Article on Group Discussion in the Thursday Magazine of Times of Oman

Group Discussion is an important tool for recruitment and selection professionals. Day in and day out these human resource domain specialist are adopting or supplementing their recruitment and selection repertoire by including newer tools, out of which one is group discussion. The article authored by yours truly and published in the Thursday Magazine of The Times of Oman, dated 8th of January 2015 talks about the same. Read to know more......

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Article on career as a communication specialist published in the Thursday Magazine of The Times of Oman

Communication forms the backbone for all organizations and therefore the personnel manning different facets of communication are equally important. The article below provides some insights about the career option of communication specialist published in The Times of Oman, Thursday Magazine dated 30th of October 2014.

The article can also be accessed from- http://www.timesofoman.com/Thursday

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Article on Job Seeker to Job Provider in the Thursday Magazine of The Times of Oman

It was indeed a great experience to collaborate with my senior pro on an article of contemporary importance, published in the Thursday Magazine of The Times of Oman, dated 24th of July 2014. Read on....

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Article on Collaborative Teaching in the Thursday Magazine of The Times of Oman

It was indeed nice to conduct a workshop and then follow it up with an article on Collaborative Teaching with my esteemed colleague and friend, Mr. Salim Bani Orabah, HoS, English Language Center, ICT, Oman. The article can also be viewed from the Times of Oman portal, from the link below-

http://www.timesofoman.com/News/35809/Article-Collaborative-thinking--Need-of-the-hour

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Article on Cracking the Interview from The Thursday Magazine of Times of Oman

Read an article on cracking the interview published in The Times of Oman, Thursday Magazine, dated 29th of May 2014. The article can also be seen from the link below-

http://www.timesofoman.com/News/34493/Article-Crack-the-interview

 Other blog and micro-blog from the same blogger are http://www.manishankarscribbles.wordpress.com and http://www.twitter.com/manitwitts and face-book page, https://www.facebook.com/pages/manishankarthetrainerblogspotcom/200629686674250?ref=hl

Article on Managing Student Related Affairs in the New Paradigm

It was indeed an honour and pleasure to author a collaborative article with the senior colleague of yours truly on managing student affairs in the new paradigm. The article throws light on different aspect in a student centered Higher Education Institute. Published in the Thursday Magazine of The Times of Oman, dated 15th of May 2014. The article has many important aspects related to student related affairs from a student centered perspective. Read on.

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Workshop on PEER OBSERVATION in the Higher Education Sector

360 degree appraisal has taken center stage for all professional organizations cutting across sectors and levels. Peers form the new range of stakeholders (read as the backbone) out of the whole lot, who are given adequate importance while conducting an appraisal solely for the developmental causes of individual professional growth and the overall organization at large. Learning from peer by sharing information had been in vogue for time immemorial. The emergence of knowledge sectors, viz. Information Technology, Information Technology enabled Sectors, Biotechnology have given new dimension to learning and development of the employees so as to create a culture of holistic growth in line with the organizational vision and mission. Prof. Salim Saeed Salim Bani Orabah, Head of Section, English Language Programs, Ibra College of Technology(ICT) and Prof. Haroun Mohammed Abdullah Al-Baloushi, Lecturer, English, Ibra College of Technology having decades of experience in formulating, implementing and publishing the first-hand experience of peer observation in the Ministry of Education, Sultanate of Oman, have presented the same to a Higher Education Institution (HEI) set-up, vis-à-vis that of Ibra College of Technology, one of the seven colleges monitored, controlled and administered by the Ministry of Manpower, Sultanate of Oman. The duo has provided the academics and academic administrators of ICT with substantial value addition to the teaching-learning environment of the targeted institution that in turn would also provide food for thought for all other HEI in the Sultanate of Oman and rest of the world. The focused workshop conducted by the in-house experts comprising of audience entailing the teaching faculties from the Business Studies, Engineering, Information Technology, English Language Center, along with the administrative staff clarified all the three phases in an academic oriented peer observation, i.e. pre-observation, observation and post-observation. The hands-on approach adopted by the facilitators during the workshop, allowed the participants to understand the significance of peer observation in an HEI set-up, primarily for self-development, finally culminating in leveraging the much needed metamorphosis in the teaching-learning environment of the educational institution. The greatest benefit from such an observational methodology unlike a routine one conducted solely with the objective of performance appraisal by the immediate supervisors is the fact that the onus lies more with the observee rather than the observer, although the learning derived by the latter in order to mature as a professional observer acts as the perfect icing on the cake. The complete paper authored by Prof. Salim Saeed Salim Bani Orabah detailing peer observation, can be accessed from http://www.moe.gov.om/Portal/sitebuilder/Sites/EPS/Arabic/IPS/Importa/tesol/6/Teachers%E2%80%99%20beliefs%20about%20peer%20observation.pdf .  The experts can be reached at sbaniorabah@ict.edu.om and haroun@ict.edu.om .

 

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Simulated Learning technique for Business Communication

Business Communication forms the backbone of all professionals, whether they are managing the back office or the front end. Apart from external communication primarily with the external stakeholders of an organization, viz. customers, suppliers, government, society to name a few, internal communication within the organization forms the precursor for all external communications and even internal communications, held subsequently. Business meeting happens to be a routine affair for employees across industries, domains and departments. and therefore learning the nuances of planning, organizing, and conducting a meeting is an important prerequisite for all prospective professionals, more so the ones in different functions of Business Organizations. 

