Two-day workshop for CFPS academic staff

Monday, 13 May 2013 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

A two-day workshop for academic staff development of Centre for Professional Studies in Sri Lanka (CFPS) was held at Excel World Conference Hall recently. The intended outcomes for this initial workshop was, to make sure the participants understand current trends in higher education, and the development and relevance of the learner-centred approach, also to be able to identify how such could be integrated, and finally to apply such more specifically in preparing the module plans and lessons plans for the coming academic year starting September 2013.

The academic leadership team consisting of Chairman Saliya Pieris, Deputy Managing Director Manouri Pieris and Chief Academic Officer Charles Fernando have being planning the event in beyond hand, in order to make such a program the launching pad for a continual process of empowering the academic staff to perform even better, than they currently do.

Some steps have already been taken to support reflective practice among the staff but this had been thought of as a catalytic intervention.

In March 2013, a high-level panel from the University of London of which CFPS is a registered centre, had been here for what is known as the Institutional Periodic Review. Hearing about the proposed program they had highly commended the idea.

The key-note address was delivered by Professor Chandra Gunawardena, renowned educationist who has been a leader in the Faculties of Education of the University of Colombo and of the Open University, and who is now the Commonwealth of Learning, UNESCO Chair in Distance Education at the Open University of Sri Lanka. Other resource persons who are experts in the field of Academic Staff Development contributed to the program.

The program included presentations, group work, individual activity and at the end a poster presentation.

The participants in their end-of-program review said they had profited from it, and will look forward to small doses of such input in a regular manner to keep them abreast of developments and stay focused on the need to be learner-centred in their teaching effort.