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Why is JUST a 2-day TRAINING or WORKSHOP usually ineffective?
Firstly, such sessions probably create awareness and motivation, but not enough to transfer to their work place. And one remembers a famous quotation – motivation doesn't last long. So does bath! It has to be taken every day.
Secondly, emotions play a vital role in opening doors to change - which is what we expect from training. Whenever a college decides to train faculty, the possible thoughts or feelings trainees may have are:
- I know my job, I don't need training.
- Designed by someone, so it's not suitable for me.
- Nobody asked me what I need.
- This is going to be preaching, as though I am not good.
- This is going to be hard work, why should I do?
- Management wants this, I don't want.
- I am very interested and hope to get new skills that will make me even better.
The Curtain Raiser session tries to bring people to the last statement. Since their inputs are taken, it also makes them co-owners of the training program.
Curtain Raiser events are conducted in the form of a discussion cum presentation for 2 to 4 hours. The objective is to generate awareness of effective teaching methods and their impact on student outcomes. All faculty of the college can attend. There is no batch size limit.
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At the end of the Curtain raiser, when the college chooses to go for training, we direct them to an on-line profiling form. This is to understand the competencies, attitudes and needs of the faculty.
Based on the analysis of the profiles, batches are made for the sessions. We ensure that the trainees in a batch are aligned in attitude and expectations.
TheProfessor Team also meets some important stakeholders of the college and finds out their expectations from the training, within the broader perspective of college branding.
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Based on the faculty profiles, the existing system in the college and the students' competencies, customised faculty training courses are delivered on site. Some of the standard courses are listed below:
- STEPS - Simple Tips for Enabling Participation by Students is a set of methods tailored for making 60+ size classrooms enthusiastically involved in learning.
- BEST - Building Essential Skills for Teaching is for classroom management, lesson planning, explanation skills, and assessment.
- ClearConcept - This training enables faculty to facilitate active learning which brings about deeper understanding of the subjects in the students.
- HOT-T - Applicative and analytical skills, creative thinking and ability to evaluate various alternative solutions are called Higher Order Thinking (HOT). This is what generally employers are looking for. Faculty can learn strategies to encourage such thinking in their students
The training is a mixture of lectures, reading material, experiential learning, and individual as well as group exercises. The sessions are quite intensive and trainees are expected to attend in full.
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However interesting a training course is, deploying the new skills and knowledge in the classrooms is still challenging. To facilitate this process, we give sample lesson plans that help faculty make their own lessons. Microteaching, classroom observation and one-to-one mentoring are also offered.
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When a college wants to go the next level of quality and branding, faculty training is only a part of the efforts. Processes have to be put in place for strengthening many other facets like a 360 degree evaluation system, infrastructure, student attitudes and parent expectations. It is an integration of efforts by faculty, by management and by students with the support from parents and employers.
CollegePlus consists of the following components.
Brand Building through Curricular and Co-Curricular Quality
Consulting services and networking are provided for building the brand of the college in the society. This helps the college attract good students, good faculty and industry for recruitment. Conferences, Student meets, Knowledge Upgrade Seminars and Certification Courses are facilitated.
360° Evaluation
There is a well known management adage - You can't manage what you don't measure. Unless you measure something, you don't know if it is getting better or worse. And without that, you can't target improvement.
TheProfessor team engages with the college to identify what their goals are, what needs to be measured, how, when and by whom. And to simplify matters, this facility is offered through a web-based Software Service. All the detailed reports for management, faculty and parents are just a click away. It is like a dashboard that tells how the car is running.
Learn+ - Learning Strategies for students
Students are an integral part of the learning process - in fact they are the consumers of the process. Hence it is crucial to get their buy-in for any innovation. If they do not understand the benefits of deep learning and want to succeed in exams only through rote learning, all the initiatives may meet a roadblock.
When a college signs up for a long term engagement, TheProfessor offers sessions to students also. It creates enthusiasm and willingness to adopt new learning strategies that match the methods which faculty are about to use.
Information sessions for parents
Very often, the parents of students don't appreciate the new methods of teaching and may find it difficult to go against the usual rote learning approaches. TheProfessor team addresses the concerns of parents, if required, through information sessions.
