one must develop weekly and long-term time management plans. One should develop a habit of minting weekly planner. This will help work out how many hours a week actually one have for study. This will allow the time space for unexpected works too. Student should create the list “to do” which is due soon and “not to do” which is not due soon. At the end of a specific periods. It is important for every responsible student to take evaluation of actual results of his / her actions and compare same with plans.

There are established habits and activities that affect the effective utilization of time. It should be avoided .Some of them are listed below.

1. Visitors
2. Procrastination
3. Unnecessary meetings with peers
4. Gossip
5. Indiscipline
6. Duplications of tasks
7. Energy
8. Handling more than one tasks / project
9. Wrong Decisions
10. Unproductive time of telephone/ mobile

Tips to avoid these activities and habits which affect the efficient utilization of time.

• Get off the phone!
• Notice how others distract you.
• Agree with housemates or family about your study time.
• Stay off the Internet.
• Learn to say no!
• Hang a “Do Not Disturb!” sign on your door.
• Ask “How did I just waste time?”
• Ask “Would I pay myself for what I’m doing right now?”
• Congratulate yourself for the work you have achieved.

Good time management is essential to success at graduation and post graduation level. Planning time allows spreading study over a session, avoiding a ‘traffic jam’ of study, and coping with study stress. Effective time management will improve study productivity, make scheduling of work easier on priority basis, use of skills at highest level and accomplish important task, record and guide the students towards achieving set goals.

Ms. Shruti Minocha

Assistant Professor

Department of Management Studies

Evolution of Marketing

Business has evolved significantly in the past 200 years, progressing through various phases of evolution. There has been a sea change in the concept of functioning of business. Businesses need to survive and grow and for these reasons new philosophies had to be derived and the existing ones were regarded obsolete. Prior to the Industrial Revolution in 1700’s, production was done by people in their homes. The Industrial revolution in the 1800 and 1900’s led to establishment of machinery and factories. This revolution helped to increase the number of goods and variations in the traditional products. Mass production coupled with advancements in technology and transportation meant that business houses needed a better strategy to sell their product which is very similar to the competitor’s product. This led to new and creative strategies to sell products. Following stages will give you an insight towards marketing stages:

First Stage: Production Era

Manufacturing was the prime focus at this stage. Business houses developed products they wanted to sell in the market and used to sell them to customers at a price. This concept was popular because of shortage of products in the market which led to supply creating its own demand.

Second Stage: The Sales Era

At this stage companies started to realize that more units can be sold if more efforts are done to focus on sales. Because the competition was growing, it became necessary for organizations to win over their competitors by selling more units. Sales promotion techniques were invented in this era where the “push” concept was developed which says that in order to sell products you have to push products in the market and convince the customers to buy them. Although an old concept, sales strategy is still used widely in many industries.

Third Stage: The Marketing Era

From the second half of the 20th century, the increasing cut throat competition led the organization to believe the sales concept has gone obsolete. A new concept named Marketing was born which implied that any organization should understand the needs of customers and then make the product accordingly so that customer needs are fulfilled. This concept brought a major change in the strategies of companies and also led to higher customer satisfaction. It was related to the “pull” concept wherein your product is so good that it attracts customers all by itself without much hassle of convincing the customers.

Forth Stage: The relationship Marketing Era

The relationship Marketing Era began with the notion that to focus only on customer satisfaction may not be enough for the company’s growth. There was a need to develop customer loyalty towards the brand to enhance and maintain the sales figures of a company. To achieve this, companies started to enhance relationships with their customers to make them feel connected to the brand. Companies realized that the cost of attracting a new customer is higher than keeping a customer happy.

Fifth Stage: The Social Marketing Era

Social marketing was developed in the 1970s, when Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman realized that the same marketing principles that were being used to sell products to consumers could be used to "sell" ideas, attitudes and behaviors. Social Marketing aims at changing the attitudes or behavior of customers for the betterment of society and not for the company itself.

These stages describe the journey of the marketing concept through all these years. Marketing continues to evolve and this concept is here to stay for long.

 Ms. Silky Gaur

Assistant Professor

Department of Management Studies

Green Computing is the Future

As the number of PC’s has approached to count of 2 Billion by 2015, the potential reserves related to energy usage, CO2 discharges and e-waste are undeniable. Therefore, the concept of green computing comes into apparition. The environmental effects of computing should be addressed:Green use, green disposal, green design, and green manufacturing.

Green Computing is the study and practice of environmentally sustainable computing or IT which includes designing, manufacturing, using, and disposing of computers, servers, and associated subsystems—such as storage devices, monitors, printers and networking and communications systems — efficiently and effectively with minimal or no impact on the environment(majorly efficient power consumption).

The goals of green computing are similar to green chemistry like dropping the usage of hazardous materials, maximizing energy efficiency during the product's lifetime, and stimulating the recyclability or biodegradability of obsolete products and factory waste. Green computing is significant for all types of systems, be it a handheld device or a large scale data centre.

