Modern society is becoming more complex, information is becoming available and changing more rapidly prompting users to constantly rethink, switch directions, and change problem-solving strategies. Thus, it is increasingly important to prompt reflective thinking during learning to help learners develop strategies to apply new knowledge to the complex situations in their day-to-day activities. Reflective thinking helps learners develop higher-order thinking skills by prompting learners to a) relate new knowledge to prior understanding, b) think in both abstract and conceptual terms, c) apply specific strategies in novel tasks, and d) understand their own thinking and learning strategies.

It is important to prompt reflective thinking in middle school children to support them in their transition between childhood and adulthood. During this time period adolescents experience major changes in intellectual, emotional, social, and physical development. They begin to shape their own thought processes and are at an ideal time to begin developing thinking, learning, and metacognitive strategies. Therefore, reflective thinking provides middle level students with the skills to mentally process learning experiences, identify what they learned, modify their understanding based on new information and experiences, and transfer their learning to other situations. Scaffolding strategies should be incorporated into the learning environment to help students develop their ability to reflect on their own learning.

When students are faced with a perplexing problem, reflective thinking helps them to become more aware of their learning progress, choose appropriate strategies to explore a problem, and identify the ways to build the knowledge they need to solve the problem. The KaAMS model of PBL incorporates various components to prompt students’ reflective thinking during the learning process. The lesson plans:

-Provide teacher questions designed to prompt students to identify and clarify overall and subordinate problems.
-Provide many opportunities to engage students in gathering information to look for possible causes and solutions.
-Provide ideas and activity sheets to help students evaluate the evidence they gather.
-Provide questions that prompt students to consider alternatives and implications of their ideas.
-Provide questions and activities that prompt students to draw conclusions from the evidence they gathered and pose solutions.
-Provide opportunities for students to choose and implement the best alternative.
-Encourage students to monitor and reevaluate their results and findings throughout the entire unit.

Assessment is classroom research to provide useful feedback for the improvement of teaching and learning. It is feedback from the student to the instructor about the student’s learning. Classroom Assessment is the observation of students in the process of learning, the collection of frequent feedback on students’ learning, and the design of modest classroom experiments that provide information on how students learn and how students respond to particular teaching approaches. Classroom assessment helps individual teachers obtain useful feedback on what, how much, and how well their students are learning. The teacher can then use this information to refocus teaching to help students make their learning more efficient and more effective. The main purpose of classroom assessment is to improve student learning.

With the advent of standards-based education, performance assessment has become more widespread. In general, performance assessment focuses on students’ authentic or real-world demonstrations of competencies as opposed to more traditional paper and pencil tests. “Performance assessment requires examinees to construct/supply answers, perform, or produce something for evaluation.” (Madaus and O’Dwyer) Performance assessment is actually a much older type of testing than the relatively modern paper and pencil tests. But these types of performance-based assessments are generally summative, or end point, evaluations.

Currently, I lecture both theoretical and practical medical subjects. In small groups, I teach Problem-Based Learning (PBL) for theoretical subjects and Skills Laboratory as practical one. Whereas in large classes, I assist one of the lectures in Elective Block. As an engineering educator, I maintain my teaching roles as:
1.Motivator
Dreams need a helping hand. As a teacher, I feel responsible to motivate learners. I energize students’ spirit when they fail, guide and coach them in achieving their dreams. Students should be given an understanding that no goals can be achieved without putting any efforts. Conversely, learning is built with frequent exposure and practising.

2. Mentor
   As a mentor, I am alert to students’ aptitude and learning styles. This allows me to nurture their development and heighten their enthusiasm. To do this, I use inspiring quotations to pump out the students’ mood. Consequently, not only they enjoy the class, but also love the lessons. Quality time, a form of dedication, is highly important for both of us.
3. Role model
4. 
   “Our words and actions create our own world”. This motto keeps me to provide positive reinforcement for students continually. As a role model, I realize that there is a hidden curriculum that I have to nourish in students’ performance, particularly: attitude, communication skills, and social awareness. I do hope that my words and actions can inspire students to value other people’s lives, including patients’ lives. Encouraging learners to see all subjects holistically is equally important, thereby they will have a capability in making wise decision

As a lecturer, we’re tasked with helping students find their own motivation, leading them to suitable goals, and lighting the path to get there. This isn’t an easy task (particularly when you consider a classroom of twenty or more students), but knowing what kind of goals benefits students most is a step in the right direction.

