Reading

I found cartoon strips by Grant Snider.  Well, somehow it does resonate with me and the way I put my books on the shelves 

Image result for grant snider reading book

 

Image result for grant snider reading book

I know it is messy. But I have only two shelves in my office. Those are important stuff that I cannot throw away at the moment. The files contain teaching materials that I still use until now

 

What should you do?

Somebody asked me this question few weeks ago.  “What would you do if people criticize you or talk behind your back?”  “Don’t you feel sad knowing how people backstabbing you?”   

Well, there are hadith about how we should treat people.  I am trying to learn the best way to treat others according to the sunnah.  It is an arduous process.   This is my personal struggle.  

For now, my stance is even if I know someone is backbiting me or talking behind my back, I would do nothing.  I like to use this analogy.  Imagine backbiting and all are like a shit or poo (I am referring to the literal human feces).  It is smelly and bad, right?  If someone gives you that, would you accept it even if they shove it into your hand?  Of course, you can either accept it or refuse to take it.   

If you accept it, what would you do with it?  Keep it?  Or use it?  Well, poo can be a good ingredient for compost.  So, you can use it for better usage such as gardening.  Or you can take it and keep it and later on complain about its smell yada yada yada without stopping. 

If you refuse it, good for you.  It is what you should do.  When people give shit to you, don’t take it.  You are not obligated to take it.  You have a right to refuse it.  It is your choice.  

If the person throw it on your face, what should you do?  Well, you can either throw it back to the person or you can clean yourself.  If you throw it back to the person, well, in this case, you are alike.  Tit-for-tat?  It can be perceived that way.  If you decide to move on and get yourself clean without making any noise, it is choice.  After all, no shit or poo cannot be cleaned and cleansed.     

My point is, make a decision for yourself.  Do what is the best for you.  So, to this person even though this is a late reply, I have done all of the above.   I cannot decide anything for you, but one thing that I can do is to be there for you when you need me.  In sha Allah I will always be there for you 

 

Why are you not friendly?

One of the students asked me why I would seem to rush or always in a hurry when they approach me.  Well, for one thing, off lately I have things in my mind that seem to bug me.  It is not about the classes or the students, it is something that I have thought about for a while and I do not have any answer or solution to that yet and thus, it keeps bugging me until now.  For those who know me quite well, I can appear to be funny, bubbly but I can also turn into a person who appears to be snobbish/surly/unapproachable in a split second. 

Well, it is me alright.  I do not have multiple personality disorders or am not Mr Hyde and Dr Jekyll.  Well, the only suggestion that I can give to my students is go and read Brian Little’s book “Me, myself and us”.   Yup.  I am an introvert alright.  I confirm it when I took a personality test when I was in Durham (just for the sake of exploring myself, I volunteered to be a guinea pig when the graduate school organised a workshop)


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Example of interactive activities that you can do in class

I found the handout while searching for more examples of interactive and active activities that I can do in my class.  I found this handout.  This is not mine but the author stated how you can give the credit of this handout to him.  So, there is no copyright issue here.  I haven’t tried all of the techniques listed in the handout but I will try few in the future in sha Allah.  

Would you use neuroenhancer to improve your cognitive capabilities?

It was a rainy gloomy day. It was our last class before the mid semester break. Deepavali is around the corner. A perfect day to have all-lecture-no-activity class [sarcastic note].  Nope. I won’t allow my students to fall asleep in my class.

I searched an article with a controversial topic but still related to human development. The use of “smart drug” to enhance cognitive and intellectual capabilities. Smart drug, neuroenhancement, neuroenhancer, you name it. It is all the same. Students consume it for the sake of improving their concentration, attention, performance and the lists can go on.

It is really interesting to know how people perceive the use of drug in a more positive note even though there is possibility for adverse side effects. Reading my students’ responses on whether they would use it, it is kind of alarming that they would say YES to it. Looking at the reasons, there is one common theme appeared: curiosity. They are willing to try because they are curious about it.

I just rolled my eyes when someone asked me if I ever tried such thing before to enhance my academic performance even though I had chances to buy “lollies” or “a slice of space cake” when I went to Amsterdam few times.

My reply: “I don’t go to gym to develop my muscles. So, you won’t see any six packs on my stomach. But I do believe reading is akin to weightlifting that lead you to develop mental muscles” [I used my right index finger to point it to my head as I said this]”.

New Academia Learning Innovation (NALI) Active learning: Using Round robin – Method 2

For my undergraduate class, I have large class (more than 50 students) with a normal size classroom.  So, it is quite challenging to conduct round robin activity if they sit in their seats like this example.  It is something that I can envision in my dream only.   

