NAAC - Institutional Assessment & Accreditation - B + (from 31/3/2021) Track ID: TNCOGN100628 / AISHE ID: C-45457. Recognised by Dental Council of India - Department of Health and Family Welfare,Govt. of India. Affliated to The Tamil Nadu Dr.M.G.R Medical University.

1. MENTORING SYSTEM FOR STUDENTS

  • MENTORING SYSTEM FOR STUDENTS 2022-23Click here
  • RESEARCH CULTURE AMONG THE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS 2022 - 23.pdfClick here

1. Objective of the Practice

As many students are entering into this professional course every year, with minimal knowledge and experience about the course pattern, it is our prime concern for the management to take care of their various roadblocks to achieve their goal, which is impossible and certain times face many drawbacks to achieve one to one communication with all the students. To overcome this issue and to promote their welfare, Mentoring system was implemented which assist each and every student by creating an efficient mentor – student relationship. Mentors help in focusing on their mentees personal, academic, physical, and any mental issues from various external factors and help them to organize, prioritize and better manage the problems being placed upon them.

2. Need Addressed and the Context

Mentors should anticipate student's need based on their attributes. Students experience entirely different study place from their schooling and entering into college life. They will experience homesickness, educationally weak background, language problem, failing to network, disorganized or being overwhelmed about the new environment, poor problem solving ability and difficulty in handling the stressful situation. Especially hostel students will face difficulty in addressing their problems, as they are not aware of the proper portal to where they should report. Many students are new to this environment and staying away from parents or guardians will be challenging for the students, as they should develop self-confidence and problem-solving ability to face stressful situations. Considering all these criteria, we designed Mentoring system to achieve overall performance of the students and college as well. It involves personalized attention to mentees, serve as a place for the exchange of ideas, proposals and experiences, mutually beneficial, address individual learning needs of the mentees, building confidence in handling challenges and problems, motivate and provoke changes in their values, attitudes and skills.

3. The Practice

The first part of the practice is to create a mentor head, under whom mentors report once in a month. Each mentors are assigned nearly 8- 10 students commencing from their first year till their internship for duration of about 5 years. Individual mentor card has been maintained to record their theory attendance, OP attendance, Co-Curricular activities. Mentees will have regular meeting with their mentor's once in a week and any further details or queries will be addressed. The mentors are responsible for all their movements ranging from their attendance, fee payment, and appearance for examination, their performance in examination, co- curricular and extra – curricular activities, personal issues. Each mentees will be monitored by their respective mentor and a report will be submitted at the end of the month to the mentor head, which is further addressed to the Principal.

4. Evidence of Success

As the groups of students have been narrowed down to a batch of 8 - 10 students, each student as well as mentor finds time to share their activities. Through this Mentoring practice, we achieved better co- ordination/rapport among parents, mentees and mentors and achieved better result outcome. Achieving better results and showing progress compared to previous academic year is rather a difficult task even after effective role of staffs, students and the institution. This was the first time in educational era to face such situation of postponing the examinations due to pandemic situation. Even amidst this situation, Final year students faired remarkably well similar to Final year results of August 2020 batch (97% compared to 95% the previous year).

5. Problems encountered & Resources required

Some parents are not frequent users of internet and have poor communication ability, in such cases it becomes difficult to access them, failing to complete follow up and promote better achievement through mentoring system. The success of online mentoring depends on the student's virtual efficacy, including the adequacy of the hardware, software and the Internet aspects for interaction between mentor, students and parents. However, shifting from in-person to virtual mentoring can require a period of adjustment and presents its own challenges, including home access to technology, privacy, and increased potential for miscommunication of verbal and nonverbal cues. Rather virtual mentoring, in- person meeting was the one which is commonly suggested by the parents. Even the mentors feel that individual sensitive comments about the mentees could not be represented in a common meeting .This was the most common problem faced by the mentors as well as the parents from virtual mentoring requesting to encourage direct meeting with respective mentors, such that any queries can be addressed personally.

6. Notes

Implementing effective Mentoring system with efficient mentors will provide better result outcomes and all the grievances faced by the students or parents can be addressed without ignoring it. This leads to overall better performance among students and promote for the welfare of the institution. It is a shared responsibility of institution to aid in student success, which is the core of any academic institution. Mentoring system allows the students to have the opportunity to develop a relationship with a faculty member who can become a role model and advocate for the student by offering support and counsel. Mentoring of all sorts can greatly enhance student's experience and assist them in actively engaging in educationally-purposeful activities which are known to improve their success. Mentoring can assist students in engaging as part of a larger community; it can strengthen their ability to recognize their skills, abilities, and interests, and assist them in thinking through and accomplishing long-term goals. By pairing faculty or staff members with students over the course with scheduled meetings in a comfortable environment, the students will be given the opportunity to talk about his or her academic needs, share his or her goals, and discuss concerns and needs.


PHOTOS OF MENTORSHIP COMMITTEE MEETINGS

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06.08.2021



08.09.2021



07.10.2021



10.11.2021



28.12.2021



8.2.2022



4.3.2022


2. RESEARCH CULTURE AMONG UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

1. OBJECTIVE OF THE PRACTICE

Research is the most important driving force that bridges knowledge with practice. Several unanswered questions are found to get easy solutions when they are converted to research questions. The principle objective of this practice is to inculcate research ideas in UG students, which automatically induces and fosters the research ecosystem of the institution. Since UGs ultimately pursue PG or go for clinical practice the research mind induction at a young age would help them largely to transform their bench side ideas into chair side practice as they grow and evolve. Hence the basis of this practice objective is to catch the students when they are young and infuse research thinking in them.

