LOOKS BACK

LOOKS BACK

"We must become the change we want to see "

                                                              -Mahatma Gandhi-

At first day of PPD session I had no idea about what was PPD. That was the beginning and now I'm explaining you all how great and valuable that subject was.

 Personal Progress and Development is known as PPD. I got improve my skills thanks to PPD.

                                       

 I had a chance to add so many things to my life and take my life into a whole new level.We did both individual and group activities.We created a blog about each day and shared our experiences with others and also explained achievements of new skills and improving them.

Some of the activities which we did are lava river,paper tower, stand on the paper ,barter puzzle , life goal etc. Below mentioned are the things we gained and improved from these PPD sessions.

• time management                                
• self confidence                          
• communication skills
• leadership
• problem-solving ability
• organising
• face unexpected situations                    
• help each other 
• have positive attitudes
• improve potential
• achieve our goals

At the we had a chance to have a out bound training for 2 days in Trincomalee navy camp.It was a new great experience for all of us .We learned new things and enjoyed every second of it.
We had a wonderful dinner with the navy officers and had a chance to visit navy museum as well.
                                         

So at last when I look back from the position where I am now I can say that I have climbed my ladder of life a bit with the help of these skills that I learned and improved each day.
                                               

BARTER PUZZLE

Barter Puzzle

Puzzles are especially good for improving short-term memory. And also improves the ability to solve problems creatively. Puzzles help to develop our visual special skills aswell. It also may help to lower our stress levels and improve our attention.

We solved a Barta puzzle in our PPD session.

We solved a puzzle of 100 pieces and 20 pieces of our puzzle are mixed with other two groups and we had to negotiate with them to get our pieces.

We had a time frame of 30 minutes. In the middle of sloving the puzzle the instructor gave us a distraction. We successfully faced all the situations but unable to solve within the time.

There were 3 groups. group no3  won the game.

Things that we learned,

• Time management.
• How to work as a group.
• How to negotiate with others.
• How to protect our own things.
• How to face unexpected situation.

LIFE GOALS

Life Goals

                    "The harder you work for reach your goals
                      The greater you'll feel when you achieve those"

A goal is an idea of future or decided result that a person or group of people envisions, plans and commit to achieve.

We can devide goals into several categories. For an example goals can be devided as
short term goals (within 5 years)
long term goals (more than 5 years)

Not only that but we can devide goals into 3 parts
1-personal goals
2-academic goals
3-professional goals

we did a goal setting activity for our ppd session. my future goals are mentioned below according to categories.

• Personal Goals  

Travel Around Europe
Watch a football match at old trafford-Manchester.
Build a house
Get a car
Have a good wife and happy life

• Academic Goals 

Complete my degree with a higher GPA

• Professional Goals

To be a skillful software engineer
Start my own bussiness apart from my job.

LAVA RIVER & SHRINKING ISLAND

Lava River

This is a competitive fast pace game that requires team work and speed. This game can improve team dynamics within a group.

• Materials : 5 pieces of cardboard
• Two parallel lines are created around 10-15 meters apart. The space in between these two lines represents the river. The players cant touch the river. 

Objective

All the members of the team should cross the river without time limit then come back as a whole team within a specific time period.

Learning Outcomes

• Communication
• Co-operatiom
• Time management
• Leadership
• Problem Solving

Shrinking Island

It is a great game to play when resources are limited and as a way to encourage your group to work as a team.

• Resources : A large piece of paper for each team.
• All the group members have to  stand on the paper without stepping outside.
• The paper must be folded over and over again after each round and have to stand on it.
• The group that can survive with the smallest piece of paper wins.

To win, the participants can use possible strategies like stading on one feet, standing on each others foot or taking off their shoes.

                                             University of Kelaniya

                                              
                             Motto  -  Pannaya Parisujjhati [self purification is by insight]
 
               Chancellor - Ven.Welamitiyawe Dharmakirthi Sri Kusala Dhamma Thero.

