Personality Development and Life Skills(PDLS) Capsule for NCC officers

  

Personality Development and Life Skills(PDLS) Capsule for NCC Officers

 In one of our recent workshop held at the Officers Training Academy in Gwalior in which the team "The Transformers Value Creators" had facilitated a 2 days PDLS (Personality Development and Life Skills) capsule for the NCC Officers as a part of their refresher course.

This 2 days workshop included a group of 118 NCC officers in the average age group of 43 years and with an experience ranging from 10 to 25 years. Hence it was all together a very senior group of some of the most seasoned professionals.

Accordingly the PDLS workshop was planned in a way to add more value to the rich experience and technical expertise of these senior NCC Officers.

Day 1 was primarily all about self introspection along with self realization about one's potential, strengths and areas of improvement as a woman, as a NCC Officer and then being the ambassador of NCC.

Through number of interactive sessions, brainstorming, group discussions and many other simulative exercises and fun games some very crucial aspects and essential thoughts were provoked and promoted inclusive of :

• Role of women in all spheres of life.
• Sensitization on importance of Indian women and their significant contributions.
•  Sensitization on the crucial aspect of the need for the girls to be educated.
•   Involve the participants in some daring acts so as to help them reflect deeper in their lives from being a girl to growing up as a woman.

• Boost the morale of the ANO's by making them believe that can do everything and  excel in any sphere.
• Self reflections and self introspection to understand their strengths as an ANO.
• Sensitize the ANO's with their responsibilities along with mutual understanding of  other's point of view.
• Work on the ways for how to promote and instil the real essence of NCC.
• Practical ways to work in the direction of promoting NCC principles and work as per the guidelines.
• Have a deeper understanding of the essentials of being more planned, organized, proactive and well managed.

Day 2 was more about the connect between the NCC Officers and their cadets so as to facilitate them working together in harmony for the nations 'progress. 

In the same direction, through some more of experiential learning and outdoor sessions, sense of responsibility was instilled deeper amongst the NCC officers towards their cadets, respective educational institute, relevant army unit and all together towards the nation, based upon the following objectives:

• Sensitization of the gap existing in one's personality or way of dealing with people and situations due to lack of emotional intelligence.
• Why emotionally intelligent people are always preferred over others and highlight the very aspect of "conduct is more important than capability"

• Practical ways of instilling socio emotional learning amongst the ANO's and further within their cadets.
• Through different fun exercises help individuals work on the essential skills of self awareness, self management, decision making skills, relationship skills and social awareness.
• Sensitization of the need and the ways to promote the spirit of Nationalism amongst the youth and ways of working for the progress and development of the nation.

Finally the 2 days of the PDLS capsule concluded with some of the most enticing and captivating performances by the very versatile and multitalented NCC Officers in forms of poetry, songs, role plays and even dance performances to present their 2 days of learning in more creative and impressive ways. All together it was a great learning and absolutely enriching experience for all the NCC Officers and their facilitators which could be felt and realized stronger in the enthusiasm and wholehearted participation of all the very experienced and most competent Officers.

Teachers As Lifelong Learners!!!

Teachers As Lifelong Learners!!

Teaching is one of those rare professions’ that keeps one’s brain young, allows continuing one’s own journey as a student and a lifelong learner. 

Teaching is a job that encourages one’s own growth because to do it well requires one’s own continuous enhancement. Teaching provides that environment where one encounters people of different ethnicity and religions with different philosophies, learning styles and backgrounds which in turn helps one to grow as a person.

 Being a teacher allows learning something new; immerse oneself in a distinct universe with each project and so much more as-

-Each school year brings new people into one’s life.

-Each unit and lesson brings new perspectives.

-Each failure, when looked at formatively, can help solve new problems.
-Each success, when used reflectively, can be even greater, the next time.

The eight features which impact the effectiveness of teacher learning:

Life and career experience

Teachers are influenced by what goes on in their lives, both on a daily basis and over time. Their priorities and lives are therefore important. Each teacher also experiences their own individual career pattern that influences their desire and readiness to engage in improvement activities.

