MENTORING AND COUNSELLING PRACTICE

Objectives:

i.MENTORING

• Continuously record the academic and extra-curricular activities of students by the mentor and analyze their performance and take preventive and corrective action
• Arrange guest lectures, industrial visits, organize certificate courses, workshops etc.
• Disseminate the progress of students to the department head and parents.
• Arrange class committee meetings to understand and redress the grievances of students and faculties.

ii.COUNSELLING

• Address the personal and academic problems of the students that hinder their academic performance and suggest remedial measures.
• Gain confidence of students and maintain confidentiality of the issues being discussed.
• Play the role of a friend, philosopher and guide

What were the contextual features or challenging issues that needed to be addressed in designing and implementing this practice (in about 150 words)?

Designing of a system for the Mentoring and Counseling practice

• Design of system and procedure to implement the practice
• Design of records for documentation of the process
• Audits to monitor and assess the practice of mentoring and counseling
• Implementing mentoring practice was not tedious whereas the counseling practice had few issues that needed to be addressed later

Challenges needed to be addressed

• Faculties played the role of counselor and were ineffective in handling the session as they experienced difficulty in gaining confidence among the students
• Students hesitated to share and discuss their personal grievance and even academic problems that hinder their performance
• Students never came up with any issues for discussion.

Thus designing the practice was not tedious and cumbersome, but implementation had issues which was resolved gradually.

Describe the practice and its uniqueness in the context of India higher education. What were the constraints / limitations, if any, faced (in about 400 words)?

MENTORING

This practice begins in the first semester and continues till final semester for each student. In the beginning students are grouped and a mentor is assigned to monitor their academic progress in that academic year.

The role of a mentor is to:

• Monitor the students discipline, attendance, internal assessment and university results etc.,
• Communicate the performance of each student to the department head and dispatch the same reports to the parents and get endorsed.
• Arrange special classes and retests for slow learners and conduct class committee meetings to understand and resolve the problems that hinder the performance of students.
• Arrange guest lectures, industrial visits, organize certificate courses and other skill development programs and monitor their participation in symposium, conferences, club activities and sports etc.,
• Maintain the profile record, which encapsulate the personal and academic details of each student and disburse the same to the concerned department the subsequent year to enable the department faculties to understand the strength, weakness and the level of monitoring required for the student.

COUNSELLING

• Faculties who enact as a counselor are assigned a set of students whom they continuously monitor their performance.
• The role of the counselor is a way ahead of mentoring where the personal and academic issues of the student that hinder their performance is discussed and strived to resolve the issues.
• The primary role of a counselor is to gain the confidence of a student and maintain confidentiality of the issues they discuss.
• Students have the liberty to meet them during the allotted period or any leisure time and share their personal and academic grievances. Suitable solutions and guidance are provided subjected to the limitations of the counselor. If the problem or issue necessitates the consultation of an expert, students are directed to meet them along with their parents.

Thus the counselor plays the role of a friend, philosopher and guide to help students to excel well in all their endeavors.

LIMITATIONS / CONSTRAINTS FACED

• In the initial phase students were reluctant in discussing the problems with the faculties. Especially girl students hesitated to share any grievances with gent’s faculty.
• A few students considered the counseling session as a leisure period for granted.
• Some faculties were not able to handle the session effectively due to ignorance.

Later all the issues were sorted out gradually and the session started evolving successfully.

Provide evidence of success such as performance against targets and benchmarks, review/results. What do these results indicate? Describe in about 200 words.

The evidence of success is given in terms of results, participation in seminars, paper presentation

Department: Textile Chemistry

Result

S.No	Semester	2017-2018		2017-2018
		Target	Achieved	Target	Achieved
1	ODD	85	90	87	90
2	EVEN	90	92	90	92

Internship

S.No	2017-2018	2018-2019
	No. of Students	No. of Students
1	30	55

Placement

S.No	2017-2018	2018-2019
	Percentage of Placement	Percentage of Placement
1	100%	100%

Certificate Courses

S.No	Semester	2017-18	2018-19
		No. of Students	No. of Students
1	ODD	20	26
2	EVEN	21	20

The process of counseling has gradually shown a rise in the performance of most of the students

Attendance

Students with history of poor attendance have shown a great improvement after continuous counseling

Discipline

• Students who have been unfriendly towards teachers have changed their attitude
• Mischievous and playful students have realized the seriousness of the course and studies.
• Student’s indulged in in-disciplinary activities have shown a good improvement in their behavior and conduct.

