S.S. Jain Subodh Girls P.G. College, Jaipur, Head of Zoology Department: Dr. Seema Saxena Interview

Dr. Seema Saxena has been working as the Head of Zoology Department at S.S. Jain Subodh Girls P.G. College, Jaipur, Rajasthan. She has done B.Sc. in Science and Biology from Rajasthan University of Jaipur and M.Sc. in Zoology from J.N.V. University of Jodhpur and PhD from Rajasthan University of Jaipur as part of her academics and she has also qualified SLET from RPSC Ajmer Rajasthan in 1997. For her amazing work in the education and research field, she has won Best Faculty Award in the 2nd International Scientist Award on Engineering, Science and Medicine held in 2019, Young Scientist Award 2019 from Kalash Research and Welfare Society, Best Faculty Award 2020 from Subodh Shiksha Samiti, Rambagh and Excellence in Extension Award in a National Seminar held in 2022 at Chitrakoot, Madhya Pradesh. She has published 9 research papers in various National and International Journals. She knows English, Hindi and Rajasthani languages. She has a total of 22 years of teaching experience including 12 years of PG classes experience. And before joining Subodh PG Mahila Vidalaya, she has worked as a Lecturer, Head of Department and as a Principal in various reputed Colleges. She has also delivered oral presentations in 14 conferences, participated in 3 conferences, has attended workshops, posted presentations and seminars on various topics. She is fond of reading, writing, singing and playing indoor games like Badminton. 

What are your roles and responsibilities towards the students?

"It is to educate students, guide them for their projects and assign them projects etc."

Being the Head of the Zoology Department, I am responsible to provide right guidance to my students by evaluating their strengths and weaknesses, educating them about the valuable life skills like communication, compassion and presentation. In addition to this, helping students so that they can confidently face the outside world, measuring their progress by assigning them projects, portfolios and assignments, and making them a responsible citizen, confident and innovative person also comes under the scope of my responsibilities. 

How do you establish healthy relations with the students and fellow faculty?

"By being a good communicator, listener and supporter for them"

In order to maintain a good relationship with my students and faculty members, I regularly interact with them by ensuring a respectful and transparent communication environment. And few other means through which I ensure smooth functioning of our Department is by scheduling monthly meetings with them, encouraging student-led activities, acknowledging students and teachers good behavior and achievements, showing empathy and proactively addressing and resolving their issues and queries.

How do you introduce a practical and industry-oriented approach towards subjects?

"By organizing collaborative learning sessions to discuss latest technologies and tools"

We use a range of activities to illustrate innovative ideas to help students understand a concept in a better way. We also ask them to participate in discussion and debate sessions so that learning could become more participative and collaborative in nature. Overall, we formulate and implement creative teaching strategies that are practical and meet the academic needs of our students.

How do you strategize and update the curriculum to make it beneficial for the students?

"We include our teachers in its implementation process who regularly stay in touch with industry people"

Our college believes that for effective curriculum designing and implementation, teachers participation and feedback is mandatory. Hence, whenever we design the curriculum of our college, we keep in mind our end objectives, teaching philosophy, students' learning experience, resources we have and after this we do rigorous analysis and research on latest industrial development and requirements. Lastly, curriculum should be of the kind that individual strategies and learning methods should perfectly fit with. 

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What are your views on the placement and higher education of students from your department?

"We are doing great placement wise and providing all suitable learning opportunities to students"

I firmly believe that Placement is one of the key parameters for the assessment of higher educational institutes and their students, because better placements guarantee better ranking of the institute. And if I talk about my institute, we are doing great and are providing every possible kind of academic and personal support and services to our students so that they can secure good job opportunities and in reputed companies. Along with this, we are offering industry specific training and skills enhancement programs to them so that they can prepare themselves in a better way for the corporate world. 

Which strategy do you use to prepare students to cope with the outside competitive world?

"By encouraging them to believe in themselves and upgrade their skills"

For the purpose of preparing our students for the outside competitive world and offering them relevant opportunities so that they can grow on both personal and professional fronts in life, we regularly interact with them to know about their areas of interest and expertise. Along with this, we use the concept of summative and formative assessment to monitor their academic progress and encourage them to upgrade their skills and never compare their individuality with others. Lastly, we try our best to inculcate the attitude of collaborative, individualized and competitive learning approach in them so that they can confidently present themselves in front of others and learn skills like teamwork and leadership. 

Which extracurricular activities are organized in your college to enhance the skill of students?

"We regularly organize cultural activities, technical events, environment activities and fun games"

Our college has established numerous clubs including Science Club, Commerce Club, Arts Club, Debate, Literature and Recreation Clubs, Eco Club and Community Welfare Clubs like NSS etc. for the purpose of organizing amazing activities and enhancing the skills of our students. All these clubs regularly organize events and activities like technical events, cultural fests, debate competitions, refreshment and fun activities, play and community welfare events. Along with this, we offer short term courses to students in the discipline of Digital Marketing,telly, Beauty and Makeup and educational tours and excursions are organized too by us from time to time.

Which challenges are you facing to uplift the education quality of your department?

"Teachers less productivity in educating students and doing research as they are involved in multiple tasks"

The most tough task for our teachers is that they need to adhere to multiple roles like doing non-teaching tasks and sometimes clerical work as well in addition to taking regular classes of students and this I believe is a challenge in itself which we need to address and fix on an early basis. Also, lots of paperwork is there which we need to complete on a daily basis and this results in decreased productivity as we get minimum time to improve our teaching Practices and generate innovative ideas for projects and research work.

What approaches do you bring in apart from curriculum to teach students?

"We make them competent and responsible individuals by educating them using ICT tools and organizing seminars"

Along with my faculty members, we all work as a team to make our students confident, responsible, reflective, innovative and ICT skilled by providing them required study materials, books, measuring their academic and non-academic progress in different ways and allowing them to question and give out their suggestions. In addition to this, we use visual cues, organize seminars and field trips from time to time and use educational videos and handwritten notes to teach and guide students.

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Any valuable advice which you would like to share with the young minds?

"Stay focused, calm and positive and finish the tasks in present instead of delegating them for future"

I would like to advise my students to stay organized and balanced in their lives. Don't procrastinate tasks that are urgent and complete them with full perfection in the current time only. Also, stay positive, hopeful and determined towards your life goals, give your 100% efforts to achieve, live in the present and never apologize unnecessarily for things you are not responsible for.