2. NEED ADDRESSED AND THE CONTEXT

The overall ecosystem of an institute is largely determined by its students. Students at the UG level have to attain both theoretical and practical knowledge. Today being an era of innovation, patency and entrepreneurship, the student mind needs tuning to keep abreast with growing global knowledge. It is this factor that necessitates inducing a research culture in UG students. This need has been addressed in Tagore Dental College and Hospital through several activities such as encouraging students to apply for ICMR STS funding programmers. They are also motivated to apply their research projects to a designated institutional research committee which scrutinizes the project and passes it on to the IEC which grants ethical approval. This exercise makes the student understand and explore his research question with an ethical background. Students are also motivated to complete NPTEL courses conducted online and encouraged to publish their research findings in indexed journals. The only challenge faced in addressing the need of a research ecosystem at an UG level is to make the student spare quality time amidst their regular academic schedule and to make them devote time for research. This has been successfully performed with help of an able administration and management.

3. THE PRACTICE

Today is rightly termed an era of research based education. India is a growing country and is making huge studies in the field of research. The students of Tagore Dental College and Hospital are thus context, subjected to a unique research ecosystem that makes research and publication mandatory to complete the course. This practice can be termed largely as a best practice with regards to the research domain. The UG students are guided by their mentors to take up research project at which they draft and get approval from the mentor. Following this the project is applied for scrutiny to a body termed by the IRC. This committee is made up of members who discuss the project extensively for its merits and demerits. After suitable scrutiny, the project is passed on to the IEC which consists of external experts also scrutinizes the project for its ethical background and grants ethical approval. Upon obtaining ethical approval, one other important component is addressed that being the funding. Small projects are funded by the management, while some other projects are applied by the students to the ICMR STS scheme. Projects sanctioned by governmental/intramural funding are performed by the students with best research practices. In this context it is noteworthy to mention that students are motivated to complete online courses such as the NPTEL to attain proficiency in designing a research question, making it a hypothesis, framing the study design, calculating the sample size, identifying the right method to perform the research, arriving at the best statistical method to analyze and interpret data. The institution in addition to this conducts an array of CDE programs with lectures from national and international level faculty who motivate the students to develop research attitude through their professional skills. Some research ideas of the students which are novel are also taken to the next level of patency approval. Publication of research finding in indexed journal has been made mandatory, which is another best practice. Prior to publication of the findings, the students are encouraged to make a draft that is corrected by their mentors for accuracy of data. Further, the manuscript is subjected to plagiarism detection software and is corrected for its accuracy. After this is done the article is uploaded by the student and published. It can hence be perceived that making research mandatory, funding the research, scrutinizes its accuracy and publishing the findings are all best practices. The only constraint for the best practice is devotion of time by the students and faculty, which is also efficiently managed and made easy by a good management and able administration.

4. EVIDENCE OF SUCCESS

Any practice is best judged by the evidence of success in terms of implementation. Research in Tagore Dental College and Hospital is governed by the IRC made up of 14 members and the IEC made up of 12 members. A total of 7 research meetings have happened revising 2021-2022, indicating the number of proposals that have been applied for. A total of 51 research proposals have been presented so far. 14 research CDE programs have been conducted by the Tagore Dental College and Hospital for fostering research activities. 4 research proposals have been granted funding under the ICMR STS scheme. It is noteworthy that research proposals being recognized and granted by governmental funding agencies is definitely a point of merit. To add to this, is the management and administration support received to inculcate the research culture in students which has led to good Scopus, PubMed indexed publications which have been performed between 2021-2022. Because of this, we are also able to excel in post graduate entrance examinamtion eg. Student Dr.Silabarasan secured 1st rank in AIIMS and Dr. Subham.S.Agrawal secured 9th rank in AIIMS.

5. PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED AND RESOURCES REQUIRED

The only perceivable problem encountered in creating a research ecosystem among UG students is the time factor. The research activities are to be performed by the students during their OP and class hours which could make regular learning quite challenging. This factor has of course been circumvented by the availability of weekend training programs. Moreover identifying students with research talent and nurturing them and challenging the students effectively are another major hurdle faced. However research has been made in Tagore Dental College and Hospital as a mandate and not optional. This drives and motivates all students to take up research seated to their interest which also leads to talent and interest, identic action at an early stage. The only requirement for a brighter future for research activities would be the availability of more funds for performing and publishing research findings. It is also noteworthy that a central research facility is being developed at Tagore Dental College and Hospital to challenge the research activities and to function as a nodal center for research.


  • SUPPORTING DOCUMENT FOR BEST PRACTICES OF OUR COLLEGE Click here
  • MENTORING SYSTEM FOR STUDENTS - SUPPORTING DOCUMENT 2021 - 2022 Click here
  • RESEARCH CULTURE AMONG THE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS - SUPPORTING DOCUMENT - 2021 -2022 Click here
  • STUDENT COUNSELLING - 2021-22 Click here

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