Approaches to promote Green Computing:

Product’s Life: The biggest contribution to green computing usually is to extend the equipment's lifetime including upgradability and modularity as manufacturing a new PC makes a far bigger ecological footprint than manufacturing a new RAMunit to upgrade a present one.

Algorithm’s Efficiency: The efficiency of algorithms impacts on number of computer resources required for any computation and there are many proficient trade-offs in writing programs. Algorithm changes, such as shifting from a high time complexity (e.g. linear) search algorithm to a less time complexity (e.g. hashed or indexed) search algorithm can reduce resource utilization for a given job from substantial to zero and CO2 emission from systems.

Computer Virtualization: The process of operating multiple logical computer systems on same set of physical hardware. With virtualization, a system administrator can merge multiple tangible systems into virtual machines on one single, powerful system, thereby clearing the original hardware and eliminating power and cooling consumption. Virtualization can help in distributing work so that servers are either busy or placed in a low-power sleep mode.

Power Controlling: The Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI),delivers a facility to operating system to directly control the power-saving features of its underlying hardware. This permits a system to inevitably switch off components like monitors and hard drives after particular periods of inactivity. Also, a system may hibernate, when most components (including the CPU and the system RAM) are turned off.

Data Centers: Data centers, which have been critiqued for their excessive energy demand, are a primary focus for protagonists of green computing.Data centers can possibly improve their energy and space efficiency through techniques such as storage merging and virtualization. Many organizations are targeting to eliminate underutilized servers, which results in excessive energy consumption which can be achieved by training Data Center Administrators.With the help of a self-made super-efficient evaporative cooling technology, Google Inc. has been able to reduce its energy ingesting to 50% of that of the industry mediocre.

Cloud Computing: Cloud computing reports two major ICT dares related to Green computing – energy usage and resource consumption. Virtualization, Dynamic provisioning environment, multi-tenancy, green data center approaches are enabling cloud computing to lower carbon emissions and energy usage up to a great magnitude. Large and small businesses both can reduce their direct energy ingestion and carbon emanations by up to 30% and 90% respectively by moving certain on-premises applications into the cloud. One conjoint example includes online shopping that facilitates people purchase products and services over the Internet without requiring them to reach physical shop by driving all the way long and wasting fuels, which, in turn, reduces greenhouse gas emission related to travel.

Career in Green Computing:

Degree and PG programs, providing training in Information Technology which specializes in efforts for sustainable strategies to educate students how to build and maintain systems while eliminating harmful effects on nature. The Australian National University (ANU) offers "ICT Sustainability" as part of its IT and engineering PG programs. Athabasca University offer a similar course "Green ICT Strategies".  In the UK, Leeds Beckett University offers an “MSc Sustainable Computing program” in both full and part-time programme.

Green Computing Initiative - GCI offers the Certified Green Computing User Specialist (CGCUS), Certified Green Computing Architect (CGCA) and Certified Green Computing Professional (CGCP) certification.

Information Systems Examination Board (ISEB) Foundation Certificate in Green IT is correct for screening an overall understanding and wakefulness of green computing and where its application can be valuable.

Australian Computer Society (ACS) The ACS offers a certificate for "Green Technology Strategies" as part of the Computer Professional Education Program (CPEP). This certification requires a student to complete 12 weeks online course which includes written assignments too, organised by Tom Worthington.

Ms. Garima Verma

Assistant Professor
Deptt. of Information Technology 

Re-engineering of e-grocery units in India

Groceries sell irrespective of the state of the economy. Caught in the city's fast pace, tedious commuting and long working hours, many consumers don't have the time to buy groceries or would like to avoid the chore. This has led to opening of a large number of e-grocery units in the cities in India in the recent times.

However the e-grocery units are facing tumultuous times. Most of e- grocery units are either closing or scaling down their operations. The issues are related to low retailer margins, complex and expensive supply chain, ubiquitous presence of brick-and-mortar grocery stores and the prevailing consumer behavior.

The irony is, on one hand, the union budget, 2016-17, assures full support to the start ups in terms of tax exemptions in order to facilitate growth and employment generation; while on the other the units are forced to suspend or curtail operations.

The Mumbai based Local Banya announced temporary closure of its operations in October 2015. The reason stated being –technical up gradation of its services. However, they did not mention the duration of this up gradation schedule.

The next to follow was Grofers, the Gurgaon based Company which announced shutting down of its operations in nine cities. Earlier, Grofers had closed down operations in a few areas of the NCR which they later resumed.

The explanation offered by Saurabh Kumar, co-founder, Grofers was “We have closed operations in the following cities as we did not see these cities grow at the pace we expected. We are investing in areas where we are seeing great uptake,” The firm claimed to having stopped operations in a phased manner that included offering positions to the employees in other cities.

