JOHOR BAHRU, 8 April 2019 – The International Student Society (ISS) of Yemen, Syria and Libya with the collaboration with UTM International had organized the Arabic Culture Day 2019.
The cultural exhibition one-day programme was held at Dewan Sri Perdana, Kolej Perdana, Johor Bahru campus. The Programme Director, Maneq Al-Asaadi said that representatives from eight Arab countries participated in this programme.
“They were representatives from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Libya, Palestine, Iraq and Egypt, and they share the same objective of  bringing the Arab culture to the outside world.
“In this programme, we have two sessions – one was held during the day and another one during the night. The day session consisted the exhibition, food testing and culture exhibition of each participant’s country,” he said.
Maneq further said  that the night session showcased the traditional middle east cuisine, Arabic traditional dancing, singing and closing ceremony by the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Student Affairs), Prof. Dr. Durrishah Idrus.
“Among the traditional Arabic cuisine that was served were Mandi Rice, Madhod Rice and other Arab traditional meals,” said Maneq.
The main intention of organizing this event was to promote the Arabic culture and food to the UTM and outside community. This programme was also in line with UTM’s internationalization policy which has been introduced since 2010.
The Associate Director (Student Services & Global Education Experience), Prof. Dr. Nor Haniza Sarmin attended the day session and she spent time visiting the different booths.

By Dayana Farzeeha Ali and Mahani Mokhtar

Delegation from Phu Yen University, Vietnam came to UTM to participate in International Study Visit program held at School of Education, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities from 4^thMarch 2019 until 13^th March 2019. A total of 26 students and one lecturer participated in the program. This visit was their second visit to UTM after their successful participation in the similar program held last year. This program is one of the activities planned based on the LOC which has been signed between UTM and Phu Yen University in 2017.

Throughout the program, the delegation attended workshops, seminars, school visits and outdoor activities. Activities in the program were designed to develop the participants’ multicultural awareness, enhance their generic skills and knowledge in areas related to education and to expose them to Malaysia education system.Interaction with local students was made possible since the delegation was invited to do sit-in in several classes such as Education and Social Cultural Changes, Educational Psychology, Educational Technology and Academics Skills for Teachers of ESL. They also had the opportunity to experience kayaking at Outbound Centre, School of Education. In addition, this study visit also benefited Malaysian students since they were able to interact with students from different background.

Cross-cultural collaborative work over the Internet has become increasingly significant in today’s borderless world. The C3AOL STEM Ambassador Global Outreach Programme 2018 is a result of Newton C3Astronomy Project, a multidisciplinary research project, entailing expertise in areas of Astronomy, Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) and Cross-Cultural Communication.

It is the first endeavour for Newton Grant to bridge STEM and Social Science together in the 3 domains areas where researchers from Malaysia and the United Kingdom collaborated to explore the multifaceted competencies needed by astronomy students in handling big data through virtual learning platform. Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and University of Leicester (ULEIC) team researchers have mutually agreed to share their field knowledge and industry experience using Astronomy Online Lab (AOL) based on astronomy themes such as Earth Observation, Planetary Motion, Radio and Space Plasma Physics, Space and Earth Electromagnetism.

Through this exploratory telecollaborative project, student winners from both countries were carefully selected to be the STEM Ambassadors for their university and were given a chance to visit the partner university and relevant space agencies to learn and experience the different approaches to policy and standard operations of Space Education. Both the student winners from UTM, UKM and Leicester University presented their findings and experiences from the telecollaborative project to the host university and related space agencies during the research mobility programme, to give awareness on the interactive, virtual learning tools that can be utilised to consolidate the comprehension of astronomical concepts and applications to help make sense of the learned knowledge.

The four Leicester’s STEM Ambassadors who visited Malaysia in July 2018 were Jack Musk, Cordelia Brown, Amos Shamutete, and Stylianos Kypraios accompanied by University of Leicester team, Prof. Effie Law (PI, Dept of Informatics), Dr. Nigel Bannister (Dept of Physics) and Dr. Matthias Heintz (Dept of Informatics). The UK team visited UTM Kuala Lumpur campus, Teluk Kemang Observatory, National Space Centre (ANGKASA), National Planetarium and experienced many cultural attractions around Malacca and Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysian STEM Ambassadors visited UK last November 2018, were represented by Lee Zheng Hao Daric and Chan Fong Chi from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTMJB) and Razira Razalli, Muhammad Ezzat Abdul Hamid from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), accompanied by Malaysian team researchers includes Assoc. Prof. Dr. Marlia Puteh (PI, UTM), Dr. Othman Zainon (UTM), Dr. Nurhasmiza Abu Hasan (UTM), Dr. Nurul Shazana Abdul Hamid (UKM), Lilie Zahara Ramly and Ayu Rita Mohamad (FSSH PhD students, UTMKL). The Malaysian team experienced Leicester University Campus, Newton House – ‘Woolsthorpe Manor’, Leicester Space Centre, Royal Observatory at Prime Meridian Greenwich, Science and Natural History Museums.

Such research exchanges not only empower research collaboration activities between the three institutions at the academic level, but also foster to the advancing of astronomy education with the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) and facilitate future industry collaboration between the universities and space agencies of the two countries. Students, team researcher/instructors and industry experts from both countries mutually have exchanges in terms of lectures and talks, tele-collaborative project management, knowledge and practices, as well as conducting research mobility activities through Newton C3Astronomy STEM Ambassador Global Outreach Programme 2018. The partnership has mediated the conceivable expansion of related research projects through additional grants in near future. The participants not only experienced insights gained from participating in the project, but also explored local astronomy facilities and activities for shared knowledge and work improvements.

Overall, this Newton C3AOL STEM research Mobility Programme and Interim meetings, have proven to be very fruitful and successful to UTM and Leicester University teams. As for the STEM Ambassadors, they learned the different work processes framework of space education and related industry direction of the two countries. There are many creative ways to spread interests, potential career aspirations and inculcate awareness to younger generations in the field of astronomy that has not been tapped on. It is hoped that more multi-disciplinary research grants avenues like this can be created, to generate workable research output, but also indoctrinate opportunities for new generation of research approaches. This way, more partnerships and joint research innovations can be churned to benefit and aspire future young scholars, budding researchers or scientists, for the sustainability and prosperity of the nation.

UTM and UKM research team during the UK research mobility programme last November 2018.

Leicester University team during their research mobility visit to Malaysia.

Prepared by:

C3AOL Research Team

Vot: 4B296

Project leader: Assoc. Prof Dr. Marlia Puteh

On Saturday, 16th February 2019, Language Academy, FSSH has organized an English Improvement  Phase 2 workshop at Pulai Springs Resort, Skudai Johor Bahru in order to align all English courses with the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). This in turn will ensure that all our English courses are moving towards having an ecosystem by which the English Language Teaching syllabus, Teaching and Learning activities and assessments are all based on CEFR.  Fifteen lecturers from the faculty accompanied by two secretariats and a technician attended this workshop.

The specific objectives of the workshop were to draft the Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) based on the CEFR description, to determine the assessment for ULAB-CEFR courses, to prepare the Course Information (CI) for ULAB-CEFR courses and also to identify suitable modules to be used in the courses.

The workshop which was held from 9am until 5.15pm comprises three teams representing three levels; Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3.