Business Communication being offered to the Diploma-I level students have a plethora of learning outcomes with a mix and match of theory and practical, encompassing a wide gamut of aspects pertaining to business communication, including but not limited to oral communication, written communication, formal communication, informal communication, real and virtual communication. Technology being one of the major enabler in business communication, the need to understand the basics of business meeting has increased manifold. Right from setting the agenda, formulating the meeting layout, writing the minutes, communicating with different members, donning different roles in the group viz. chairperson, secretary or even situation specific ones like Marketing Manager, Human Resource Manager or even Finance and Accounts Manager, calls for a hands on learning approach. This background motivated yours truly, along with his colleague, Mr. Munir to create a simulated assessment platform of business meeting for the students of Business Communication, whereby they actually implement the theoretical learning imbibed during the course of the classroom lecture . The students were given the opportunity to form group of 5 members each and were given a hypothetical situation pertaining to the discussion of a business plan for an Omani sweets company, by making a formal meeting agenda, plan and organize the actual meeting, in line with the learning extracted during the classroom based theoretical and practical learning. The students of section 3 and 4 tutored and monitored  by yours truly and section 1 and 3 by Mr. Munir did wonderfully well so as to conduct the actual meeting. They had not only understood the practicalities of a business meeting, but actually internalized the processes leading to the actual meeting, the discussion, finalization of the charters etc. In the process lot of cross learning related to the domains of business along with business communication took place, tangibly and intangibly. As a course tutor the learning derived were phenomenal simply because the latent abilities of the students, their creative and innovative instincts came to the fore, which otherwise lie partially dormant in a routine classroom discussion. The snaps and videos are being captured from the deliberations of section3 and section 4 respectively.

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The video of two of the many groups performing the simulation can be observed from links below-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoVMPLaNfDc&feature=youtu.be


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olJ3G-V-cqY&feature=youtu.be

486th Publication in International Journal

465 publication on "Sports as a Rejuvenator and Unifier"

The article is published in the home page of www.knowledgeoman.com (http://knowledgeoman.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9321). It presents a snap shot on the annual sports at Ibra College of Technology, Sultanate of Oman, proving beyond doubt the fact that Sports play a pivotal role in rejuvenating the mind and also unifies people across domains, industry, regions, languages and culture.The annual sports extravaganza at the college campus gave the real life meaning of sportsmanship, competitive spirit and never say die approach to name a few.The event brought together all the staff and students on a single platform, which helped in knowing each other, not to forget the boosting of the friendly relationships between one and all.This culminated in a new found spirit and exhuberance amongst the stakeholders.

Symposium on Technological Development: Challenges and Perspectives @ SCAS, Sohar,Oman

The two day knowledge extravaganza at Sohar College of Applied Sciences, Sohar, Oman, on the 12th and 13th of April 2010 presented plethora of issues targeting the higher education sector. The academia from the Arab World addressed issues pertaining to different domains of technology, viz. electronic learning, novel learning methodologies, the sphere of the applied sciences, engineering and technology and business studies.The cross section of the presenters comprising of on stage and poster presenters detailed the nuances either in the form of research paper, case study or a mixed of both.Yours truly presented a case study titled, "A Case Study on Technology and Higher Education in the 21st Century"(abstract attached alongside this blog) presented real life experiences encountered in the Arab World as a faculty and corporate trainer.The major takeaways for yours truly were, usage of e-learning as a blended tool, the need for a perfect relationship between teaching faculties and laboratory attendants, as in the era of technology driven education it is important for the duo to compliment each other, rather than compete with each other.The big list of takeaways also entailed the need for the academic administrators to understand the importance of technology, thereby sourcing the state-of-the-art technologies and alter the same from time to time, rather than keeping them stagnant for a longer period of time.Moreover, the importance of training so as to imbibe the technological tools in the repertoire of all the stakeholders involved in the higher education sector needs to be understood locally and on an one to one basis, rather than a one size fits all.The snaps from the conference and Sohar is present in the following link-http://picasaweb.google.com/117563529873132697910/SymposiumSoharCollegeOfAppliedSciencesOman#The certificate can be viewed from the link http://manishankarthetrainer.blogspot.com/2009/09/details-of-conference-participation-at.html
Kudos to the SCAS, Sohar Team and the Ministry of Higher Education, Oman for conducting an excellent knowledge generating and disseminating platform!
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The fun of teaching a new subject to the professional students

Although I had been teaching BBA, MBA, Diploma, Certificate, Higher Diploma students of business and management studies and training corporates for over a decade now, I have recently discovered the fun of teaching a novel subject.The routine subjects of management I was covering included marketing, human resources, strategic management, principles of management, soft skills to name a few didn't incite me much when it came to pedagogical innovation.It was when I was asked to train students on a new subject, Job Search Technique(JST),that my grey cells were activated beyond imagination.Prima facie it appeared that the subject was a cake-walk, however after realizing the diverse background of the target audience, I realized the importance of innovating so that I can reach out to them individually.I therefore started understanding the profile of students from different disciplines like Engineering, IT apart from business.I coined a unique method to analyze job advertisement analysis, somewhat similar to job analysis, whereby the trainee was supposed to list out the job profile on one side, his personal profile, along with the SWOT on the other, followed by marking right and wrong, depending upon their similarity and dissimilarity respectively.If the end result had more right, they concluded it is the right job for them and on the contrary more wrong indicated it wasn't the right job for them.Similarly, I asked them to research on various ways as to how internet can be leveraged to land up with the right job, pros and cons of conventional and unconventional job search techniques and more.

My 436th Publication titled on "OJT"

OJT or On the Job Training play an important role in the learning curve of a professional.The write-up published in the www.knowledgeoman.com is based on my experiences in India,The UAE and observations in the Sultanate of Oman.

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