                  Vice Chancellor  -  Prof.Semasinghe Dissanayake

                     Administrative staff  -  771 adcademic 637 non academic


                                   

                                           Vidyalankara Privena has been founded in 1875 by Ratmalane Sri Dharmaloka Thero as a centre of learning for Buddhist monks.It became Vidyalankara University in 1959. First Vice chancellor was ven.Kiriwaththuduwe Sri Pragnasara Nayaka Thero.In 1978 it was renamed as University of Kelaniya. The first female student was taken in 1966.
                                         

                     

                          University of kelaniya has many facilities for students.There is a main library which includes thousands of books and also there are 9 canteens.Food is cheaper than the outside.Girls' hostels and boys' hostels are also provided for students to stay while they are studying.2 Grounds and a gymnasium are there for sports activities. 

                                           

                              This state university is located in Dalugama, Kelaniya.Today it consists of 7 faculties and 50 departments.

                   The faculties are,

• Humanities
• Social sciences
• Science  -  8 departments 
• Medicine
• Commerce and Management studies
• Graduate studies 
• Computing and Technology

                                             

 
       The faculty of medicine is situated in Ragama.The main hall of the university is Dharmaloka hall and also the whole university has a free WiFi network.University provides free medical treatments for students and for staff members.There are bookshops inside the university.University of kelaniya is the first ever green university in Sri Lanka.
       The official website is www.kln.ac.lk

                                         

What We Learnt From PPD

Things that we gained

PPD means personal progress development. Simply it’s like a leadership training. This session gave us lot of self confidence and lessons about how to make our decisions, how to work as a team and how to understand each other etc..

We did lots of activities during this semester with miss Sarasi. She gave us lot of confidence to do those activities. I think she is the person who behind our every successful activity.

These are some of our unforgettable activities,

This was our first activity and it is so fun. We were grouped by our lecturer and she told us to go and gather information about outside of the university as a team. This was so helpful for us to get to know each other. After that we did a presentation about what we saw and what we gained during that activity.

While we doing all these things we got lots of experience for our life. Lots of us came this university without any leadership experience. But attending something like PPD session, it helped us to improve our soft skills like how to work as a team, how to care each other, how to communicate with them etc..

 After all these things, we learnt;

·        Importance of a leadership

·        How to work as a team

·        How to lead a team

·        How to communicate with each other

·        How to manage our time

·        Think differently

·        Make eye contact

·        How to do a presentation

·        Make independent decisions

·        Respect each other.

Paper Magic

Paper tower

paper tower is a group activity. It is a tower which is made by papers. When we make that tower we have to focus on two things. Those are

·        Height of tower

·        Stability of tower

So when we make that tower we have to think a lot because this is a game and there is a competition between each team. There are some rules for this game,

•   Must use all the papers.
•   Can only use papers , scissors and  gum tapes.
•   Must make the tower within 45 minutes.
•   Paper tower must be kept on the ground outside of the classroom.
•   Team which makes the highest and most stable paper tower will wins.

Group Work

We were divided into 3 groups. Each team had 8 members. In our group every member had a specific role to play in this game. Before build the tower we made a plan about how we do this. Like all the other teams we also focused on a strong base because stability is necessary. But we have to build a strong base by using few papers. Because we only got 12 papers.

Firstly we made a strong base. We have to speak in English because it is also a lesson for us to learn how to communicate with others in English.

After building a strong base, we focused on middle of the tower.

Then we built the higher part of the tower and completed it.

Things That We Learned

Ø  How to help each others in a team work.

Ø  How to face the problems and find solutions for them.

Ø  How to lead a team.

Ø  How to communicate with others.

Ø  How to design a project.

Ø  How to divide project into pieces and how to combined them all.

PPD

PPD means Personal Progress and Development. It is a life long process. It helps people to develop their skills and qualities.And also personal progress development skills helps people to get on the right track.
As human beings we have to face lot of challenges in our day to day life. So we must have a good personality to face those problems. PPD (Personal Progress and Development) is a great way to overcome them.

There are lot of benefits in PPD,

• It helps us to understand people in our society.
• Teaches us to cope with pressure of our challenges.
• Develops our communication skills.
• Give us a leadership training.
• How to balance our day to day life.
• Creates a visible personal profile among others.