What is AKRI? It stands for Anugerah Khas Reka bentuk Kurikulum dan Penyampaian Inovatif. I attended the sharing sessions with the previous winners (last Tuesday and today, Thursday 28 July 2022). Some of the tips and take home messages that I pick up from the winners are:
a) Use AKRI as a platform to share and showcase your teaching practice
This was mentioned several times by some of the winners. Dr Melissa from UKM crafted instructions for her course (Literature) which are aligned with the CLOs and assessments. I think, it is a common practice by anyone who embrace OBE but the details of how we implement teaching strategies, assessment etc. might usually be overlooked. We have to precise in crafting and giving instructions to our students. The assignments that we assign must be self-motivated in which students feel motivated to complete the assignments, rather than feeling overwhelmed.
b) Keep the necessary things well-documented
We have to make sure the teaching and learning processes that occur is well documented. Using certain platforms where students share their assignments such as YouTube might be useful. Have to make sure to give clear instructions to students to make it public sharing.
c) Think about how it might benefit the students, not only to you as the instructor
AKRI can be a platform to get feedback from experts from various institutions. Any improvement that we do to enhance our teaching practice, it will benefit the students directly or indirectly. But, I think let’s not waste the experts time to evaluate half-done project. This is a reminder to myself as I realise that the data that I currently have is not enough. I need at least a few cycles of data collection. Indeed.
I feel a kind of overwhelmed but I could not stop thinking about a little project that I have started with a junior colleague. I hope our collaboration can be continued in the future. She seems excited when I told about the possibility to assess our teaching practice and get feedback through AKRI. Not this year though. I notice there are several winners who showed the few cycles of data collection, like what Prof Haslinda from UUM showed. I am really impressed what she has done. To go out from one comfort zone is not easy, but any improvement cannot be done if we do not change. A small change is better than none. The impact is not something that we can predict but In sha Allah nothing will go wasted.