Academic Performance:

Skill development

• Participation in paper presentation, seminar and workshops has increased.
• Number of students enrolling certificate courses
• Participation in extracurricular activities has increased
• Participation in club and sports activity has increased

6. Please identify the problems encountered and resources required to implement the practice (in about 150 words).

Problems encountered in implementing the practice

Initially Students weren’t serious about the counselling and considered it as a leisure period. They hesitated to share their personal grievances and even their academic problems too. Girls students were reluctant to share their thoughts, especially the gents staff. On the other hand, faculty were not confident enough in handling the student’s issue and comfortably take over the counselling session.

Later the need for training was envisaged and an intensive one was conducted to all by a trained counsellor.

The training involved

• The psychological factors that undermines a student in their adolescent age.
• The issues that they deem too sensitive
• The factors that predominantly a student’s progress.
• The need of developing the confidence of a staff among the students and so on.

Resources Required

• Well trained dedicated team of faculty members
• A documentation process to assess the system periodically

7. Notes (Optional) Please add any other information that may be relevant for adopting/ implementing the Best Practice in other Institutions (in about150 words). Any other information regarding Institutional Values and Best Practices which the university would like to include.

Adolescent phase is one in which students usually tend to believe their peer group and start distancing from parents. Most of their personal issue remain unnoticed by either parents or teachers. The issues aggravate to an extent that leads to serious consequences in the career of the student. A diligent and intellectual student can end being unsuccessful in their academics or even an average student can create great difference in all their endeavors. Thus in this phase a mentor/counsellor act as a facilitator thereby monitoring their activities and guiding them to achieve their goal.

Mentors are similar to the reins in a horse that drive them properly to the target and counsellor are similar to a blinder and hence do not allow the student to get indulged in unwarranted activities. This practice is universal and has to be followed in any educational institution to be guide the student community.

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NATIONAL LEVEL TECHNICAL EVENTS & PROJECT EXHIBITION

2. What are the objectives / intended outcomes of this “best practice” and what are the underlying principles or concepts of this practice (in about 100 words)?

Principle or Concept of the practice

This practice intends to provide a platform for the students to actively participate, learn, exhibit their technical and cognitive skills by presenting papers, projects etc., This practice helps students to explore and develop their skill.

Objectives are to

• Motivate students to learn beyond the curriculum
• Inculcate the habit of referring engineering journals and scientific magazines
• Improve their communication and leadership skills
• Motivate students to think differently
• Provide opportunity to work on interdisciplinary projects
• Create interest in entrepreneurship and development

Intended Outcomes

• High retention of knowledge
• Enhancing the understanding, analysis and critical thinking
• Enhance the soft skills
• High level of confidence

3. The Context What were the contextual features or challenging issues that needed to be addressed in designing and implementing this practice (in about 150 words)?

The hurdles and challenges faced in implementing the practice is briefly discussed

Designing:

Designing the practice wasn’t a tougher task and it involved

• Planning the schedule for organizing the national /State / international level seminars or
• conferences by each department
• Planning the schedule for organizing a project exhibition common for all the engineering programs
• The planning involved
• Design and publish the posters
• Scrutinizing best papers/ projects for presentation
• Identify and confirm the chief guest
• Invitation printing and distribution
• Purchase of Prizes, Memento and printing of certificates etc.,
• Hall arrangement for all the events
• Tea, snacks and food arrangement

Implementation:

The problems faced in implementing is briefly discussed

• Poor Coordination and participation among students
• Lack of interest and involvement among few students
• Time management of the event etc.,
• Space allocation for exhibition
• Mass transportation of participants for exhibition
• Distribution of food

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