Category: Other

A new look? Nay…

It has been a while since the last post. I am in a middle of preparing whatever is needed for whatever award. It is kind of challenging as I need to find whatever evidence needed. It is time consuming and having back to back meetings almost every day is not helping. I do not do work related stuff after maghrib. I am no longer switch on my laptop after working hours and on weekends. I have been doing that for nearly a month and I am so proud of myself that finally, I stick to a new routine that I have set.

So, when I tried to log in to People.utm.my as usual, I found there is a new feature (not the password when we want to log in – that has been quite a while now). Anyway, I need to get used and explore some of the new features. It might not be much but it does matter as a small change can be troublesome if we are not aware of it.

I was greeted by this. Interesting!

Hadis Rasullullah SAW tentang gila kuasa

Aku pernah ternampak satu hadis tentang tanda-tanda akhir zaman dan tentang zaman di mana ramai orang gila akan kuasa, pangkat dan status. Di era sekarang, agak senang mencari maklumat tetapi untuk mencari maklumat yang sahih perlu sedikit usaha untuk membuat analisa.

Alhamdulillah setelah beberapa hari, akhirnya dapat jumpa satu buku yang diterbitkan oleh seorang ahli akademik dari USIM bertajuk 40 hadis tentang politik dan kepimpinan.

Hadis pertama mengenai sifat manusia yang sememangnya suka akan pangkat, kuasa dan status. Boleh rujuk dari Sahih al-Bukhari, no: 7148.

Akan tetapi, Nabi Muhammad SAW ada berpesan supaya mengelakkan diri dari meminta untuk diberikan jawatan. Boleh rujuk dari Sahih al-Bukhari, no: 7146.

Dalam konteks sekarang, adakah menghantar permohonan untuk tujuan kenaikan pangkat atau mengisi borang untuk jawatan pentadbir dikira termasuk dalam larangan Nabi Muhammad SAW? Ini membuat aku berfikir panjang dan banyak kali untuk proses kenaikan pangkat. Ada yang mungkin berfikir, “Ala, apa yang nak disusahkan sangat? Tekan butang je dalam sistem. Apa yang diperlukan adalah berdasarkan penilaian tahunan dan bukti yang dimasukkan setiap tahun yang terkumpul seperti bilangan menjadi penyelidik utama, bilangan penerbitan dan sebagainya”

Pangkat berbeza dari jawatan? Dari satu sudut, ianya adalah berbeza tetapi dari satu sudut lain, ianya merujuk kepada tanggungjawab dan kebergantungjawapan seseorang berdasarkan pangkat, jawatan, status (boleh melabel apa jua istilah). Mungkinkah ini yang akan menjadi penyesalan di akhirat nanti seperti yang dinyatakan dalam hadis Nabi Muhammad SAW?

Mungkin ada yang berpendapat bahawa terdapat nabi yang meminta diberikan jawatan, seperti Nabi Yusuf AS. Persoalannya ialah, layakkah kita hendak membandingkan diri dengan seseorang yang Allah telah menaikkan taraf dirinya sebagai Nabi? Bahasa orang yang biasa didengari: “Kena sedar diri la kan, kita ni siapa“. Akan tetapi ada kelonggaran untuk memastikan kepentingan masyarakat terjaga dengan “mencalonkan” diri untuk jawatan tertentu dengan syarat tertentu yang perlu dipenuhi.

Dalam apa jua keadaan, sekiranya kita diberikan jawatan, perlu dilaksanakan tanggungjawab dengan baik, dan tidak menzalimi orang lain dengan tindakan dan juga keputusan yang diambil. Dalam bentuk tulisan dan percakapan, ianya sesuatu yang mudah untuk dilaksanakan tetapi dalam bentuk perbuatan, ianya bukan mudah. Semoga Allah permudahkan urusan orang yang diberi jawatan untuk melaksanakan tugasan dengan adil dan saksama.

COVID-19: Zoom Wedding Reception

COVID-19 changes everything. A normal occasion like a wedding has changed to physical (with restricted SOP) and virtual. When one of my friends got married in November 2021, I knew that I might miss the chance to attend her wedding physically. I had a mixed feeling (happy, sad, glad, excited and all) when I saw their faces. Glad that we can finally meet although virtually but it is not the same meeting them physically. The last time I met all of them in Brunei was in early 2017 (Zatul’s wedding). It is nearly five years ago. Now, Zatul is blessed with two children (a boy and a girl).

The last time I met some of them (Arni, Amalina and Kam) was at Lutfi’s wedding in 2018. It was nearly three years ago. How time flies! Zeah and Nurul went to Japan at that time so, I did not meet them at Lutfi’s wedding.

