What we learnt from PPD Session

In My first topic I should talk about What is PPD..Now i mention about What i learnt from PPD session in our university life..
I think you also know about What is PPD?

PPD means : aims to encourage an individual to become more self-aware and self-reliant and pay attention to their overall growth while planning for the future. Personal development plans can be applied to a wide range of contexts involving a career, education, relationship or for self improvement..

We can improve our communication skills, team work, creativity and etc in this PPD session and we can get many goals and actions  in this session.Some of them are measurable, achievable, relevant ,time related,and desicion making.They are very useful for building our personality.

We improve our communication progress

We got chance to communicate with our friends in English. Because there are some Tamil and Foriegn students in our batch who can't speak sinhala.so we have to communicate in English with them in our PPD session. Also madam told us dont use sinhala in our PPd session and always talk with others using in English.Then we can improve our knowledge of English and how to communicate with others.

We improve our team working progress 

 In this session, we can build up good relationship between others. It is the best thing i get to my life .we do a drama,and paper tower challenge as a group work.We try to respect others and their ideas.we can improve our creativity and thinking. Also I learnt how to respect others idea and its valuable.

This is if we can get goals and actions in PPD Session..

Measurable  :  We need to know when we have succeeded. Therefore outline as precisely as possible what skills and knowledge wewill have acquired have when we have achieved your goal.

Achievable  :  The goal should be achievable and within our capacity and constraints. we should not set ourself goals that are impossible or unrealistic to achieve.

Relevant   :  think to ourself, are these the right goals? Will they help we get to where we want to be?

Time related   :  ealistically consider how much time do we need to achieve our goal? Some goals can be achieved in the short-term, some may take a long time to achieve. Setting time related goals will be helpful in organising our time effectively and breaking down the goal to smaller elements. With long term goals milestones are extremely important to keep we motivated to achieve our longer term goal.

We can get many benifits in PPD session.. Some of them are mentioned in above the post..
Some are,

• A better understanding of ourself and how we know ourself.
• Being in a better position to make appropriate choices to meet our aspirations.
• Greater awareness of our needs and how to meet these.
• Greater awareness of the unique contribution we can make.
• Gaining a clearer focus to our learning.
• Helping to keep our self motivated.
• A better understanding of how we learn and how to improve our performance.
• More enjoyment and less stress from our learning as we become consciously skilled.
• More awareness of how to apply our learning to new problems and contexts.
• Reflective thinking skills that can strengthen academic performance.
• Clearer ideas about the kind of life and work we want.
• Greater confidence in the choices we make.
• Greater confidence in the skills, qualities and attributes we bring to the career of our choice.
• Being in a better position to compete for jobs.
• Being better able to discuss your skills, personal qualities and competences with employers.
• Better problem-solving and planning skills.
• Developing the positive attitudes and approaches associated with successful professional life.

Some of them are mentioned .. It 's not all .. We can get many advantages in this PPD session.. 

Paper Tower Challenge

According to my point of view , We done it in our PPD session. It is not a game. It is a marvelous challenge for Se guys. It is a group activity which can be develop our soft skills without get in academic career .Leadership skill, Speaking skill in others, time management and thinking skills are some of them.

…Definition about paper tower challenge…

First, all of se guys divided by three groups by counting.in this challenge. We were provided a gum tape twelve papers and a pair of scissors. Then, the tower that we built in the given place outside of the class. Then we have to build the tallest tower use in papers within the given 45 minutes. Madam Sarasi told us discuss with guys in group to how to do that and make a plan for it .Madam gave marks for the height, balance and rigidity of the tower. All of us went outside and started to make the tower. Madam Sarasi told us don't use “Sinhala”  to speak. She wants to improve our speaking ability in English. She walked from group to group watching our work and reminding to speak in English. Finally all our groups make towers which were able to stand on the ground.

…Problems that occurred & way of solving…

We were building the tower. Tower was increasing its height eventually. After increasing the height of the tower for sometimes, we noted a problem of the tower. It was bending towards the earth. We discussed each other and identified the issue. It was a simple theory. The weight point of the tower is growing up because of the height of the tower. We thought about that and got through it with a solution.  We added four legs to the tower and the legs were more heavy than the tower. We got the weight point down with the help of this method. We made a small thing to fix at the top of the tower, but unfortunately we were unable to fix it because of the balance problem and lack of time. We worked hard to our paper tower challenge in to a successful one.

We clasped our responsibilities to get more advantages from the limited time. We focused on our own task and got it very deeply and made a early plan about the process of the job. When we face the problem of balance losing we discussed about it selected the most successful and most quick solution and implement it as soon as possible. Unfortunately, we can’t do our best.

…To our life through…

We got many tips from this task to our life. The main thing is listening to the leader and following him. Listening to the other members is also main thing I got to my life. We were able to make our job more creative with it. Thinking creatively is also a good thing I added to my life. I learnt that early preparing for a task is also a good habit. The awareness of deadlines is also helped us to make our challenge successful.

What is PPD..?

• P=Personal
• P=Progress
• D=Development

Definition of Personal Progress Development

Personal progress development (PPD): aims to encourage an individual to become more self-aware and self-reliant and pay attention to their overall growth while planning for the future. Personal development plans can be applied to a wide range of contexts involving a career, education, relationship or for self-improvement..

Why we need PPD?

It has been recognised that we need structured opportunities to think about, and plan towards, our future. The exact content really depends on us. How much of your time do we want to give now to planning our future?

• PPD will encourage, we to make the most of our opportunities  to development of our skills, knowledge and experiences.
• To plan our personal, educational and career development
• To encourage us to develop clear ideas about future directions after University.

A Process of Personal Development

Development progress can be a very personal process or it can be a process required by our employer or tutor. As the word “development” suggests, PPD is something which takes place during our time at University and work place.

• Think deeply and in structured ways about our life and ambitions. What does success mean to you personally?
• Have the right information to make good choices.
• Have people you can trust to share our reflections.
• Have opportunities to experiment and test ourselves in new areas so that you have a better understanding of our abilities and limits.
• Have opportunities to develop the knowledge and skills to achieve our ambitions.

We have so many benefits in our personal , educational and professional life using personal progress development.They are,

Benefits of PPD to academic performance

Some advantages of taking a PPD approach to our studies are:

• Gaining a clearer focus to our learning.
• Helping to keep our self motivated.
• A better understanding of how we learn and how to improve our performance.
• More enjoyment and less stress from our learning as we become consciously skilled.
• More awareness of how to apply our learning to new problems and contexts.
• Reflective thinking skills that can strengthen academic performance. 

Benefits of PPD to professional life 

• Clearer ideas about the kind of life and work we want.
• Greater confidence in the choices we make.
• Greater confidence in the skills, qualities and attributes we bring to the career of our choice.
• Being in a better position to compete for jobs.
• Being better able to discuss your skills, personal qualities and competences with employers.
• Better problem-solving and planning skills.
• Developing the positive attitudes and approaches associated with successful professional life.

Many employers now expect employees to understand their own performance - and to know how to adapt to meet times of increased workload, stressful situations or conditions of change. Employees are expected to respond well to change. 

Benefits of PPD to personal life

• Being in a better position to make appropriate choices to meet our aspirations.
• Greater awareness of our needs and how to meet these.
• Greater awareness of the unique contribution we can make.
• Developing a positive, forward-looking approach.