Naturally, learning will be based on students’ learning styles and what they each need to improve upon. This is a very wide spectru, — where do we begin? Based on my humble knowledge, a great place to start is with developing personal learning objectives. Once goals have been established, the steps to get there will be more clear. More importantly, students will know what their learning destination is and will be motivated to embark on their journey.

Some goals may depend less on what’s being worked on and more on how the student is working. If some students practice poor work habits and that ends up impeding their learning, those areas may great targets for goal setting. Students of all grade levels can analyze their own work habits with guidance to identify areas for improvement.

Learning goals provide an important boost to personal development. They allow students to take ownership of their learning and help teachers figure out where to focus extra attention. Goal setting brings about positive change and growth that’s good for everyone.

2020/2021

he C3 National Challenge Competition is held to provide an alternative for primary school pupils to showcase their creativity by producing digital content based on topics/subjects learned in school. In addition, this competition is aimed to unleash the creativity of pupils. CEO@Faculty Programme in conjunction with the Division of Industry and Community Collaboration, the Department of Higher Education has been given the mandate to organize the C3 National Challenge 2020, at the National Level.

https://sites.google.com/view/cfp2c3/csr-c3-national-challenge?authuser=0

EFFECT ON CORPORATE STRATEGY, PERFORMANCE AND SURVIVAL

Noor Fawazi Md Noor Rudin

Attached at SilTerra Sdn. Bhd

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Leader Technical Experience and Cognition are Critical to Leader Performance

As a fellow of the CEO@Faculty Programme 2.0, I considered myself the luckiest young university lecturer selected in this programme. To meet the programme’s magic tagline “Coached by the Pros,” I was offered with an unmissable opportunity, a dirt coaching by Dr.  Kader Ibrahim Abdul Wahab, the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of SilTerra. Being attached to SilTerra was an excellent opportunity to learn the leadership value from Malaysia’s volunteer top corporate figure. The opportunity was used to learn the corporate leadership value and the organisational implications of top management’s processing information, or cognitive style, in multiple contexts. Not to mention his long experience in industries, and knowing Kader, who obtained his Ph.D. in semiconductor manufacturing from UniMAP, and an MBA from UUM, his background and expertise undeniably best fit his top affiliation. During my first meeting with the top management, I was indeed to take this golden opportunity seriously and explore any potential collaboration with SilTerra shortly. The first meeting was the first learnt lesson on cognitive value, which supports inspiring new local talents to stay aligned with SilTerra’s vision, weight, and culture.

Kader has more than 27 years of experience in the semiconductor industry. He used to be involved in diffusion, ion implantation, photolithography chemical mechanical polishing (CMP). Apart from operations, he also headed the finance, procurement, and logistic division. Before joining SilTerra in 1998, he was attached with Motorola Seremban as a bipolar wafer fab engineer, in-charge of diffusion and wafer testing/probing. Since then, he was promoted to be a technical staff member on 1 April 2001, to Senior Manager on1 February 2003, to Director on1 April 2005, and to Senior Director on 1 April 2010. He was appointed as the Executive Committee in November 2014 and was promoted to COO in May 2015. Kader has been working for SilTerra for more than 22 years. His self-confidence and best strategic direction have invited others to stay aligned with Silterra’s vision and target. During the 12th IEEE International Conference on Semiconductor Electronics (ICSE2016) at Pullman Hotel Kuala Lumpur, Kader was invited to deliver his significant insights on the future of Malaysian made Integrated Circuits.

In general, technical experience and cognition influence not only the leader emergence and performance, but also the whole organization where the extensive knowledge and experience affect the long term success of an organization.

Inspired Leader and Leading Others: Impact on the Vision of a Company

The leadership definition captures the importance of being able and prepared to inspire others. Put simply; the leader is the inspiration for and the director of the action. They are that possess personality and leadership skills to make others want to follow their direction. This leadership, “leading others” element, can be observed during my attachment at SilTerra, where all SilTerra family tends to be inspired by the management team. Thus, following their direction is the priority. This fosters a collaborative environment and drives teams in the same order.

