Page 24 - Kinneret Academic College Amid Covid-19

“second wave”. Consequently, because the mandatory participation
required in the Engineering School is 80%, it was necessary to register
the virus for my course “Quality Management Systems” reluctantly
and forced us all to buckle down and “give it an appropriate answer “
and “as we go”.
What does this mean? it means that all academic and administrative
staff had to be synchronized in real time through many updates, from
how to use online teaching software to adapting academic content
for teaching on Zoom. In addition, many questions from students
asking for clarifications had to immediately be answered in order to
allow for a smooth and continuous teaching operation as well as for
various and diverse set of exams.
In addition- Since the semester in our department ends earlier than
other departments and the exam period also begins earlier as well
(we also teach a summer semester), we were the pioneers and had
to prepare before all other departments. This implied to both our
successes and the challenges that arose (In the language of quality it is
called “potential for improvement”) which would happen before other
departments. And indeed there were. The challenges we experienced
during this period were met with creative solutions through the
coordination between lecturers, partnered with colleagues from
other departments. We also shared challenges and issues so we could
come up with ideas and solutions that we may not have thought of
and to learn from one another. In the quality language we call this
BENCHMARKING. If one of the COVID-19 viruses were indeed able to
participate in the Zoom course “Quality Management Systems” and
were able to listen, it would learn that during the course we learned
that employees on collaborative thinking teams can produce great
products. Sometimes, much more effective than the thinking of a
single employee.

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