A National Conference cum Workshop on “Motivation Inspiration and Millennials’ Engagement” (MIMECON) was organised by the Medical Education Unit, Mahatma Gandhi Medical College & Research Institute under funding from the Medical Council of India on 16th September 2017. The conference was attended by 134 participants from Puducherry, Chennai, Villupuram, Karaikal, Kanchipuram, and Karnataka State.
The main objectives of the conference were to identify the characteristics of Millennial students and how to respond to these changes in organizing teaching learning process. Other issues which were discussed during this conference were the five R’s of engaging today’s students, the attributes liked by students in an ideal professor, how to accommodate the growing diversity of learners, how to improve student achievement by creating a healthy learning environment, how to engage and motivate these Millennial learners and how to assess their knowledge and abilities.
Facilitators of the workshop included experts from SBV, Mahatma Gandhi Medical College and Research Institute, MCI Nodal center, Sri Ramachandra University, Chennai , Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences, Puducherry and Sri Manakula Vinayagar Medical College & Hospital, Puducherry. Representatives from other organizations involved in education/training of Health Professions’ Students were invited as delegates.
Prof K R Sethuraman, Vice Chancellor, SBV introduced the theme of the Conference and requested the participants reach out to all sections of the Medical Education community to promote greater awareness on effective engagement of the millennial students who have joined Health Professions course by 2017.
At the beginning of the conference a pledge was signed by all the participants endorsing their commitment to support Millennials’ growth and development. The deliberation of the Conference included lectures, discussions, two hands on Workshops and Poster Sessions, related to the theme. The Resource Persons included Prof V.Vijayaraghavan, Vice Chancellor of SRMU, Prof Krishna Seshadri, Consultant, SBV, Dr Latha Ravichandran, SRMC, Prof K.R. Sethuraman, Vice Chancellor, SBV, Prof M Ravishanker, Dean (Admin), Prof K.A. Narayan Prof N Ananthakrishnan, Dean (R& AHS) and Prof B.V. Adkoli chaired a session.
The topics covered were “Millennials” as Medicos: who are they & how do they learn?, Who is the “ideal teacher” & what is “ideal teaching” for Today’s learners, Creating an ideal learning environment to meet the expectations of today’s students and Current methods of Outcomes Assessment for/as/of Learning. There were two hands on Workshops viz., ‘Using digital technology to enhance the learning experience of the Millennials’ and ‘Classroom/session strategies to accommodate the diversity of learners’. The posters were presented under the theme of Innovative educational strategies for 21st century.
The analysis of the feedback received from the participants showed that the conference was largely successful in attaining its objectives. It was felt that more number such workshops were needed for achieving greater dissemination of this novel concept. Prof V.N. Mahalakshmi, Vice Principal was the Organizing Secretary and Prof Seetesh Ghose, Coordinator of MEU was the Joint Organizing Secretary. The Conference was awarded 10 CME Credits by Dr MGR Medical University, Tamil Nadu.