What I have to do is to improvise.  Rather than having them to stay put in their seats and divide them into groups and each member in a group share their ideas, what I do is I group them into several groups with minimum 5 members in each group (59/12 group = 5 members each more or less). 

How to conduct round robin activity?

Steps:

  1. Think about a topic that you want to discuss.
  2. Decide on the amount of questions or topics you would like to be discussed.  In my case, with 12 groups, I have 3-4 questions and thus, there will be  some groups with similar questions.  In this case, I want to have a variety of ideas from different groups.   Note: I give each group a mahjung paper and marker pens.  They have to write their ideas in a poster format (using point form)
  3. Set a timer for the group discussion.  I set 30 minutes for this activity.  Since the class is a bit small, I allow them to go outside the classroom so that they can prepare their poster using mahjung paper.
  4. After they have finished their poster, I ask them to post their poster on the wall.  Each group has to stay near to their poster.
  5. They present their ideas by taking turn.  So, rather than allowing them to move around (it can become uncontrollable), every student would present at their own station (the wall where they post their poster becomes their station).  Other students have to listen and they are allowed to ask any question to the presenting group.
Some students have to sit on the floor inside the classroom. The LCD screen projected questions that I posed.
Some students have to go outside where there are chairs and tables. Each group occupied one table with 6 chairs
Each group picked a corner/wall and posted their poster [mahjung paper]. They took turn to present their ideas.
For bigger wall, students can post more than 2 posters.

To present their ideas to others, you can also do this.

  1. If you don’t mind to have students to move around (this could be a bit noisy), you can ask each member to select one person to stay at their station while the rest will go around to other station.
  2. The one left behind is assigned to be the presenter.  So, when other group members visit each station, the one who left behind has to present/explain what his/her group ideas to the visitors.

 

New Academia Learning Innovation (NALI) Active learning: Using Gallery Walk (first attempt)

I did round robin Gallery Walk activity in my class this semester.  Alhamdulillah the students are ok with that. 

Gallery Walk is meant to allow students to exchange ideas by taking turn to give their feedback/response/comment.  It allows everyone to talk/write their thoughts.  HERE is one example of Gallery Walk.

You can give them a reading material first before you start this activity or it can be based on what you have previously discussed and you want the students to summarise the points, if you are afraid that their “sharing” ideas might not be fruitful. 

For me,  with the undergraduates, I don’t give them a long reading material because they might need extra [long] time to finish reading.  But with the PG students, I can finish the activity within 45 minutes [reading = 30 minutes, 15 minutes for them to “go round” the class to write their answers on the manjung paper].  Rather than grouping them into groups, I create a station where they can write their ideas.  

I posted a mahjung paper with a question. Students would take turn to write their answer. Since my class has 19 students, so with 5 stations [5 mahjung paper with different questions], it is not too crowded for them to be in one station at a time.

Students took turn to write. On the white board, there were two stations [mahjung paper] with different questions.

Some students were writing their responses at different station at the back of the class

How to conduct Gallery Walk activity?

Steps:

  1. Think about a topic that you want to discuss.
  2. Decide on the amount of questions or topics you would like to be discussed.  In my case, I set 5 questions [plus muddiest concepts]
  3. Ideally, arrange the desks or tables so that discussion flows nicely and students can move about easily.   But since I want the students to move around the class, I post the mahjung paper on the wall/white board instead.  So, rather than sitting, they will walk around to different stations.
  4. Give each station [could be table, mahjung paper etc.] a question/topic.  You can assign a leader to take note or in my case, I ask the students to take note of what others have written individually [individual accountability].
  5. Set a timer for each student to move around.  There are other ways to do this.  You can assign students to move in group or they can move individually to any station as they wish according to their preferences as long as they complete the round.  If you have big classroom you can allow them to randomly move to different station, but if you have smaller classroom and large number of students, it is better to assign their movement from one station to another in orderly manner.
  6. Once every student has visited all the stations, you can ask one student to give a summary of one question/topic [based on the station] or if you select a leader (in this case, students are grouped at the beginning of the activity and their movement from one station to another in a group, rather than individually), ask the leader to give summary.  In my case, we would discuss their responses based on station.  There are 5 stations, so it takes me around 5-10 minutes to discuss on each question (station).

I feel cringed….

There will be an upcoming conference organised by ISEI and SOE.  We have lots of co-organisers from Indonesia.  Last Monday, we had a meeting.  They decided to include a welcoming speech from the chairman of ISEI.   I offered myself to prepare the speech, knowing how challenging for my committee to find someone to write a speech at this point when we have tonnes of works to do.  