Flipkart’s devaluation by Morgan Stanley was followed by the closure of its e-grocery business. The Bengaluru based pilot project came to an end.”The project has run its course and the learning from this pilot will now be used for future operations” Flipkart said.

The latest case being that of online grocery business-Ola Store an enterprise  owned by Ola CabsAccording to Pinaki Mishra, (Business and Risk Advisory services) at Ernst & Young India “Many of these players haven’t got the business model right”. He opines that in order to survive in the Indian market, they need to change their business model .There has to be a regular source of revenue for maintaining the day-to-day operations. In addition, the customers must perceive the value addition offered.

Thin profit margins, resource crunch and inefficient business processes have forced these companies to revamp their operations. In this segment, the key success factors are shorter delivery times, attractive discounts /offers and good quality of the products. Hence the companies need to work on reducing the lead times and offer standardized quality products. They must attempt to broaden the spectrum of products.

In order to do so, the companies must maintain adequate buffer stocks. This is aptly brought out by the founder and CEO of Gurgaon based online grocery store Satvacart, Rahul Hari;” The grocery business cannot be run like a market place and be dependent on the offline grocery store. It has to be an inventory led model.”

 Vipul Parekh, co-founder of Big Basket emphatically states that “If you do not have inventory, you are no different from a courier company.”

In addition to maintaining adequate inventory levels, the companies must go in for mutually beneficial contracts with the suppliers; be it at the farm level/ the milling units (eg. Dhal mills, flour mills, sugar mills etc.). This backward integration would ensure smooth supply of fresh and good quality products. This would also help in removing bottlenecks in the supply chain and would eventually lead to shorter cycle times. In other words, there is a need to work on the business processes keeping in mind the rationale of JIT.

Hence, refining the business processes and the business model calls for radical re-thinking in order to sustain in the viable Indian market.

 Ms. Suchitra Srivastava

Associate Professor

Department of Management Studies

Impact of Budget 2016 on Salaried Class

Just less than 3 % of Indian population bears the total income tax burden of the country. Out of these 3.25 Crore people, 89% pay taxes in the tax slab of 0 – 5 Lakh. Salaried class bears most of the tax burden as tax is deducted at source by the employer. The impact of budget 2016 on this class is as follows:

In Budget 2016, the finance minister has increased the deduction limit of rent paid under section 80GG from Rs 24000 to Rs 60,000 p.a. A salaried employee who does not receive HRA as a part of his salary or self-employed assesses makes use of this deduction on account of payment of rent. It will save additional tax of Rs 3,708 to Rs.11,124 if they fall under 10% to 30% tax bracket. Currently, salaried individuals who receive HRA as part of salary and claiming deduction under section 10 of rent paid from salary income are not affected by this proposed change in tax law.

The finance minister has also increased the tax rebate given to individuals having taxable income equal to or less than Rs 5 lakh under section 87A from Rs 2000 to Rs 5000. This will benefit 2 crore small tax payers and will provide a relief of Rs 3090 in tax

Buying first house will now give an additional Rs 50,000 tax deduction under section 80EE  for interest paid if new house is acquired  in 2016-17, provided loan amount is not more than Rs. 35 lakhs and property value is not more than Rs 50 lakhs.First house borrowed with a home loan will give multiple tax benefits. These deductions not only reduce tax burden but also help in managing your cash flows .Tax advantage on Home Loan can be divided into three components:

1. Deduction available under Section 80C for Principal amount repaid.
2. Deduction available under Section 24(b) for Interest payment up toRs 2,00,000
3. Additional Deduction available under Section 80EE of Rs.50,000 in 2016-2017  as announced in budget 2016

No changes in tax slabs or increase in any deductions or exemption limits and this is a step towards widening the tax base by bringing more people under the tax net. Even after 68 years of Independence, no substantial steps have been taken to increase the tax net/base.

The budget proposes to partially tax EPF withdrawals. There was a lot of noise against this move of the government which will affect nearly 20% of salaried class. The principal amount will remain exempted and  60% of the interest earned on made after 1st April will be taxed at the time of withdrawal. The employees with wage limit of less than Rs.15000 per month , will not be affected by this new proposal. Public provident fund (PPF) will continue to be exempted. 40% of the NPS corpus will be tax free .The motive behind this is to increase its attractiveness from other retirement products.

Extension of time period from 3 to 5 years for availing Rs.2 lakh deduction has been one of the major demands of the real estate sector and is a good move as it will allow more people to avail the entire deductions. Earlier, for claiming deduction of Rs. 2 lakh a borrower had to complete the possession/construction of the house property within 3 years of taking the home loan, failing which the borrower could claim a deduction of only Rs.30000. Most of the developers failed to deliver the project within 3 years, as a result borrowers were not able to avail the deduction of Rs.2 lakh under section 24(b).

Dr. Ashok Sharma

Associate Professor

Department of Management Studies