Best Practice 1
Title of the Practice:
- Faculty Development
Objectives of the Practice: When faculty members are motivated, energized, and capable, they can enhance the learning of the student and support his personal development. They are responsible for shaping the careers of the students. The underlying principles of faculty development are to motivate, energize and update faculty. The University shares with faculty members about the changes in educational philosophy, new patterns of student behaviour, use of technology in the teaching-learning process, recent developments in subject knowledge, and emerging research horizons.
The objectives of faculty development are to:
• Bring out an awareness among the faculty members about the global trends in higher education
• Adapt a new technology in the teaching-learning process
• Inculcate research skills and aptitude among faculty
• Developed student behaviour for improving the quality of teaching
• Transform a teacher into a competent facilitator
The Context: A well-groomed teacher can perform successfully and exceed the expectations of students. The learner centric philosophy of education and requirements of unexperienced faculty member who is yet to explore own teaching abilities often mismatch. Teachers for primary schools and for non-professional institutes undergo rigorous training; however, the same is not available for the tecchers of professional education, as it is desired to be tailor-made. Faculty development is a must to acquaint the faculty to institutional practices, to orient them to student centricity, to enrich the content, and to explore the research avenues. The training by experts provides them with an insight into the nuances of various processes; hence, faculty development is essential.
The Practice: The very purpose of faculty development is to prepare the teacher to meet the institutional requirements – academic and administrative, to adhere to the standardized practices in the learning-teaching activities, and to achieve the societal good. The various steps of the practice are as under:
Step 1: The training needs for faculty members were identified on the basis of the discussions and deliberations done through the meetings at the college with all the Heads of the Institute. A survey is carried out to explore expectations from the faculty for classroom delivery.
Step 2: Faculty development programmes (FDPs) are developed based on the understanding of requirements of different professional fields in addition to the identified areas for improvement. The FDPs are designed to meet the faculty needs at different times of the career span. The programmes carried out by college are: Orientation programme in the initial phase of the teaching career, discipline-specific training on regular interval to update the trends in the discipline, and research orientation programme. The faculty member is offered a blend of several modules, e.g., knowledge enrichment, student engagement, time management, communication, mentoring, leadership in classroom, team activities, articulation, presentation, research writing, etc.
Step 3: Programme schedule is designed based on the areas that require improvement.
Step 4: After finalizing the programme schedule, different experts are invited.
Step 5: During the training programme, the faculty members are guided by experts in various areas. In orientation programmes, the faculty are mentored based on the classroom delivery and learning of general and discipline-specific skills. They are motivated and oriented to become a life-long learner. The faculty members introspect on the course content, course delivery methods, teaching-learning strategies, pattern of evaluation, and map each component to recognize the flaws, if any.
Step 6: All the programmes have a feedback mechanism to know whether they have met the expectations and delivered as per the defined programmed outcomes, wherein the participants describe course effectiveness; achievement of learning outcomes, and feedback for the improvement.
Step 7: Faculty are continuously evaluated. Further, at the end of the programme, they take the test of learning. Finally, they are assigned to a mentor wherein they have to complete the assigned work for which they are evaluated by the mentor.
Evidence of Success: Faculty vitality is the main ingredient to enhance the professional education and competence of students. Enriching the faculty vitality in key domains of teaching, assessing, research, professionalism, and administration is well-known to significantly improve the educational environment and to increase the academic performance of learners. FDPs have been considered as a significant intervention for fostering the knowledge and professional skills of faculty. Faculty feedback indicates their enhanced level of confidence. The training programmes have shown smooth floating of a teacher in his classroom handling, approach to guiding students, improved personal communication, and inclination to research. The same is reflected in students performance. Prime Minister Shri ND Modi has rightly said: “Acche shikshak acchchi shiksha.”
In a unique case of paradigm shift in the mode of teaching from offline to online during the Covid-19 pandemic, Faculty Development Programmes helps to equip the faculty with all the desired skills that are required for increasing the effectiveness of online teaching. The result of this intervention was visible in the performance of faculty as well as students.
Problems Encountered and Resources Required:
Faculty development programmes are for the benefit of both the faculty and the institution. The content of training interventions varies on many aspects and the major constraint experienced is resource faculty availability. The faculty need to invest time in evolving various techniques for subject-specific delivery.
Though the practice has a lot of merits, there are certain challenges in developing faculty:
1. To bring the faculty members at the same level through the training modules.
2. To have experienced and qualified trainers.
3. To assess the learning and to evaluate training programme effectiveness.
BEST PRACTICE –II
- Title of the practice
- Yoga Camp.
- Communicative English Course.
- Objectives of the Practice
Objectives in respect of Yoga
❖ Yoga education helps in self discipline and self-control, leading to immense amount of awareness, concentration and higher level of consciousness.
