Simahavalokan March

Report of Library Orientation to PGDME

Students

On March 5, 2016 Ms. Apurva Joshi (Asst.

Librarian) oriented Pre Ph D students about

Library rules, Self renewal and Reservation of

books, Discovery tool as the EBSCO searching

in the Somaiya B.Ed College. First all the

students were oriented to the existing library

services including how many books they are

entitled to issue from the library, fine policy of

the library, issue return system of the books. Apart from this Ms Joshi demonstrated the use

of online self-renewal.She also oriented to the rules and regulations for the different

procedures like the online renewal system, reserving the book & Global Common

Circulation. Students were introduced the facility of EDS. Student were taught how to access

e-books and journals, full text articles at the campus premises only. At the end library

assignments was given to them to try hands on and to monitor and solve the problems they

might be facing. Overall the orientation equipped the students with library referencing skills.

SSSS on the Theme Education for Peace

“An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.”

As rightly said by our great leader Mahatma Gandhi Realizing the crucial importance of

peace, K J Somaiya Comprehensive

College of Education, Training and

Research in collaboration with Global

Foundations had organized a National

Seminar on „Education For Peace’

on March 9-10, 2016 which was 23rd

in annual Senior Scholar Seminar

Series.The Chief Guest for the

inaugural seminar was Shri P.K

Hormis Tharakan (IPS of Kerala Cadre;

Former Chief of RAW, India‟s External

Intelligence agency). He focused on very

important topic which is terrorism. He

stressed on guiding the next generation in

peace and conflict resolution. Another

interesting session was by the guest of

honor and keynote speaker was Dr

Subhash Chandra (Founder Trustee, Global

Peace Foundation, New Delhi). He threw light on two main objectives which were creating

social awareness for global peace and religious harmony and developing global peace

consciousness. He stressed on the concept of

Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam which means world is

one family. The book Global Peace Science

2016: Victory of Peace over War in XXI century

was released in the inaugural session. The

chairperson of the session Shri V. Ranganathan,

focused on teachers training, improvement in

textbook and curriculum. He also asked the

teachers to communicate the ideas of peace in

different schools. The seminar had 4 broad

subthemes on which papers and essays by

educationist, school teachers and students were

presented across the two days.

Subtheme 1 was on „Striving for outer

peace Causes of Disharmony in the

Present World’. Under this subtheme 6

papers were presented. The Moderator of

the session was Dr.Ranu Jain. Professor

at the Centre for Studies in Sociology of

Education, School of Social Sciences,

Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

In this session there were a few essays presented. Subtheme II was on Striving for Harmony

Within. Under this subtheme, 7 papers were presented on areas like role of music, yoga and

dance for fostering peace, reconciliations and also on social apps and selfies as threats to

peace. The seminar also had sessions for expert talks. The first expert talk was on Peace:

Learning to Live Together which was delivered by Ms. Shreya Jani, Managing Trustee,

Standing Together to Enable Peace Trust (STEP). She talked of her experiences in conflict

prone areas and stressed that it is importance to listen than being judgmental for the process

of peace to take place. The other expert talk was on Art as Peacemaker by Dr Radha Kumar ,

Associate Professor, St Xavier’s College, Dept of Ancient Culture. She reflected on the

universal features and appeal of art and how art can promote peace.

On day 2 of the seminar there was a panel discussion where 7 experts shared their

experiences and insights.Ms Shubhadra Shenoy, Principal, Shishuvan School was the

moderator the panel discussion. Other panelists were Ms Rufina Fernandes -Trustee, Global

Foundations ,Ms Shreya Jani,Dr Jaya Kuruvilla -

Principal, Hinduja College of Nursing, Ms

Kavita Vaidya- Principal, The Somaiya School,

Kamna Arora- Principal, D J Doshi Gurukul

School & Junior College ,Mr Sandeep Singh -

Principal, Datta Meghe World Academy.

Subtheme III was on „Strategies for Developing

a Culture of Peace’.Dr. Sunita Wadikar was the

moderator of the session. The first presentation was given by Dr. Kalpana Kharade where

she pondered on the coping strategies of visually impaired college students and suggested

strategies for scaffolding the students with disability in the process of overcoming social

exclusion. Under the able guidance of the faculty who were to train the students on writing a

good quality paper .Thus a few B Ed & M Ed students also presented a paper in the seminar.

Among the essay presentations by the participants Ms Madhavi Padiyar (M Ed student, 2015-

17) was the winner followed by Ms Trupti Saraiya and the third winner was Ms Naina

Panigrahi.

Then came subtheme IV which was on

„Evolving a Curriculum for Peace Education’

The chairperson of the session was Ms. Kavita

Vaidya.This session had 7 papers. It also had a

workshop on Designing a Curriculum for

Peace which was conducted by Dr. Vasundhara

Padmanabhan, Principal, K.J Somaiya

Comprehensive College of Education, Training

and Research. The workshop saw an eager

participation to evolve a peace education

curriculum. Finally for the Valedictory session the chief guest was Dr Kalpana Venugopal,

Principal, Demonstration School, Mysore and Dr Rajan Welukar, Provost, Somaiya

Vidyavihar. The future teachers ie the batch of B Ed students ended with a hope in the eyes

and a beautiful song on ‘Heal the world’ so as to bring harmony in the society.

Pre PhD classes

Our institution being a research institution every year continues with the orientation of the

Pre Ph D students to the basics of research. Again this year we have six students who have

registered under Pre Ph D Course .Every fortnight the classes are held by the faculty of the

institution. The faculty makes active use of the Google classroom for transacting the notes.

