Category Archives: Teaching

Conducting “Workshop on Planning and Conducting SoTL Activity”

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Together with Prof. Khariyah and Prof. Fatin, I had the opportunity to conduct an online workshop on how to plan and conduct SoTL activity. During the workshop, I shared my experience of conducting SoTL research at the doctoral level through my session entitled “Fundamentals of SoTL”. While Prof. Khariyah shared her experience conducting SoTL within the context of engineering education. Prof. Fatin on the other hand talked about planning and conducting SoTL activity, with the emphasis on learning theories. We also had break-up sessions through which we interacted with the participants. They were also given the chance to present their proposed SoTL activity meant for the coming semester.

Unboxing “The Cambridge Handbook of Cognition and Education”

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Alhamdulillah my latest purchase arrived yesterday. I’m so excited to go through the contents. All the chapters in this 2019 edition are divided into 5 main themes: (1) Foundations; (2) Science and maths; (3) Reading and writing; (4) General Learning Strategies, and (4) Metacognition. Another new addition to my personal collections on the cognitive aspect of learning.

Personal belief and practices of assessment and evaluation for year 2020

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The Movement Control Order (MCO) caused an abrupt migration from face-to-face classroom to total online learning. Classes were conducted through the combination of synchronous and asynchronous approaches, as well as task based. Notwithstanding such disruption, I had decided that all of my courses’ POs and CLOs were maintained and instructions were refined as to accommodate the online learning process in order to achieve the existing POs and CLOs. To accommodate the emergency online learning and to facilitate students’ adjustment to the new norms of learning, I did my best to re-align the online instructions that create the “sense of place” or “the sense of onlineness” among the students. This had been shared in one of my posts on my people@utm.

As much as possible, I tried my best to maintain the three cores of online learning: teaching, cognitive and social presences. Hence, I also tried my best in “humanizing” my online courses by attempting to personalize the assessment and evaluation of the courses. For example, for my MPPE 1113 Cognitive Psychology, I encouraged students to practice critical reflection by relating the concepts and theories that they had studied and discussed throughout the semester with their learning experiences during the lockdown. To trigger meaningful responses from the students, among the questions posed were: 1. Does having the knowledge about cognitive psychology help you to cope with the challenges that you are facing during the MCO? 2. In what way does knowing/understanding your own cognition helps you to cope? (OR in what way it does not help you to cope?) In assessing their critical reflections, the 5R’s Reflective Writing Scale that was developed by Bain et al. (2002) had been my constant guidance.

*Taken from personal TES DCP for Year 2020

Insights into student learning goals throughout 2020

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The unprecedented event of COVID-19 pandemic poses the real challenge to me as an academic. This is especially in maintaining the balance between striving to facilitate my students to achieve all the learning objectives for all the courses I conducted through online learning, and at the same time ensuring that the process of tarbiyyah (education) is not being jeopardised. First of all, the abrupt migration to online learning during the first part of Semester 2 in the 2019/2020 academic sessions due to Movement Control Order was itself an unexpected circumstance. All of the sudden I was again being confronted by yet another puzzle of practice.

As an academic, it is my belief that technology is considered to be the tool for enhancing students’ learning. However during the peak of the pandemic, most of us did not have much choice but to leverage the usage of online platforms in order to ensure that the learning process is not being negatively disrupted. The online courses conducted at the school, faculty and university levels had somehow encouraged me to venture into the use of Webex, Zoom, Google Meet and others as the main platform to conduct online classes and to stay connected with my students. I am glad to find that my students were also making the all the effort to familiarise themselves with online learning.

Despite the challenges, classes were successfully conducted, both using the synchronous and asynchronous methods. Throughout the online learning, I was abled to carry out the planned activities that had already been outlined in the CI. At the same time these activities had facilitated students to complete their assignments. Prior to that, I re-designed the instructions for the class assignments as to accommodate the multi-phases of Movement Control Order during which students could download the updated version of the assignment instructions. For instance, I re-designed the instructions particularly related to the way that students had to present their group assignments. Instead of face-to-face class presentations, I clearly mentioned in the instructions by asking students to prepare a 30-minute power point presentation based on their collective understandings towards the assigned topic and the sub-topics given to them earlier. Their slides need to have narrations i.e. audio recordings of their explanations of the points in the slides. Each group then had to prepare the concept mapping based on their group’s assigned topics, and exchanged it with the other groups. This was done via shared Google Forms that all students could access, and also linked to their e-learning portal. The Think-Pair-Share or Jigsaw activities were done asynchronously, and I found that through such activities students were abled to familiarise themselves with the theories and concepts of cognitive psychology. These were evident when they successfully submitted all their assignments via the shared Google Drive.

In a way, I believe that through such learning activities, I could nurture my students in having the sense of accountability towards their own process of seeking knowledge, and that through the time of crisis, they were also able to contribute in the process as to assist their colleagues in attaining the understandings of the fundamentals of the courses that they attended. To read my strategy of assisting students to attain the learning objectives through online learning visit https://people.utm.my/narina/updating-e-learning-portals-due-to-the-phases-of-covid-19-mco/

*Taken from personal TES DCP for Year 2020

In hindsight…2020 personal teaching philosophy during the pandemic

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2020 marks the 19th year of my profession as an academic. In re-visiting my teaching philosophy, I am still firmly hold on to the belief that learning should involved in making meanings out of the subject matter that one wishes to master. To me, the whole process of learning is to develop deep learners among the students, and not surface learners who are task-oriented students. Thus I always encourage my students to make sense of the theories or concepts that they have learned. In achieving this, I always make sure that my classroom activities and instructions could facilitate students to think critically about how they could make relatable the theories or concepts that they have learned to their selves, e.g. as a learner, a teacher, a parent, a sibling and their other significant “selves”. I always challenged my students by asking them questions such as: “In what way do the theories and concepts that we have discussed can be used in improving yourself as a learner or as a teacher?” I belief by posing such question, students will be able to reflect and question themselves on how they could possibly bridge theories and practice.

Semester 2, 2019/2020 had been immensely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The abrupt migration to online learning had again created yet another “puzzle of practice” for me. It really challenged the way I view technology as the tool in the process of teaching and learning. All these years, my conceptualisation of technology-assisted approach for my teaching practice is confined to the use of the existing e-learning portal. However during the peak of the pandemic, I did not have much choice but to leverage the usage of online platforms in order to ensure that the learning process is not being negatively disrupted. It is fortunate that the supportive ecosystem of the university had made it possible for me to acquire new knowledge and skills pertaining technology-assisted learning platforms. The online courses conducted at the school, faculty and university levels had somehow encouraged me to venture into the use of Webex, Zoom, Google Meet and others as the main platform to conduct online classes and to stay connected with my students. Introspectively, I feel that the experience had taught me to be agile in adopting new technology for my teaching practice, and that I have to continue to be open to learn new approach in becoming more adaptable in facing the challenges during this pandemic time. Most importantly, the quest for improving my teaching practice based on what I personally believe would be the never-ending endeavour.

*Taken from personal TES DCP for year 2020