Meeting 2 and 3: Mesyuarat Khas guru, meeting jabatan sains dan matematik serta meeting panitia matematik

On the 17th and 18th of January 2021, the school held another special meeting for teachers due to the changes in class schedule and changes in the teaching and learning plan. in both meetings many similar things were emphasized, to bring home the message that these were important tasks as part of their responsibilities as teachers.

one of the main concerns of the teachers was the pelaksanaan PDPR. It was informed that the online meet with students should be 35 minutes x 2 with another session for download of learning materials and homework. it was suggested that it would OK to give students homework from in order to recall last year’s work. For the PDPR, teachers also need to keep a list of students who could not be contacted and it was proposed that an intervention program should be conducted with them. For the reflection of PDPR, it was better to mention about the number of students who responded rather than the actual learning that occurs because this was actually a bit hard to do.

for those involved in PDPC, the teachers needed to prepare relief materials. or at least, when in relief, the students need to be doing the work that was set for them. It was also told that only the teachers involved in PDPC need to be in school, while those not were to work from home.

Pentaksiran Berasaskan Sekolah PBS would also be conducted, even for those who were studying at home. we had to be creative in coming up with ways to measure students’ learning.

PLC (professional learning community) would still be conducted, but only through online medium. this time around it will be more structured.

RPH needs to be submitted at the end of the week to be checked by the administrators.

Got my schedule!

Using your calculator for Number Bases conversion

Did you know, you can use your fx-570ms scienific calculor to convert number bases? The steps are:

first, you need to delete all information in your calculator to avoid becoming confused. so just press shift, mode, 3, =

Then set your calculator to base mode. Just hit

mode, mode, 3,

your calculator is now in number base mode.

If you notice there are buttons with green handwriting at the top right had corner, namely DEC, HEX, BIN, OCT. DEC refers to base 10, HEX refers to base 16, BIN refers to base 2 and OCT refers to base 8. You can use these bases interchangebaly to find the different answers of a certain numerical value.

for example you want to conver 137 (base 10) in base 2.

select DEC , hit 137, =, then press BIN. the answer is 10001001.

Day 1: Mesyuarat Pengurusan Sekolah

On the 12th of January 2021, the first staff meeting  at SMK Dato’ Usman Awang was carried out, headed by the new Principal Cikgu Mak Sew Yin and the Penolong Kanan (Vice Principal) Cikgu Zaleha Abdullah. The Principal is a newly appointed principal and I sense that she is very motivated in carrying out her new responsibilities.

The meeting began with a reminder and description of the school plans that will be carried out throughout the year. In particular, the principal highlighted the SKPMG2 (Standard Kualiti Pendidikan Malaysia Gelombang 2) which is an instrument used to measure the quality of education provided by a school. This document has five standards which are : Kepimpinan, Pengurusan dan Organisasi, Kokurikulum, PdPc and Kemanjadian Murid. Teachers were emphasized that they should be concerned with standard 4 which involves the direct day to day classroom teaching. Their teaching will be observed and graded by the administrative and leadership team.

The principal was also eager to better organize the Professional Learning Community (PLC) which involves every single teacher in the school. Mr Siva had been appointed to lead the community. In the PLC, Lesson Study and Peer Coaching will be conducted as well as one other professional development program. PLC will meet once a week every Thursday.  I am also quite excited about this as I think this will help me to achieve my KPI for LI and also quite in direct relationship to my job as a lecturer.

It was also planned that homework and exercise books should be checked regularly by teachers and the school administration will, throughout the school year ask teachers to submit to them students’ exercise books. This is to ensure students are keeping on track with their studies and teachers are aware of students’ short term achievements. School attendance is also important and the aim was >95% student attendance for the whole school year. She also mentioned that ’a good teacher can help students to improve their understanding and skills by 50 percentile in a span of 3 years. ‘

Finally, the principal highlighted KPM’s Tagline-Kegembiraan, Kasih Sayang dan Hormat Menghormati. She says that the feeling of happiness is when you are immersed and concentrating in doing a task and that we should strive for our students to feel this happiness. I think what she yas here correlates a lot with Dale Carnegie’s book.

The meeting was then continued with speeches by the Penolong kanan, penolong kanan koko dan HEM about certain tasks and jobs as well as the plans for the new year. in all, the teachers took the instructions with good heart and enthusiasm. The meeting ended with a short retirement celebration for two teachers, Mrs Voo and Mr Khoo. Both of whom have been in service at the school for many years. Both teachers remined the importance of teamwork among teachers.

I am very much looking forward to my year in SMK DUA as on my first day here, many teachers were very welcoming and greeted me with a warm smile. They were quite chatty and a happy and easy going group. I think I will enjoy my time there and hope to learn a lot from them.

STEM Module for Aboriginal Community

for semester 2 2019/20, the class Models in Teaching and learning Mathematics (MPPM1103) combined with Design and Implementation of Chemistry Curriculum (MPPK1113) to develop a STEM module for aboriginal community in Kota Tinggi (Kaum Kanaq). the students were tasked with developing a STEM module for the community that focused on self and environmental cleanliness and hygiene. the resulting modules from the students were ‘self hygiene module’, ‘indoor environment module’, ‘home made fertilizer module’, and ‘reduce, reuse and recycle module’. the students had to highlight the mathematics and science components of the module as one of its objectives was to encourage number sense and scientific knowledge. the students’ modules were validated by experts in STEM and were scored based on 30%.

The initial plan was for all students to be involved in the implementation of the module, but due to the COVID-19 Pandemic only the lecturers were involved in the site visit and implementation of the module to decrease the risk of infection. The program ended with a successful webinar ‘STEM for Aboriginal People’ which were attended by the students.

During the site visit, we were greeted by the Tok Batin or Ketua Kampung. The Kaum Kanaq were shy people and mostly stayed indoors when we did the tour of the kampung. However, they were very happy and pleased to receive gifts from us. The implementation of the program was also handled very casually

The implementation of the program involved planning and collaboration with Institute Pendidikan Guru Temenggong Ibrahim. In the future we hope to have more collaboration such as this for access to special communities.

aborginal people
program planning with IPG TI
site visit
site visit
webinar org asli
activity

Teaching mathematics for the 21st century