Congrats to Nurul and hubby! In sha Allah we will meet in the near future. Perhaps we should all go to Durham with our special ones this time around.

E-Content UTM 2021

I just had a session with Dr Nurbiha about e-content. There is a difference of marking this year for video that you create and upload on Youtube (as an example of platform where you share your material) which you can get 2 marks for that. Make sure you make it “Public”.

Well, honestly I do not know what I got last year but this year, since we are only allowed to upload 5 e-content materials, so I will upload within that limit.

What are the things that I plan to upload this year? I plan to upload these 4 materials.

  1. Gamification (one of my Quizziz questions – I used for last semester’s class).
  • Just make sure that if you want to claim any Quizziz (category: Gamification), the questions that you have in one set of quiz must be at least contains 10 questions (which equivalent to 10 marks if it is one mark for each question or 5 marks if each question is equivalent to 0.5 marks). If you have 3 questions, it might not be enough. Logically, normally the quiz that we give to students might be at least 5 marks or 10 marks. It is quite rare to give students 3 marks for a quiz (unless you give 5 mini quizzes in which each carries 3 marks and only have 3 questions per quiz – but it does not sound like a normal practice, isn’t it?)

2. Video based learning (one of my Youtube videos). Any video that you create and share publicly is 2 marks.

3. Collaborative tool (my Padlet page for MPPU1024 class that I taught with my colleague).

  • For Padlet, to get better marks, make sure you have a class note (you create your own – like a PowerPoint note) and post several questions that your students can answer and generate discussion. Better yet, give a specific instruction for students to give their opinions based on other’s response/answer. You can discuss the answer through synchronous session or students can read other’s opinion asynchronously. In this way, students would interact with the materials (class note plus questions) that you put in a Padlet page and by answering the questions that you post, students have to answer the questions (this is interactive) and when you give a specific instruction to students to give opinion to other’s answer/ response, indirectly you prompt students to interact with each other.
  • Example of instruction that I give to students (pssst… you can copy paste the instruction too for your class). This is the instruction that I gave to students using Padlet.

a) Read your class note (note: make sure it is your class note that you create)
b) Answer the questions based on the given scenarios.
c) If you agree or disagree with your friend’s answer, give your own justification.  Write in the comment box.  You can either remain anonymous if you wish or can write your name.  

  • So, how many marks that I can get for this? Well, I am not the evaluator so I do not know in definite but I can assure you, it will not be 1 mark (tongue in cheek remark!).

4. Communication tool (one of my Prezi notes – just receptive, not interactive even though there was an activity that I posted within the note). This is a recycle from last semester but I added few more slides for more extra information. I was told that you can recycle the same materials provided you add new information, pictures etc. on the latest version. I am testing it this year by recycling old notes which I added new information and changed the background and layout.

There you go. Only 4 materials that I will upload this year. If I get 5 bonus marks for all four materials that I uploaded, I will share with all of you next year, In sha Allah.

Getting 5 marks for e-content materials

It is a bit cliché to say that “Just do your best to create teaching materials for your class”. Well, everybody aims that but the real thing is, how far we are engaging students in learning process with the materials that we give or with the instruction that we give?

I never get full marks. That is the fact. But I never aim to get full marks when I create or craft my teaching materials for my students. It is just that when people ask me about “how to get 5 marks” for ELPPT bonus, I feel sad because I could not help them much in this thing.

But nevertheless, even though it is stated that the materials should be interactive yada yada yada, I do not know what it means. I am a bit slow in this but for this semester, one of the experiments that I do to improve my teaching is to use Padlet as a platform for students to showcase their presentation as well as discuss about the topic of presentation using asynchronous mode since some of them have to share devices and there are many of them have internet accessibility issues.

This is the example from one of my classes – CLICK. This is not considered as e-content.

Why does it not being considered as e-content?

ONE: Padlet is only used as a platform to collect and share students’ assignment. There is no interaction UNLESS we give an EXTRA instruction in which they have to give feedback on each assignment which is showcased in the Padlet. I did not do that. So, it is not considered as e-content.

TWO: The instruction given is too generic. You have to be more detail in giving the instruction. How to do this? First, think about “What is the thing that you want to accomplish – Is it students’ interaction? Is it just sharing information? Second, use simple, compact and concise wording. This is the most challenging part, for me personally. I am struggling with this. What I normally do is, I will brainstorm with another colleague how to rephrase the instruction. Sometimes, to have another person to brainstorm ideas is better than doing it alone. I am blessed to have such colleagues around me even though there are just a handful of them. Well, they are the best. It is most important. Quality. Not quantity.