❖ To have good health, yoga improves posture, increases intake of oxygen enhancing the functions of the entire body system.
❖ To improve respiration, energy and vitality.
❖ To prevent and relieve stress.
❖ To increase the strength of our body.
❖ To increase flexibility in all aspects.
Objectives in respect of Communicative English
1. Receptivity
i) Listening
❖ Adopt the course for the purpose of listening.
❖ Listen to a speech and understand the topic and main points.
❖ Listen for information required for a specific purpose.
❖ Understand and respond appropriately to instruction advice, request and warning.
❖ Understand and interpret spontaneous spoken discourse in familiar situation.
ii) Reading
❖ To read silently at varying speed depending on the purpose of reading.
❖ To adopt different strategies for different types of text, both literary & non-literary
. ❖ Recognize the organization of a text.
❖ Identify the main point of a text.
❖ Anticipate and predict what will come next in the text.
2. Expression
i) Speaking
❖ Speak intelligibly using appropriate word stress, sentence stress and intonation patterns.
❖ Narrate events and incidents real or imaginary in a logical sequence.
❖ Express and argue a point of view clearly and effectively.
❖ Convey messages effectively in person or by phone.
❖Take active part in group discussion, showing ability to express agreement.
❖ Present oral reports or summaries, make announcements, clearly and confidently
❖ Participate in spontaneous spoken discourse in familiar social situations.
ii) Writing
❖ Express ideas in clear and grammatically correct English using appropriate punctuation.
❖ Write in a style appropriate to communicative purposes.
❖ Write a clear description with respect to place, person etc.
❖ Compare and contrast ideas and arrive at conclusion.
❖ Summarise or make notes from a given text.
❖ Record information from one text type to another.
The context in respect of YOGA:
In the present context of conflicts arising among nations, races communities, political parties and various other segments, every human being is loaded with excessive stress in the process of his/her efforts to overcome the physical and psychological challenges. As a result, there is absence of harmony between mind and body in most of the individuals. Yoga is serving as a panacea for all the ills afflicting us. When yoga is practiced well, it is sure to bring about peace, calmness, tranquility and also serenity in us. It gives us the strength to see the world and the people in the right perspective with a sense of equanimity.
The context in respect of Communicative English
English as an international language is widely spoken in the business community around the world. The aim of this course is to enhance our ability to communicate with others in English, both as a teacher in our organization and as a student in our college. The course will help us develop the ability to read and understand documents in English and to create documents of our own which are appropriate for global business environment. It will also help us develop the ability to participate in business situations where English is spoken. Then we may be able to undertake number activities involving listening, speaking, reading and writing. Communicative English enables students of humanities, science and technology to express concepts and ideas in fluent English.
Evidence of success in respect of YOGA
❖ There is explicit evidence of success of this course on Yoga in the making of the personality of each student who is successfully trained to do the physical exercises and followed by deep meditation.
❖ The harmonious blending of mind and body enables the students to be free from physical sufferings and psychological disturbances.
❖ Yoga connects the ancient noble traditions with the present enabling the students to be conscious of the continuity of the enlightening aspect of the glorious past.
❖ The health benefits of Yoga are on with aerobic exercise as one of the best things you can do for mind, body and spirit.
❖ Through the course, the students should be able to imbibe ethical, moral, national and cultural values.
Evidence of success in respect of Communicative English
❖ In the present age of technological advancement and modernization of corporate sector, communication skills occupy a prominent place. Our course communicative English once successfully completed enables the student to get selected for important positions in national and multinational companies.
❖ Skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing to get exhibited at the time of interviews.
❖ In normal conversation, the students feel quite at case in using English.
❖ The students are able to be proficient in writing.
Problems encountered and resources required in respect of YOGA:
❖ Some of the students may be physically weak. They may find difficulties in doing all the prescribed Asana. The solution lies in exempting them from certain difficult exercises.
❖ Some students may not have inclination to get into field of yoga. Such students may be persuaded to understand the advantages of yoga.
❖ Some of the students may have habits which are not conducive to the effective practice of yoga. Counseling may be given in such cases.
Problems encountered and resources required in respect of Communicative English:
❖ The main problem in this course lies in training the Tamil medium students. The solution lies is not merely encouraging them with adequate counseling but also giving them special coaching classes for a period till they join the main stream.
❖ There are problems in teaching the students,' LSRW’ skills meaning-Listening, Speaking, Reading and writing .The solution is in training the students to speak in English while they are in campus from morning to evening.
❖ The students may be given the opportunity to use the system where special software is available for improving communicative English. Using spoken English Software solves all the problems of the students in learning communicative English.
