College pioneers in innovation and healthy practices and is open for adopting to emerging trends in higher education. College internal Green Audit Committee revives the environment- related initiatives that are being implemented in the campus and formulates action plan for every academic year in order to have a better environmental sensitization. Solar street lights, rain water harvesting, drip irrigation, modern kitchen, tree plantation programs and herbal garden are a few measures adopted to develop eco-consciousness among the college community. Efficient Waste management is implemented through its policy of reduce, recycle and reuse. Plastic- free green NGM concentrates on converting every other colour into green. Institution offers value education as a component of the curriculum and ensures that the students adhere to the code of conduct and right manners in campus life and has integrated ‘Ethics and Values’ in the curriculum for all UG students as a distinctive practice in tune with the Vision and Mission of the Institution.
Gender sensitivity is meticulously integrated into the very sap of the character by emboldening both boys and girls with empathy for the other. Safety and security is the requirement for all, irrespective of gender and this is taken care of. The Academy for Professional Development at NGM is a career enrichment program for the students to hone their interpersonal skills and make them ready for employability. Being an academic institution of high reputation NGM believes in maintaining transparency in its financial, academic, administrative and auxiliary functions.
In today’s increasingly globalized world, it is important to make learning and education a holistic experience beyond classroom academics. Keeping this in mind, NGM College introduced various innovations in classrooms to give students all-round development and growth. Here’s a glimpse of some of the innovative techniques that NGM College is using to make learning effective, engaging, and fun.
Experiential Learning
Experiential learning engages students in critical thinking, problem solving and decision making in contexts that are personally relevant to them. This approach to learning involves making opportunities for debriefing and consolidation of ideas and skills through feedback, reflection, and the application of the ideas and skills to new situations.
One student chooses to solve a problem will be different from another student, and what one student takes away from an experience will be different from the others.
Learning about learning is often missed when focus is on subjects making lessons blind to the learning journey.Opportunities to understand learning can be created from learning experiences.
It is our view that successful learners are those who understand their learning environment and their learning needs. This “Learning Intelligence” or Experiential learning involves a number of skills, attitudes, attributes and behaviors. Learning in this way has so much potential.
NGM College incorporated Experiential learning where teaching became far more focused and effective when students are made to be meta-cognitive and reflective about what had been taught.
A clear and specific sense of purpose, linking the activity to the WHY? question –We’re doing this because We’re learning this because etc. improvised methodology where each subject is being connected to any other subjects. Experiential classroom has worked for us to create an interdisciplinary learning experience that mimics real world learning. Here Students play a critical role in assessing their own learning.
Role play
Role play brings in the element of entertainment into the classroom. As much as it is loved by students, this technique facilitates their understanding and appreciation of the characters that they read about. From pre-schools to Senior Secondary level, we are implementing this method as it’s a great source to instill in children values and ideals as they play the roles of historical stalwarts.
Students are encouraged to have their own version of the characters they are portraying, and enact them with the context of the present times. Through role play, students also get to learn about various aspects of stage performance – from acting to voice projection – and discover their acting talent. This technique also helps teachers explore creativity and critical thinking in students. Role play is an impactful method to enhance learning that also lends learners opportunity to live the experience through empathy and internalising values.
Library
We believe that libraries must foster learning, and encourage children to actively seek new knowledge in various forms. The large library includes material that is sourced widely. Our goal is to ensure that students see the library as an integral part of a life of learning, providing both scholarship and enjoyment.
We have also built our classrooms in a way that brings some aspects of the library into them. Reference material and other inputs pertinent to specific classes and topics are handily available in classrooms.
Collaboration
Collaboration is an essential life skill in a globalized environment, the driving force of all enterprises. In an educational institution, this skill can best be fostered in the classroom by allowing students to work in groups. Educators are planting the seed of a collaborative mind as early as primary school, where young children are motivated to create, plan, and organise group presentations of stories, skits, or poems. Throughout, teachers help students chalk out their plans, provide them key points, supervise their work, and build team spirit.
We have made collaborative project work a prominent part of the curriculum. Teachers are designing their lessons to allow time and resources for group activities, be it research or class presentation.
Inquiry-Based Learning
Inquiry-based learning is one of the most powerful teaching strategies in the classroom because it tells us that students learn best when they construct their own meaning. Inquiry-based learning triggers student curiosity. Teachers act as facilitators during the inquiry-based learning process.
Inquiry-based learning allows students to pose the questions and research and convert the information into useful knowledge, thus ramping up the level of student engagement.
Local Craft and Museum
By visits to museums, students may explore the local surroundings and observe the activities of artisan communities engaged in different crafts using local skills and materials. The visits provide them opportunities and common platform to interact, experiment, create and perform according to their age, aptitude and ability and offer a barrier-free environment with immense possibilities of innovation.
