Category: Uncategorized

A creative friend of mine

I had a chance once to visit my friend who was studying at Nottingham back in 2010.  We went to Nottingham Castle and whatsnot.  We came across Robin Hood’s statue at the hill of Nottingham Castle.  If I were the photographer, I would not have any idea to give instruction to make this pose. 

But, my friend said “Dij, why don’t you make it this way?  Take a peek under Robin’s shirt”  and then while I was peeking under the shirt, she took this picture.  She is creative indeed.  Now, she holds important position in UTM who in charge of the branding and rebranding of UTM.  Zac, thanks for taking this picture and memorable moment when I was in Nottingham visiting you.  I will treasure it for the rest of my life In sha Allah

Once upon a time…..

It has been a while since I cooked lasagna.  But it was my staple food when I was in Durham.  I looked up at an old posting from FB.  I found this recipe.

P.S:  I never cook lasagna since I came back to Malaysia for good in 2011.  Yup, it has been nearly 10 years since the last time I cooked lasagna.

Lasagna…

I have tried it couples of time. This is the best, so far

Mince meat (depends on how many people to eat but for a tray like in the picture, I use 500-800gram of mince meat)

Lasagna sauce (I use Dolmio’s – the most cheap brand here, not sure how much it is cost in Malaysia)

White sauce (I use Dolmio’s too but I improvise it)

Mozzarella cheese (around 300gram)

Cheddar cheese (around 100gram)
*can be replaced with slice cheese – 4-5 slices

Black pepper, white pepper, Tabasco sauce, tomato sauce and salt (for seasoning)

Fresh Milk

Olive oil for frying onions (tumis sikit – I use half of indian onion)

Oregano (for the smell – just a dash or two)…

Lasagna (in a box usually)

————————————————————–
1) For the meat sauce.

Fry the chopped onions. Then mix it with meat (make sure it is half cooked so it is still tender. Add Lasagna sauce (put other ingredients for the seasoning as well according to your preference). Let it simmer well.

2) For the white sauce

You can just use it without improvising. For better result, improvise it.

Simmer a bottle of white sauce in a pan. Add milk (accordingly) and melt the cheddar cheese and 100gram of mozzarella cheese)… if it is thick, add more milk (a dash or two of black pepper/white pepper)…. Let it simmer.

Then for the layering

First layer, meat sauce. Then white sauce. Lasagna. Repeat the process. Make sure the top layer is lasagna and pour all the white sauce (make sure the lasagna is completely sunk – tenggelam tak nampak) and then just put all over on top of the white sauce and the mozzarella cheese…

Bake it in the oven for 30 minutes or so with 170 degrees

Finally, it was the last final examination for this semester

I had my last paper today (MPPU1024).  There were 77 students taking this course for this semester.  For my section (Section 2), there were 24 registered students but there were only 23 took this exam.  I had never seen the other one attended my class before.  I  guess she forgot to withdraw from this course.

While invigilating, I took the chance to grade the UG paper.   I have finished marking but have not keyed in the marks yet.  One thing at a time.  I think I would focus on grading before key in the marks on AIMS and OBE system.  I aim to finish doing that before Eid In sha Allah

One of the modern malaise? Gadget addiction

As I evaluate the assignments of my UG students, I could not help from thinking about why some of them have difficulty to write articulately.  My initial thought was perhaps due to stress and time constraint during the final examination, some might have difficulty to construct sentences properly.  Some used points-form writing.  It is acceptable but I think it is less proper than full sentences.  

What went wrong? 

Is it due to gadget addiction?  They seem to have shorter attention span and have difficulty to stay focused to construct appropriate sentences.  Studies have shown that gadget addiction has detrimental effects on students and their learning.  In this case, how are we going to find a balance between using technology and at the same time not losing touch with the reality.  Of course, gadget like smartphone and whatsnot is being used as a child-minding tool i.e. to help children to be preoccupied in an “activity” that makes them quiet for certain periods of time.  But, how to strike a balance would remain the biggest challenge that any parent has to face regardless of the social status.  

Burn out or depression? Which is which?

A recent message about burn out that was shared by a colleague makes me think about my friend.  What makes her to be depressed?  Is it triggered by burn out that she experience but go unnoticed?  Now, she has to take medication twice a day to regulate her state of well-being.  She has become medically dependent person.  I asked her, “How do you feel if you forget taking the medication once?”  She would say the effect would be immediate.  She won’t be able to fall asleep (stay awake more than 24 hours) and has difficulty to focus (due to sleep deprivation).  She said “I cannot ‘function’ and I will start to imagine things“.  That’s serious.  Since she was professionally diagnosed as having a depression, she was on medical leave for undisclosed period of time.  