Since I had classes on Tuesday and Wednesday, I feel that I might have time to write the speech on Thursday.  But after reading some books (to get idea on what to include in the speech), I had difficulty to write even one simple sentence.  I was in panicky mode.  But I was distracted by having a supervision meeting with a PhD student with my friend.  A good distraction!  After having a late lunch, I went back to my office and tried to write something.  Nope.  Nothing.  I could not write any sentence at all.  

After maghrib, I decided to continue with my sewing project.  I finished making a small pouch with a new design.  It is a bit tricky to sew with extra steps for this design, but I am getting hang of it.   In sha Allah with extra practice, I could make better version.  Well, I think I need to get the cutting board and roller (using scissor is not as perfect as using roller to cut small fabrics).

Early Friday, I got a message from one of my colleagues asking me about the speech.  She messaged me after subuh prayer at 638am.  I feel guilty.  After finishing my laundry and did some quick gardening, I started to write and pick up where I left.  Alhamdulillah reading Prof Naquib Al-Attas’s book, Malik Badri’s book and Alparslan Acikgenc’s book gives me lots of ideas on how to construct sentences.  Since the person whose speech I am preparing is someone with the highest academic accolade, I try my very best to prepare something with a tinge of philosophy terminology.   It is not an easy process.  Indeed.  Around 10am today, I managed to get around 450 words.  It is not too long, but not too short kind of speech.  I looked at previous examples of welcoming speech which range around 350 to 600 words.  So, the one I prepared is just nice, I guess 😀 

So, here is the speech.  Enjoy!

Alhamdulillah, all praise to Allah the Al-mighty creator of this universe, salawat and salam upon our beloved Prophet Muhammad S.A.W and His companions. On the behalf of the organising committee, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) Johor Bahru, our co-organisers from Universitas Negeri Malang, Universitas Negeri Padang, Universitas Muhammadiyah Purwokerto and Universitas Lambung Mangkurat and all colleagues who have put their valuable time and effort, it is my great pleasure as the chairman of International Society for Educational Initiatives Malaysia (ISEI) to welcome all of you to the 3rd International Conference on Educational Studies (ICES 2019).  The theme of this conference is “Educational Initiatives in The Era of Industrial Revolution 4.0”.  Industrial Revolution 4.0 is not a mere buzz word.  With the advancement of science and technology, we are undergoing transformation regarding the way we produce products and services thanks to the digitization of manufacturing.   The demand use of digitization of manufacturing presents different sets of challenges to various aspects of our life including education system. 

In line with the 17 Sustainable Goals Development (SGD) as adopted by United Nations Member States in 2015, I believe that all of us here are doing our best in realizing the goals to the best of our abilities through teaching and research.  As researchers, we are aware of the impacts of scientific research on society as society has a dynamic structure which is governed by active forces that shape it.  One of the active forces is knowledge which based on organized discipline and systematic methodology of inquiry.  In Kantian’s terminology, human mind is created capable of acquiring the knowledge of the universe in which it is.   However, the act of acquiring knowledge must be initiated and guided with sound methodology in ensuring the truth of nature.  Truth is the essential element in guiding human kind to fulfill their needs for survival and sustaining life.

Education which entails teaching and learning processes is grounded by truth.   With the Industrial 4.0, it presents different sets of challenges to educators and researchers in education in providing better quality education to society especially our future generations.  It is imperative to bring together the growing international community of education researchers and scholars who are interested in discussing and advancing research in education to share their latest research findings and experience.  So, let us utilise this conference as a platform to gather and exchange innovative ideas, while taking the opportunity to network and build community of practice in education.  

I would also like to congratulate all committee members for their relentless effort in making this programme a guaranteed success which is without a doubt, highly significant with current needs. I sincerely hope that this meeting shall serve as an initiation for more upcoming meetings. I wish all presenters and participants would have a productive and inspiring experience while attending this conference.  To international delegates, do enjoy your stay in Johor.  It is a pleasure to welcome all of you to the conference and workshop.

Alhamdulillah I missed it

I had an appointment with two students from IIUM who came to UTM to collect some data.  They went to see me in my office around the same time when the monthly engagement was held.  So, I missed this month engagement with Datuk VC.

There are some of the things highlighted by him.  One of them is about going extra miles as a lecturer cum supervisor.  He did mention this in relation to the special student that we have at our school.  The special student?  Yup.   He is my student.  A student who emailed me back in March asking to meet me as soon as when I was free.  At that time when he emailed me, I was at school.  So, sensing his urgency to meet me, I set the time to meet him on the first day I went back to UTM after a year of hiatus (not really a hiatus, but a year of not being at UTM is a hiatus in itself).

I never think about going extra miles will make me famous or to be recognised by the VC.  Nay.  I am just doing my job.  That’s it.