Tag Archives: COVID-19

A Morning Talk on the Impact of COVID-19 on Psychological Well-Being

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Yesterday I had the opportunity to deliver a short talk during our morning gathering at the Office of the Vice Chancellor. It was a little bit impromptu, and I’m in a middle of doing some readings on the latest literature on COVID-19 and its impact on psychological well-being. And so I chose to share with my office mates some of my thoughts based on the readings.

Firstly, I highlighted some of the insights I gained after going through my students’ reflections on their learning experiences during the MCO. The majority of them expressed their worries and were anxious especially when face-to-face classes were cancelled and were replaced by fully online learning. Their concerns have now become my personal concern, I told my officemates, who are mostly the non-academic staff.

Among the attendees were Datuk VC, Pro-VC (Strategy), Deputy Registrar of VC’s Office and the rest my colleagues at the Office.

I then shared the findings of an article I just finished reading entitled “The psychological impact of COVID-19 on the mental health in the general population” by Serafini et al. (2020). Among the points highlighted are the main psychological reactions in the general population which include pervasive anxiety, frustration, boredom and loneliness. One of the risk factors as being mentioned in the article is “alexithymia” which  literally defined as ‘no words for mood’ (p.4).

We then discussed the importance of acknowledging those who had been deeply affected by the pandemic; it could be among our family members or our colleagus. Lucky for UTM because the university’s Counselling Centre apparently offers the assistance to all staff the emotional support needed in order to face the challenge posed by COVID-19.

For further reading, the article by Serafini et al. (2020) can be accessed via this link https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7337855/

COVID-19 MCO: Updated instructions for MPPE1113 group presentations

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We are halfway through the semester that is unprecedentedly affected by COVID-19 pandemic. Like other academics, I have no choice but to jump and dive into the ocean of mobile learning. The one thing that I refuse to claim that I’m the expert.

Nonetheless, the School, Faculty and UTM’s CTL are quick to respond to the needs of this kind of academics (who are not that techno-savvy), by offering loads of online courses on online learning and assessment. I found them all to be useful.

The insights gained from all these online courses on teaching and learning is that I need to re-design the instructions for my classroom assessment and this is particularly related to the way that students have to present their group assignments. instead of F2F presentation, I specifically re-designed the instructions by asking students to complete the following:

  • Read and discuss the topic assigned to your group.
  • Prepare a 30 minute presentation based on your collective understandings towards the topic and the sub topics.
  • The slides need to have narrations i.e. audio recordings of your explanations of the points in the slides.
  • Here are some examples of online tutorials:
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP3kTmsnbnY
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dxhxvg__zUQ
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=selYsj94RQg
  • Each group will then provide the concept mapping based on your group’s assigned topics, and exchange it with the other groups.
  • For the topics that will be covered by me, each one of you needs to prepare one concept mapping for each of the topic own your own.

These updated instructions are uploaded on the class’ e-learning. All MPPE 1113 Cognitive Psychology students can download the slides at their own convenient.

The revised instructions for group assignment (MPPE 1113) due to COVID-19 MCO. Students can download the PDF version on the class’ e-learning portal.

Updating e-learning portals to accommodate the phases of COVID-19 MCO

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Due to the multi-phases of MCO that we have to embrace throughout the entire semester 2 session 2019/2020, I have to keep on updating the e-learning portals of my PG classes from time to time. For this semester, I’m having three PG courses: MPPE 1113 Cognitive Psychology (Perdana Programme and Offshore Programme) and MPPU 1024 Research Methodology in Education.

Updated weekly instructions for MPPU 1024

 

Apart from informing students about the fact that all of us need to adjust to the new way of learning method (abrupt migration to online learning; 100%-ly starting 18 March 2020), I do feel that it is also vital to check on their progress and mental health as well. Most of my students shared their concerns via our classes’ WhatsApp groups, therefore I really feel that active communication between me and my students must be frequently maintained. Although I do feel at times I served as their personal “helpdesk” (well, because students will send me personal messages at any time of the day, which obviously affected my work-life balance), but I kept reminding myself that through this pandemic crises, it all boils down to the sacrifices that all of us should make. Indeed, it is a trial time for all of us now.

Updated weekly instructions for MPPE 1113