Apart from this student presentations go on every week which enables the learners to actively

engage into research. Assignments are given to the students based on the area of interest in

Ph D. Active discussion in the classrooms enable the Pre Ph D students to carry on their study

smoothly.

“As we let our own light shine we

give permission to others to do the

same.”

-Nelson Mandela

One of the major events of the institution, the

intercollegiate competition Pratyush sets the

stage for the teachers of different institutions to

come forward and shine in their own light This

year the event Natyatarang organized on

March 19, 2016 again gave an opportunity

to the teaching community to perform on

stage by expressing through dance and

music. It is planned to be a group event

where the focus was on classical, semi

classical and folk dance. Performances

were related to a message stating the

brighter side of our values and social

issues. The criteria of evaluation of performance was originality/creativity, synchronization,

use of props, style/Grace/expression, use of multimedia and attire. The duration of

performance was 10-15 minutes. Three prizes were announced. Apart from this the

participants also were given certificates. Including our own college there were six colleges

which participated in the competition –Royal college

of Education, RBT College of Education,

Vispute College of Education, MCT College of

Education, Pillai‟s College of Education .The

winner was Royal B Ed College, the participants

gave a brilliant performance by sensitizing the

audience towards the issue of women

exploitation in our society. Our institution

bagged the third prize with the theme of

inclusion of Transgender in the community.

News Analysis –An expert view

On 31st March 2016, Thursday, one of the visiting faculty, Aarthi Chandru, an expert from

the field of Journalism oriented the B Ed students to the concept of News Analysis. The class

on “analysis of a newspaper report” detailed the parameters useful for evaluating a news

article within the context of education and threw light on numerous criteria for the same

including placement of the article, tone of the article, review of the article, etc. Thereafter, the

class undertook a couple of examples selecting articles with themes of equality, social justice

and development of society and did a mock run to check their level of comprehension. They

were then given an assignment to follow up on their learning.

Student Support through English Language Lab

In order to improve English language skills of students ,Ms Aarthi Chandru made use of

language lab .From 21st -31

st March 2016, a one hour long session was held every day as a

part of English Language Lab. For the benefit of students who wish to improve their language

skills, Ms Chandru made use of an Oréll Digital Language lab, a combination of technology

and communication, where the students were made to practice all aspects of English language

including listening, speaking, thinking, writing, etc. The sessions also included a focus on

grammar and pronunciation with many fun activities including role playing, having a

conversation, monologue, interviewing, etc. The sessions yielded desired results in that the

students felt more and more confident about their English language skills.

“I would rather have Peace on earth than have pieces of earth”

Poster Making Competition on the theme of ‘Peace’

With this feeling the cultural committee organized a poster making competition so as to make

everyone express what peace to them is, what is causing disharmony and how we can achieve

total peace. This exercise made the students reflect their contributions in attaining peace in

the society. Many students participated in the competition as the competition had three

subtypes –collage making, sketching & painting competition. Students whole heartedly

participated in the competition. The following were the winners in the various competitions.

Competition Winners

Collage Making I Shaikh Tarannum Shahid , Mapari Shahista

Suleman

II Sonali Jaiswal ,Namita Dhuri

III Tejal Ganatra ,Manju Navami

Poster competition I Maitri Rambhiya ,Anushree Mishra ,Ishita

Sengupta

Sketching I Deepak Rao ,Priyanka Mishra

Painting

Competition

I Hafsa Khan ,Anita Tanpure, Priya Thevar

II Pratibha Mishra,Nuzhat Bano,Sneha Rangu,

Saniya Siddiqui

Tagline Guru Competition:

As a part of the sociology club in collaboration with the cultural committee we organized a

Tagline Guru Competition. The competition was held on March 16 .It was a paired

event.The students were to write tagline under any one

subtheme Dowry ,Transgendered ,Domestic Violence, Child labour ,Rape, Corruption etc.

The criteria of judging was as follows: Catchy, Relevance, Creativity, Impact.The posters had

a tagline from any advertisement whereas the picture was related to any of the social issue

mentioned above.The following is the list of winners for The Tagline Guru competition.

Grooming the young buds to take a step ahead

-Preparing the B Ed & M Ed students for paper presentations and essay presentations

As a part of student mentoring the faculty was given a task of orienting the students to the

concept of paper presentations. As we had SSSS the students were equipped on the skills of

research paper writing and how it would be presented. Each of the faculty trained one

Prize Winners

I Farheen Qureshi ,Nikita Rege

II Alifiya Arsiwala, Pallavi Pal

III Riddhi Parab

student for presenting paper. Due to this exercise we can proudly say that we had a few

attempts of the research paper presentations by the B Ed students.

“Small opportunities are indeed a beginning of great enterprises”

-Maths Enrichment Activity on National Mathematics Day

With the small opportunity which was given to the Maths

students as an enrichment activity of Maths Club,the

Maths students got to attend the workshop in Mathematics

to be held on National Mathematics Day.Nehru Science

Centre organized a workshop on the theme ‘Fabrication

of Teaching Aids.’ The aim of the workshop was to make

Mathematics Simple. On 18th & 19th

March, 2016.Two of

the Mathematics students Ms Ishita Sengupta & Ms

Alifiya Arsewala attended the workshop. They learnt to

create teaching learning material using innovative

materials ie foam boards. They actually had hands on

experience of designing learning materials for many topics

in Maths like Pythagoras theorem, relationship of area of a

circle and area of a parallelogram & tangrams. Students

found the workshop very enriching.The students demanded

more workshops of this kind in future.