Personal Progress Development - A New Learning Experiance in University Life

Sitting in a lecture hall for hours, listening to lecturer and write down notes are the things that we do normally everyday at the university.But it was a whole different experience when it comes to the PPD lessons.PPD or Personal Progress Development lessons are uplifting our presentation skills, communication skills, leadership skills and group working ability. 
PPD is not a normal lecture series. It consists of lot of group activities which gives us not only a valuable lesson, but also which add valuable memories to our university life.
In first year we did some enjoyable group activities.


 1.Helium stick   

We were grouped and there are about 10 members in a group.

This game was introduced as ‘Helium stick’. We had to pull that stick down by using only thumb .First we thought that it’s a easy task. But it wasn’t a simple task. We had to hold the stick by using our thumbs, and bring that down.

Our major problem was miscommunication. It was a hard task to explain what to do as a team to bring that stick down. Finally we all agreed to bring stick down after counting to 3.At the beginning that wasn’t successful too. But gradually we were managed to bring that stick down.

We learned that working as a team isn’t a easy task as we think. There are different people who think in various ways. And therefore there must be a leader who can handle such a situation. That leader should have an ability to communicate with all the teammates and get their ideas.

 2.Human circle

 

I think this activity was the best one. We kept chairs in a circle. Then we have to sat down and turn to a one side. Afterwards we had to lean back on one another. Then all chairs were removed away! Feet must keep closer ,and knee must keep around 90̊̊ . Therefore stability becomes higher. Whole class was participated for this as groups.

3.Paper tower

Ten A4 sheets, sellotapes and a scissor was given to each group. We had to construct the highest and stable paper tower by using only the given A4 sheets.

First of all, we planned about the structure of this tower .Because it must  not only be the highest, but also must be stable. Given time period is short, therefore we had to do planning part quickly and started to implement while discussing.

We tried to speak in English all the time because there are some of our Tamil friends too. Any way we managed to build up the paper tower in the time that we had given. Our tower got the 3^rd place for the height.

All of us worked together as a group. But only few people were sharing ideas, others were silent. That’s a weak point of our group. And we must implement the best idea among other ideas. If there is a better idea we have to accept it as a group.  And a another thing is , planning task must do properly before we entering to the developing part. A good plan will lead us to the success!

 
4.Blind fold polygon


 Our group consists of about 10 colleagues.Our eyes were covered with a piece of black cloth and then a rope was given to our hand.We had to communicate with others and be in a certain shape which was given by the coordinators.

 
5.Strew and cotton

In each and every activity we are getting new groups. Therefore we can work with different people who have different ideas.

A piece of strew was given to every one and a small piece of cotton is given to each group. We had to blow toward that piece of cotton and keep somehow that thing above the floor. And the team which keep that piece of cotton for the longest time period ,is the winning team!

Our team tried few times and then discussed to be in positions according to our heights. Some said that taller people must come inside, while others said that shorter people must be in center. We tried both ways and finally we kept that piece of cotton above floor for 1.7s.But another group has kept that for 3min.

 

 

Those are some activities we did in last year.We not only did activities but also attended to the forums organized by various clubs and societies of our university.One example for that is Youth Serge Forum which is organized by AIESEC of university of Kelaniya,Sri Lanka.

By the end of first year we had to prepare a poster which contains our goals.We hanged them around the lecture hall and presented that to others.After presenting it lecturers showed us the weaknesses of our future goals and told how to correct those ideas, and appreciated our good ideas and told how to improve them.