Beliefs

Individuals’ perceptions and actions about changing and developing their teaching are highly influenced by what they believe, as well as by their knowledge. 

Emotional well-being

Daniel Goleman (1996) has argued that emotional intelligence influences students’ self-concepts and motivation. But teaching is also full of emotions. A school’s readiness for change is influenced by teachers’ psychological state. As valuing individuals as people and valuing their contributions enhances teachers’ self-esteem and builds trust.

Knowledge

Another influence is the detailed and deep knowledge a teacher has on general pedagogy( style of teaching)  and pedagogical content, as well as their subject discipline(s). This incorporates knowledge about each students’ strengths, weaknesses, home background, cultural experiences, and learning styles. It also includes teachers’ understanding of how their “deep knowledge” interacts with the classroom context; and a self-awareness, that enables them to be conscious of their own thoughts, feelings, intentions and behaviours, and of other’s values.

Skills

As Bob Garmston and Bruce Wellman (1998) note, “Like the queen on a chessboard, the teacher with the most moves has the most options and the greatest degree of influence.” Individual teachers are influenced by the extent of their repertoire of teaching strategies and their ability to experiment with their own practice, by working through a learning cycle of: activity, reflection and evaluation, extracting meaning from a review and planning how to use the learning in future. In particular, when teachers plan for students’ learning, their “bag of tricks” includes tasks and processes to promote active learning, collaborative learning, learner responsibility and learning about learning, and skills related to handling relationships.

Motivation to learn

Motivation is the starting point for learning. For a busy and often overworked teacher to devote effort to change and new learning, there has to be a good reason for the change: some sort of catalyst or urgency – a sense that “what I’m doing doesn’t seem to be working”. Also, faced with a new teaching strategy, the teacher needs to know it is practical and useful - “relevant to me in my classroom with the students”.

Confidence that (s)he can make a real difference

Confident teachers believe that what they do and can makes a significant difference to their students’ progress and development at school and lives beyond school.

Sense of interdependence

Teaching has been described as the second most private activity, and yet the majority of humans are social animals with a need for connections, relationships, and social support. While many teachers may express individuality and choose, at times, to work and learn alone, some also see the potential within groups, and know they are their work benefit from collaboration.

Inculcating life skills amongst the rural youth: A 7-Days Workshop by The Transformers Value Creators

Inculcating Life Skills amongst Rural Youth: 

A 7-Days' Workshop by The Transformers Value Creators

The workshop was conducted by the Nehra Yuva Kendra Sangathan, Pinjore at the Gram Sachivalya, Bhoria Village, District Pinjore with the main objective to develop life skills amongst the rural youth with participants from 10 different villages across Pinjore and Kalka.

This workshop was further facilitated by The Transformers Value Creators, a nationally renowned life skills training and knowledge enterprise. The Transformers have been associated with the NYKS since last 2 years, wherein a number of workshops and training sessions have been organized in the past as well for their Zonal Directors, DYC's, NYV' s and Rural Youth.

The first day of this one week workshop on Life Skills, primarily emphasized upon instilling confidence amongst the youth by promoting self awareness and self motivation in which more focus was laid upon understanding one's own strengths and talents and boosting their morale to become more expressive and confident to share and discuss. This all was induced amongst the participants through different daring activities to unleash their hidden or real potential and sensitizing videos to facilitate students find their objective or goal and collaborate it with their strengths.

The second day was all about understanding one's own emotions, with emphasis upon valuing and managing emotions. On this day, participants were made to understand and realize their different emotions and related stimuli or response to each emotion. They were also enabled with the skill of prioritizing and making choices crucial for their age and stage of life.  Participants were also sensitized with the need to respect and value one's own emotion along with other's emotions.