But to tell the truth, it is not easy to distinguish between burn out and depression or to differentiate between burn out and stress unless we get someone who are clinically trained to do the diagnosis.  No one is immune of depression.  There are many cases of people who seem to have everything succumb to the bout of depression.  Some even inflict harm towards others or themselves. 

So, in this matter, one has to be vigilant and aware about one’s well-being.  Also, administrators too play important role to support and be emphatic to those who have started to show some “symptoms”.  Sometime, we overlook the physical symptoms that indicate underlying psychological problems that we might have.   

Of course, one can easily use depression, burn out and stress as an excuse of being less productive.  But, if we look at the person from different angle, does he/she display any symptom that indicate psychological problems that we should be aware of?  Is it fair to “punish” this person as being less productive and thus he/she is given low evaluation for the yearly appraisal even though he/she could not perform well due to undiagnosed psychological problems?  

It is an paradoxical phenomenon.  But perhaps in this rat race world, we need to be more emphatic towards each other, especially towards our own self.  Sometimes, we are more concerned about others and thus, we tend to overlook in taking care of ourselves. 

Matriculation Centre? Should it be abolished?

My pre-tertiary education was at IIUM matriculation centre.  1996.  The centre was in Lembah Pantai.  We used the buildings that belong to UM and Institut Bahasa (Language Institute).  I had a marvelous time during my matriculation days.  I learned about life, adulthood and being more independent there.  It was the first time I have to be away from my family (I am a Johorean).  

I have friends that I have known since my matric years whom I still keep in touch until now.  But unlike now, my matriculation programme took me two years to finish.  So, in a way it is like I am taking STPM.  No difference.   

The issue now, some perceive that ex-matriculation students are less matured etc.  I beg to differ.  I think it will always bog down to the fact that how adaptable students are to further their studies at university level after they finish one year of matriculation programme.  In this case, I do agree with DVCAI of UTM.  

What are the impacts of Latihan Ikhtisas?

I have been wondering about it myself.  Well, to tell the truth, what I gain from the LI is a new experience of teaching adolescents (and its challenges).  Well, that’s it.  Networking?  Indeed.  Networking with the school.  Yup.  I still conduct tuition class and whatnot as a form of my after-LI-service.  

Making impact or difference in the students lives?  How on earth would I know that?!!!  I am not going to be overambitious on this part.  After all, only Allah knows best on this matter.  

Other than that?  Nothing much.  For example, did I get any  Industrial grant?  Nope.  So, it does resonate with the survey findings.  

Well, perhaps I can tell what I have gone through instead.  Yup.  It might take a while since I need to look at evidences that I collected in various forms such as daily journal, students reflective notes and such.  

I have posted some personal rambling on various posts.  Here are some of them:

Things that I produce when I did Latihan Ikhtisas_Part 1

Things that I produce when I did Latihan Ikhtisas_Part 2

Teaching poetry and literature

Latihan Ikhtisas Part 1

Latihan Ikhtisas Part 2

Latihan Ikhtisas Part 3

Latihan Ikhtisas Part 4

Latihan Ikhtisas Part 5

Gamification

I first came across this concept in late 2016.  I attended a one day course about Gamification by a former senior of IIUM (Zayd Ali Alsagof).  I never met him while at IIUM.  He was two years senior.  The chances that I would take the same class would be slim if he majored in psychology.  Most of the time, we would take the courses based on level (of difficulty).  Looking at the course code, you can understand that the course is meant for students at certain year of study.  It does not mean that if you are a first year student, you can’t take courses which are meant for final year student.  It is just that you will “struggle” a lot because the courses would be much complicated and most instructors would assume that you already know some of the theories that you would learn in different classes that you take in junior year.  

So, here I am teaching at a university and yet I am struggling to learn about the current things in education.  I went to this gamification workshop on volunteer basis because I feel that I need to improve my teaching practice.  I want to “inject” something new in my teaching every semester.  That’s my aim.  In sha Allah 

I learn a lot from the course.  But there are so many things that I have yet to explore even though some of the things are not free like Prezi. or Padlet.  One thing at a time. 

One of the things that I immediately implement in my class is online assessment. It is not that we don’t have online assessment on UTM elearning, but the feature is different from other online assessment such as Quizziz, Kahoot! and such. 

So, I tried Quizziz in my MPPU1024.  The students felt excited because it is like playing a game, rather than taking a test.  There are immediate feedback/answers using memes and there is also a ranking.  Yup.  All “players” will be ranked.  At the end of semester, I asked the students to give me feedback about the activities that we did in class.  Some of them give positive notes about Quizziz.  I wrote a paper and presented it in a conference in 2017.  Since then, I start to collect more data every time I use Quizziz in my class.  But, it is kind of challenging to get feedback from students unless it is considered as a part of the grading.  Another challenge, another way to tackle.  One thing at a time.  This is what make teaching interesting.  There would always be challenges that you need to deal with.   Never ends.