“Cost Saving Concept” is a concept introduced by the management to optimise financial investment at SilTerra. Being a member of Subfab Technology (SFT) and Workshop Spare Part (WSP) modules, I noticed all family members of SilTerra clearly understand this concept. Initiatives that align with this concept were designed so that the organisational objectives can be achieved. For example, SilTerra spent a million dollars purchasing new dry pumps and wafer moving arm robots in production. For maintenance and repair, SilTerra has to spend more to pay the vendors since no local talents could maintain house maintenance. As an initiative, the group tried to learn from the vendors and, at the same time, put more effort into a technical experience to troubleshoot the dried pump and robot system in the house. As a result, this effort leads to cost-saving, where early maintenance and in-house troubleshooting can be done. This concept is expanded to other modules and seems significantly affect the financial investment in SilTerra. This cost-saving concept appears to be very helpful and might be SilTerra’s safe strategic planning towards facing unexpected disasters during the COVID-19 pandemic. On safety issues during MCO, SilTerra is a committee that is being an aware corporate citizen on its employees’ and workers’ safety and well-being and all those dedicated to ensuring its safety well-being. As a result, the family of Silterra is strongly motivated to stay aligned with the business strategy set up by the management regardless of the uncertain time during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Creating an environment that promotes and encourages changes in an organization such as working corporate implement concepts is good. This is where professional leadership value comes in.

Personal Effectiveness towards Organisational Commitment

Leadership is influence; therefore, becoming a real leader requires the right attitude and behaviour in dealing with people in any organisation or society. Supportive leadership behaviour directly influences employee performance. At SilTerra, there is always an opportunity to create forums or discussions to express the staff’s perspective against SilTera’s system. When there is an issue or conflict, each module leader will understand the problem and bring the top management issue to identify the solution or strategy for improvement. Every member always puts their primary concern to support their modules, and of course, the top management will oversee the needs for each module. For strategic relationships, SilTerra always has outdoor social activities and internal gatherings during festive seasons. Taking advantage of the Environment Health and Safety (EHS) meeting, positive social interaction ever happens, creating an environment for mutual and long term sharing.

Last year, SilTerra was recognised for its excellence by the Employees Provident Fund (EPF). SilTerra strongly believes that its technology begins with its people. The company strives to provide the best working environment for its employees through competitive compensation packages, career growth opportunities, and attractive rewards and benefits. Facilitating retirement security is part of the company’s overall strategy in attracting and retaining the best talent. This achievement is an affirmation of SilTerra’s commitment to the welfare of its people.

In the same year, SilTerra was also awarded as the ‘Employer of Choice’ by the Principal for its Role in Advocating Corporate Retirement Planning. From time to time, Kadir keeps stressing SilTerra’s efforts on facilitating workplace retirement plans through payroll deductions. In terms of implementation, he said that cost is not a barrier to adopting these schemes within the organisation as deductions to these schemes can be treated in the same manner as those done for Zakat and EPF. He also highlighted some of the attractive features of the PRS, which encourage employee retention through rewards as part of the loyalty programme, thus creating a win-win situation for the employer and employee. This demonstrates the benefit of a “win-win situation for the employer and employee” towards gain and convinces to advance the cognitive.

Leadership Journey Reflection

All of the experiences at SilTerra became part of my dynamic management and leadership approaches. And my connecting style evolved throughout my career based on exceptional occasions, engaging relationships, and unexpected discoveries along the way. Building relationships and connections became a critical competency throughout my career. Leadership is about using the head and the heart. It is about motivating employees and gaining their commitment to driving performance. To summarise, it can be concluded that the three primary leadership values are the key to lead an organisation.  To move the leadership suit with an organisation’s objective, a clear understanding of vision, concept, and strategy are essential. Leading others requires a value that can inspire other members and an opportunity to bridge the bridges among team members. Impact and influence are needed to gain support from an organisation member.

Bibliography

Kemal M. Surji (2015, August) Understanding Leadership and Factors that Influence Leaders’

Effectiveness. European Journal of Business and Management (pp. 154-167)

R. Scott Pochron (2009, December) A Leadership Journey: Personal Reflections from the School of Hard Knocks. Integral Review (pp. 264-272)

Silterra’s News and Events Announcements

Biodata of the Writer

 

Noor Fawazi Md Noor Rudin is a Senior Lecturer in Mechanical Precision Engineering at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. He holds a BSc and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Hanyang University, Seoul, South of Korea. As a young academic staff and has strong enthusiasm to learn and explore new fields besides building new perspective in academic and research career, he joined CEO@Faculty Programme Cycle 3. It is indeed an unforgetful experience where he develops good communication with SilTerra on behalf of UTM for future potential collaboration. Being coached by the top level management, CEO, COO and Deputy Director, and not to mention the supportive family of SilTerra, is a golden opportunity and really changes his views on how to face difficulties in order to successfully execute a strategy.