Third day was all about anger management, where students were instilled with the sensitivity of the ill effects or the irreparable or permanent damages caused due to excess anger. Thereafter, the participants were facilitated with ways to control and manage anger through elaborate discussions and brainstorming sessions.  Furthermore, the participants were made to do various role plays which were based upon different themes provided to them, so as to understand how to respond or react to different crucial or problem situations.

Fourth Day was completely focused upon understanding the various life skills and their importance in life to have a balanced life and be success oriented. Participants were given different simulative situations where they had to express their individual ways to respond so as to have a deeper understanding of the need and role of various life skills in different circumstances. Participants were also instilled with stronger self realization for the need to overcome their weaknesses and boost their strengths by developing life skills.

Fifth Day was to develop positive thoughts and ideas by promoting creative and critical thought process for which the participants were involved in various energizing and engaging activities so as to instigate new ideas and ideologies. As a part of this session, the participants were also made to understand the various mindsets and different types of natural intelligence and ways to instill creative intelligence.

On the sixth day, the participants were enabled with very important skills of goal orientation and managing time. The participants were made to complete different time bound tasks individually and in groups to understand the importance of time and being focused towards their goal.  As a part of this session, the participants were also sensitized with the adverse impact of being distracted and loosing valuable time.

On the seventh day, i.e. the last day of this workshop, the participants were instilled with the importance and need of the girls to be educated and most importantly for both the genders to progress collectively. As a part of this session, to further evoke sense of responsibility amongst the participants, they were emphasized upon the dire need to stay away from addictions in life.

At the end of the seventh day, the participants were made to fill a questionnaire, so as to evaluate their complete 7-days of learning. Finally, the workshop was concluded with a formal closing ceremony, wherein the participants were rewarded with a participation certificate and were also acknowledged in front of their parents.

A Memorable Experience Worth Sharing !!

 

1.      A recent workshop on the theme to Enhance Personality through Character Building was conducted for the Upcoming Associate NCC Officers at the Officers Training Academy in Gwalior.

1.      This workshop, was designed in a way to instil maximum sensitivity, invoke new ideas, arouse deep seated emotions and reinforce ethical values to be induced deeper into one's character and further outshine in one's personality.

1.      Hence the main modus operandi for this workshop was based upon various experiential learnings instilled through various simulative exercises, brainstorming sessions, daring acts, fun games and various thought provoking and stimulating videos.

1.      To make it happen and to involve these upcoming ANO's in various fun games and simulative exercises, the very beautiful, conducive and unrestricted environment available within the NCC Officers Training Academy, Gwalior had a crucial part to contribute.

1.      The charismatic aura and magnanimous infrastructure available within the training academy, create that perfect enabling environment to make such informal and unconventional workshops shape up in the most effective way and instil maximum learning along with deeper understanding.

1.      Apart from the above, the other officers and the support staff, are really very cooperative and gave us all the freedom to operate and facilitate in our own way. There were absolutely no restrictions on us, infact we were all the more privileged to seek the best of the hospitality and all sort of extended support in terms of training aids, audio visual aids, digital support, infrastructure, open space for outdoor exercises and refreshments.

1.      We are personally really impressed with the courtesy and enduring hospitality extended to us within the workshop and beyond, right from we being escorted from the railway station to being dropped back, everybody and everything so well organized, well managed and most importantly so much in discipline.

1.      Talking about the participants of our workshop, who are the upcoming ANO'S from all over the country and have been part of this training program being conducted at NCC Officers Training Academy, were quite interactive and very participative.

1.      It was actually a big group of 109 participants, but then due to their most disciplined and organized ways to responding and operating to the various tasks and exercises in which they were involved wholeheartedly, made it really simple for us to go together hand in hand and make it a fruitful learning experience for them and as well as for us.

All credits once again goes to the very intellectual and dedicated inhouse instructors and trainers from the academy, who have been working with all that devotion to instil confidence within the participants through sharing of expert knowledge, inducing clarity of thought, provoking expression of speech and most importantly willingness to learn, know more and participate wholeheartedly.

