Perceived Effectiveness of Professional Development Programs of Teachers at Higher Education Level

The major purpose of the study was to assess the perceived effectiveness of professional development programs of teachers at higher educational level.   The objectives of the study were: to assess university level teachers’ opinion about effectiveness of professional development training with reference to quality teaching, to measure university level teachers’ opinion about the effectiveness of the content  applicability in classroom settings in taught  professional development programs, to find out the effectiveness of  professional development programs in leading to tackle with students  related problems in classroom, to assess the effectiveness of  professional development in introducing innovative teaching strategies.  Data for the study was collected from teachers of Public Sector University.   Major findings of the study were that university teachers were not satisfied with the effectiveness of content of professional development programs. The respondents were not satisfied with the professional development programs with reference to classroom related problems of students; follow-up of training, innovative teaching strategies and reflective practice aspects of professional development programs.    On the basis of present study we   recommended that the content of the professional development programs may be designed to address daily classroom problems of students,    providing practical training in innovative teaching strategies, using innovative teaching strategies that are helpful in effective teaching and proper follow-up of every professional development program may be made mandatory through implementation of rules. In current era reflective practice is an important component of effective teaching. Therefore it is suggested that special programs may be design for training of university teachers in doing reflective practice. The result of the study may lead to redesigning of professional development courses of teachers. Keywords: Professional developments, university teachers, effectiveness, reflective practice, follow u

Bacteriostatic Activity of Lemon Juice against Staphylococcal Skin Infections

Antimicrobial herbs are center of attraction from a very long time back. These herbs can cure variety of the infections including GIT, liver and skin infections. In this conducted study we have analyzed lemon as an antibacterial herb against skin infections. A total of 25 skin lesion samples were collected out of which 14 were Staphylococcus epidermidis and 06 were Staphylococcus aureus were isolated. By pure culture study method all the species of Staphylococci gives bacteriostatic growth by the activity of lemon juice which was analyzed by Agar well diffusion method. Some other antimicrobial herb are also efficient against skin infections like aloe vera, neem etc. Because of the presence of Vitamin C lemon juices aids some more health effects to the skin and have less side effects than antibiotics

Diarrhea Outbreak Caused by Contaminated Water used for Vegetables Sale

Water has always played a prominent role in human civilization. The water sources used for supplying water were not always clean, and coliforms are the major source of diarrheal infections especially in developing countries and hence contaminated water is the main reason for the spread of these coliforms with in a community by different ways. The contamination of water used in vegetables by pathogens cause diarrheal disease is the most important aspect of vegetables quality. This problem arises as a consequence of contamination of water by faecal matter, particularly human faecal matter, containing pathogenic organisms. Vegetable sellers usually use dirty/contaminated water to shower on vegetables to keep them fresh. This study describes the outbreaks of diarrheal diseases along with the reasons for the outbreaks. In our study we have used Membrane filter technique to test the quality of water used by the vegetable sellers. Purpose of this study is to detect the presence of coliforms which is associated with diarrheal infections due to fecal contamination. We examined the water samples by Membrane filter method in which we use 0.45µm filter paper which was soaked in peptone water and incubated at 37 oC for 24 hours, this peptone water was further streaked on MacConkey and EMB media. Additional identification of microorganisms was done by microscopy and biochemical tests. Observed results revealed that the water is fecally contaminated and the microorganisms isolated were as with described percentages E.coli 12%, Klebsiella 40%, Proteus 44%, Pseudomonas 20%, Shigella 8%, Salmonella 4% and Enterobacter 4% who are the members of coliforms. This study helps in the identification of coliform from different sources which lead to a cause of diarrheal infectio

Teachers’ Attitude towards Reflective Practice in Public and Private Sector at Higher Secondary Level

The study was conducted to explore teachers’ attitudes towards reflective practice in public and private sector at the higher secondary level. Objectives of the study were to investigate teachers’ attitude about the need for reflective practice in teaching and to explore teachers’ attitudes towards the use of reflective practice for understanding students’ learning difficulties. It was a descriptive study done in the Pakistani context. For this purpose, the researcher developed a questionnaire to find out teachers’ attitudes towards reflective practice. Data was collected through the stratified random sampling technique from 300 teachers teaching higher secondary classes of private and public sector higher secondary schools/ colleges. The analysis of the data was made by applying mean, SD (standard deviation), t-test and ANOVA (analysis of variance) through SPSS (statistical package for social sciences). The findings showed that teachers of both the public and private sectors did not realize the need for reflective practice at the higher secondary level for understanding students’ learning difficulties. It was recommended that teachers of the public and private sector may be aware of reflective practice through training programs. Strategies of reflective practice are supposed to be used by teachers in the teaching learning process. It is suggested that reflective practice may be mentioned in the syllabus of the training course. The findings of the presented study have implication for teachers and curriculum developers of professional development programs