Debate and Discussion
This method involves the use of small group of students where each group will have a leader who initiates the discussion of the issue or subject matter. Students are more active than the teacher when this method is used. Every member of the group is given equal opportunity or chance of making contributions to any discussion.
Academy for Professional Development
Our NGM College with a vision of providing employability is engaged in providing quality education to the rural youth and has been growing consistently spreading its wings far and wide to offer a variety of educational program under one roof for over 60 years. In the cherished history of the educational services of NGM College, comes the unique initiative, NGM-APD which comes into existence to enrich and enhance the students’ employability and empowerment. Our unique and innovative approach in training will make a student excel as an individual in the industry where he/she wants to shine. Our training begins right from the grass root level which will help moulding students in perfect shape and enable them to present and market themselves successfully.
Audio-visual (AV) supplements
We have AV-equipped classrooms or venues to boost students’ learning and understanding. Teachers explain difficult subject like Physics/Maths/Chemistry through graphical representation of complex equations with the help of smart-boards. For language learning, teachers play snippets of award-winning films, plays, and speeches of great orators, to facilitate the skills of listening, speaking, and histrionics.
Labs
NGM College emphasizes learning by experience, and our labs are therefore an important part of what makes the school unique. We take great care that Science, Maths, and other subjects are learned through observations of the physical and natural world, and not merely from textbooks. Worksheets for active lab work are prepared before the lab sessions, and children are encouraged to carry out learning experiments independently. They are also encouraged to draw their own inferences, and perfect them through iterative learning.
Peer Teaching
It is one of the most effective strategies to even up the learning curve of a class. Usually, teachers pair students who are high performers with those students who might be struggling in a subject area. Students are also encouraged to volunteer, or are randomly chosen to take over as the subject teacher. It offers a platform of knowledge sharing among students, besides harboring healthy competition.
The interesting aspect of peer teaching is that students tend to respond more actively when one of them dons the mantle of the teacher. The class becomes attentive and interactive in a bid to challenge each other in a constructive manner. With regular peer teaching sessions, students start to develop better grasp of the concepts, display maturity, tend to be more disciplined, and also develop better communication skills.
Going beyond the classroom
Education should make children aware of the world and themselves, widen their perspective, and make them seek the truth. We embrace the trend of taking children outside the classroom. Whether on a nature trail, or visiting cottage industry, students now directly interact with what they read about in books. Children gain more knowledge when they see and experience history in museums than being taught the same in the class.
Field trips are an integral part of our curriculum. Students, teachers, and parents enthusiastically come forth to make the attempt a holistic educational experience.
Activity Based Learning
This method is based on doing some hands-on experiments and activities. The students become active learners rather than passive recipients of information. The children are provided the opportunity to explore by their own so that the learning becomes joyful and long-lasting.
Promotion of Art, Culture & Community Development
The arts are an integral part of the student experience in NGM College. Through the four strands of Arts Education — Dance, Drama, Music, and Visual Arts, we provide an opportunity to explore, reflect and respond to knowledge embedded in language, memory, and story. The students are allowed to investigate, express, and interpret their personal passions and strengths. They also develop empathy and respect for the voices, traditions and creations of others. Opportunity is created to understand generational roles in the transfer of culture and knowledge.
To recognize the importance of student learning through arts, NGM College will support a collective understanding of student achievement and learning progression.
The Importance of Creativity
The application of classroom learning can be best done through the science exhibitions. The students apply their classroom and bookish knowledge in these exhibitions and develop taste for learning by doing. Students avail the opportunity of practical learning and experiencing everything first hand during these exhibitions. The students get an opportunity to showcase their talent in front of others and feel proud of their achievements. They apply their ideas and learning in their unique ways and helps society find solutions to their needs and challenges.
Committee has been set to promote innovative practices of learning with continuous support from parents and teachers for students overall development.
NGM – APD (Academy For Professional Development)
In the cherished history of the educational services of NGM College, comes the unique initiative, NGM-APD which comes into existence to enrich and enhance the students’ employability and empowerment. It is immensely important that this program for the students gain the job opportunity and upgrade their skill level. The management felt the increase significance of soft skills and this unique program is being implemented to enhance and hone the latest skills of the students. In Academy for professional development, Soft Skill trainer helps in developing your skills and personality. In today’s extremely competitive world, it is imperative that an individual should have the right set of values and skills in order to progress in his/her Career. We at NGM – APD, ensure that students are trained with the right set of values and skills for a professional career start. Professional Development Training/skill orientation is given from the very first day of stepping into the college. Offered in all the six semesters of UG and four semesters of PG program 40 hours training is offered every semester and two hours is devoted for each class every week in all the semesters. NGM – APD certificates will be issued after the successful completion of the modules. The attendance for this orientation is made compulsory to the students.