All in all it was an absolute memorable experience for us as well, with some really prestigious moments of being honored by the commandant and other senior officers, along with sharing of exciting moments of expression, discussion and enthusiastic participation, along with some great learning from the very knowledgeable and skilled instructors and trainers at the NCC Officers Training Academy.

Brief about the Personality Development Drive held at Dr. Y S Parmar University of Horticulture & Forestry, Nauni, Solan.

In one of the recent endeavours of the Team Transformers, a series of residential workshops were conducted on personality development for the final year post graduate and post doctorate students at the Dr. Y S Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan.

From the very start of these workshops, there was always a strong query or doubt  prevailing, for what can actually be done to enhance, improve or develop the personalities of such hard core technical people, who's thoughts, ideas, perceptions, understanding was now more governed and was shaped up according to their area of specialization.

Under such doubtful circumstances where more of reluctance or casual approach could be felt or realized by the participants, it was very essential to immediately develop a strong rapport with them. To initiate this process of rapport building, the start of the 2 days workshop for each group of participants was an energizer or an ice breaking activity,  which helped to promote maximum alertness, presence of mind, provoke ideas and induce lots of brainstorming.

Immediately after the same, the participants were inspired to self introspect and understand their real strengths and areas of improvement so as to induce maximum self awareness. This further helped participants to have a deeper understanding of self which further induced self esteem and stronger self motivation.

Thereafter the participants were assigned some tasks which helped them unleash their individual talents, promote self expression and provide them with opportunities to brand themselves and prove their real worth or capability in action.

In the next session to develop positive thinking and make way for building of positive attitude, the participants were made to introspect and understand one's personal beliefs and  value system, which further induced clarity about:

Ø  Self Perception and Self Reliance

Ø  Understanding of one's own strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in life

Ø  Introspection and understanding of why someone has a specific personality and behaves differently

Ø  Freedom from lack of interest or unwillingness towards work and collaboration of one's personal values and ethics

Ø  Realization of need to enjoy what you do

To define our purpose of life and gain experience from mistakes

The participants also had a full fledge session on Emotional Intelligence, wherein with the help of special audio visuals and some other simulative exercises, the participants were helped in understanding and expression of self emotions. Further progressing in the same direction the participants were guided with the ways to manage emotions and develops the most essential skills of empathy, compassion, adaptability, flexibility and creativity to be emotionally smart or emotionally intelligent.

The participants were further put into various simulative situations of problem solving and decision making so as to further enhance their ability of goal setting, prioritizing and managing time. The participants were also emphasized upon the need to share, express and brainstorm matters of conflict and chaos.

In another very important session on effective communication skills the participants were involved in special exercises to promote attentive listening, maximum alertness, deeper understanding and stronger receptivity. The participants were instilled with deeper realization and stronger understanding of different styles of communication as per the role and situation. As the learning outcome of various energizers the participants were elaborated the essentials of non verbal cues, gestures, facial expressions and body language along with the para verbal aspects of tone, pitch, volume, voice quality, articulation, etc. 

In the concluding sessions of this program, the participants were sensitized with the most crucial aspects of overcoming gender disparity and stereotypes and balancing the variations existing due to generational gaps. The participants were also made to realize their responsibility, beyond self, towards their near and dear ones, the less privileged ones, the ignorant ones, the ones in pain and suffering, towards mother nature and most importantly towards it nation.

At the end the participants were even provided with this opportunity to present the learnings of this personality development program in their own unique styles with the aid of music, dance, poetry, story narration, pictorial presentation, graphical presentation, mime or role play.

At the valedictory of the personality development program of each respective batch, the participants themselves elaborated some of the most crucial learnings of "Being Action Oriented and Unleash your hidden traits or real personality by putting yourself in different challenging situations" and yes we the Team Transformers strongly believe that this was surely the initiation of a very strong change or personal transformation to be induced into one's personality on a permanent basis.