Best Practices

Blended Mode of Learning for Education

Objectives of the Practice:

1. To make the teaching learning process easier, enjoyable and interactive.
2. To develop the skills in both students and teachers.
3. To provide career guidance to the students.
4. To enhance the critical thinking ability of students.
5. To provide equal opportunities to all type of learners.

Context: Integration of digital resources and techniques magnifies the students’ engagement. While it is a significant part of the New Education Policy, the onset of Covid-19 pandemic made it clear that use of digital techniques can help the teaching-learning process in the event of such exigencies.

The Practice: The college decided to boost up the blended mode of learning with increasing integration of digital resources and techniques into the conventional learning protocol:

1. Classes through various online platforms such as Google Meet, Zoom, Telegram channel, Google classroom etc.; through YouTube Channel of many faculty members; conduct of webinars or online extension lectures.
2. Encouragement to faculty members to enhance their teaching skill by incorporating digital technologies.
3. Regular dissemination of reading materials, audio notes, information regarding admission, examination etc. along with video instructions through college website and social media apps.
4. Popularization of e-pgpathshala, INFLIBNET, SWAYAM and other e-resources among students.
5. Online examinations (both internal as well as University Exams).
6. Career guidance and skill development training programmes in collaboration with The Uncertainty Principle, a YouTube channel for students.
7. Wi-Fi enabled classrooms.
8. Creating a comprehensive unit-wise lecture video series on Environmental Studies.
9. Students’ empowerment through Digital literacy programme
10. Use of google form for various academic purposes like data collection for project work and class tests.

Evidence of Success:

1. The academic as well as career guidance programmes have become very popular among students.
2. The webinars and extension lectures registered a sizeable number of participants.
3. Many students beyond our college benefitted from the video lecture series on Environmental Studies.
4. As a result of our digital literacy programme, the efficiency of our students in digital activity has increased manifold.

Problems encountered and Resources Required:

• Unified platform for learning process in blended mode is the need of the hour, which we are planning to design in future.
• Students need more awareness about harmful or misleading digital content and cyber fraud.
• Setting up and maintenance of the state-of-the-art Smart Class Rooms at the college is a resource intensive process.

Green initiatives in and around campus

Objectives of the Practice: Systematic execution of green environment initiatives for maintenance of biodiversity and pollution free environment within and beyond campus for the betterment of quality of life of the members of local community.

Context: Though the college is situated in an industrial-urban background on NH 116, the campus with its lush green vegetation and water bodies acts as a host to different species of flora and fauna. The students and faculties of this college always make endeavours to factor in the environment as a learning principle that would help create awareness of sustainability.

The Practice:

1. Plantation drive undertaken by the students following college initiative.
2. Restoration of the green cover in the days following the wreckage caused by Amphan.
3. An Air Quality Monitoring E-Device installed at the college to monitor the air quality and is maintained by West Bengal Pollution Control Board. The data of AQI are available continuously at the website.
4. Felicitation of dignitaries with saplings.
5. Campus cleanliness drive organized by NSS.
6. Demarcating ‘No plastic zone’ and strict abidance to the same.
7. Use of power saving LED lights in the buildings.
8. Digital communication through college website saving use of papers.
9. Use of properly labelled dustbins for various types of wastes.
10. Two separate pits at the rear end of the college premises for the disposal of solid wastes- both biodegradable and non-biodegradable.
11. Hazardous waste of Chemistry Department kept separate from the general waste of college.
12. Planned sanitization and sewage measures incorporated in the building plan by the PWD, Govt. of West Bengal.
13. Project work on environmental issues as a part of AECC in UG curriculum.
14. Use of recyclable materials for storing food, water etc. and use of public transport is strongly promoted among students and staff.
15. Carbon neutrality: The greenery in the College campus effectively neutralizes the harmful carbon dioxide.
16. Regular AMC of instruments ensures proper energy utilization and minimizes usage hazards.
17. Provision for rainwater harvesting within the college premises.
18. Beyond Campus Initiatives:
19. Awareness rallies in the communities adjacent to college regarding environmental pollution.
20. Cleanliness drive at different localities near college and also at riverside.
21. Screening of movies among members of local communities on environmental issues
22. Distribution of saplings and plantation of trees in the communities.

Evidence of Success: A full-fledged Rain Water Harvesting System for recharging ground water is functional inside college campus. The main objective of this project is to increase the ground water reserve and harmful contaminations in the ground water. Rain water is collected from the rooftop through well connected rainwater pipes which pours all the effluent water to a large tank and this water is used for watering the plants within the campus. At the community level, the green coverage has increased due to the plantation drive. And on our subsequent visit we found the localities to be cleaner than earlier.

Problems Encountered and Resources Required:

• Green Campus initiatives are challenging and it requires a determined a long-term effort from all the stakeholders.
• Low level of awareness regarding environmental issues among students and local community pose another challenge to the success of this initiative.
• Expert advice and deployment of various resources including manpower makes this practice resource intensive.