A three-day workshop i.e. 5th to 7th April 2015 entitled Quality Improvement Programme on Training Teachers for Tomorrow’s Need was organised by Association of Pharmaceutical Teachers of India

Himachal Pradesh, April 20, 2015 – A three-day workshop i.e. 5^th to 7^th April 2015 entitled Quality Improvement Programme on Training Teachers for Tomorrow’s Need was organised by Association of Pharmaceutical Teachers of India-HP State Branch in association with Laureate Institute of Pharmacy, Kathog, Jawalaji and Himachal Pradesh Technical University, Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh.

The Workshop was undertaken as a part of Quality Improvement Programme aimed at strengthening teaching and assessment skills of the teachers.

This workshop aimed at improving the teaching/ assessment skills of the teachers. The purpose of the course was to train all the staff of the pharmacy institute’s situated in Himachal Pradesh to improve confidence, comfort and enthusiasm in their profession.

The workshop was held at the Conference Hall of Laureate Institute of Pharmacy. The venue was suitable for the training and service was good.

The workshop was inaugurated by chief guest Mr. Manoj Kumar (HAS), Registrar, Himachal Pradesh Technical University. The guest of honor for the day was Dr. Ran Singh, Managing Director, Laureate Institute of Pharmacy, Dr. Ranjit Singh, President, HP-APTI, Dr. L Raju, Vice President, HP-APTI and Dr. M S Ashawat, Principal, Laureate Institute of Pharmacy. Dr. Kusum Devi acted as Facilitator of the workshop.

Dr. M. S Ganachari, Dr. N.N Sharma (Dean, HPTU), Dr. R.S Thakur, Dr. Rashmi Ramaul and Dr. V. Kusum Devi have acted as resource persons along with the facilitators. Dr. Vinay Pandit and Dr. Dharmendra Kumar acted as co-ordinators of the event

The course was divided into two main parts: 1) An introduction to how to apply teaching/learning skills in effective teaching and practicing it by delivering microteaching sessions and 2) Evaluation methods of learning outcome

15 participants have participated in the workshop. Participants’ teaching/ learning skills was evaluated before the workshop by administering a pre-test questionnaire. Most of the participants were not familiar with the skills prior to attending the course.

The participants are divided into 4 groups and each group was given different group tasks relevant to the sessions and one representative of the group presented their report on the group tasks after discussing with the peers. The groups were shuffled after each session.

Programme Details

On Day 1 participants learnt what the educational objectives are and why they are important. They are introduced to basic terminologies such as knowledge, attitude and skills, given guidance on different taxonomic domains, lesson plan etc., and group work on educational objectives.

In the afternoon the session on Teaching Learning Tools & media allowed the participants to become familiar with modern tools employed in effective classroom teaching. Further the participants are also exposed to Objective Structured Practical Exam (OSPE) as a learning tool. During this session, on the basis of various problems associated with practical examination especially in terms of their outcome, participants are exposed to the method which has specific objective, reliability, validity, with little or no examiner bias, accepted by students and stakeholders and is able to measure outcome competencies and skills in a better way.

On Day 2 Morning session started with a talk on effective teacher and their skills. The participants understood that teacher preparation/knowledge of teaching and learning, subject matter knowledge, experience, and the combined set of qualifications measured by teacher licensure are all leading factors in teacher effectiveness.

The participants were exposed to scientific writing session, evaluation techniques and group tasks on long essay type, short essay and short answer questions.

On Day 3 of the workshop participants had a grasp of teaching/learning skills and evaluation methods of learning outcome. The focus then turned to how to use the learnt techniques in classroom teaching. Most of the participants already had training experience. So a short review of facilitation skills, presentation skills and Adult Learning Principles prepared by them for delivering ‘A microteaching practice session’ in 5-minute presentation was conducted for all the participants individually in four groups. After delivering the presentations, the presenters receive feedback in four ways: from the students, from their peers, from the facilitator and by self-evaluation of their own presentation immediately after delivering their session. This was done to prepare the participants to become effective trainers. The participants were told about various funding agencies and the ways how one can write an effective research proposal for funding. The participants were also exposed to ethics involved in publishing a research paper or review paper by presentation on plagiarism.

The afternoon of Day 3 was focused on Item analysis and group tasks on item analysis and interpretation of data. The participants were exposed to debate session on Modern Teaching Tools-Boon or Bane. The debate has helped the participants in improving their analytical and communicative skills.

At the end of workshop, participants evaluated the programme. A post-test was conducted and the results were compared with pre-test results immediately in front of the participants. The comparison demonstrated a significant improvement in the participants.

All the participants attended the full course and received the participation certificate in the valedictory function.

Evaluation of the course was done after every session. On 2^nd and 3^rd day, the first session of every morning started with review of the previous day sessions by the facilitator. The facilitator was able to identify what points came across and other areas where points could be re-emphasised during the course of the day.

On Day 3 of the workshop, representatives from the participants gave the feedback as the workshop review which helped to refresh participants’ memories of the all three days and gave the facilitators more formal evaluation feedback.

Participants said that the lecture sessions, materials and group works were the most useful aspect of the workshop. As none of the participants had underwent such training previously, participation in TOT workshop was the most useful part. Participants also felt that practicing delivering microteaching presentations and receiving feedback in four ways including self-evaluation was the most useful part of the workshop. Other useful areas included group tasks on evaluation methods and construction of questions.

Most of the comments were positive such as: “best facilitators ever”, “well-prepared and professional workshop”, “excellent” and “most demanding, but enlightening workshop. Several participants verbally expressed the need for follow-up support through such workshops in future. CCI Newswire