I was elated and grateful when my research paper entitled ‘Critical Success Factors for MOOCs Sustainability in the Malaysian Higher Education : A Preliminary Study’ was accepted for LINC conference at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). MIT Media Lab has awarded me with travel grant that enabled me to fly to US albeit limited budget. I am proud to represent my university, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia in presenting my research.
The best part about presenting in an international conference is getting feedback from esteemed academics on your research. The feedback is essential to refine my PhD research.
The conference delegate at MIT. What a great experience!
Proverb is a simple saying to instill moral values and common wisdom in life. Most of my students face problems in remembering proverbs as they involve symbolism and intricate meanings. I was thinking of meaningful and fun ways to teach proverbs and I thought of combining the concept of Pictionary & collaborative writing in my lesson. I called it the Proverbs Game.
For this lesson, you need small white boards ( items located at Bilik Bahan Bantu Mengajar) and whiteboard markers (bought 7).
Students formed their groups and named their team. Interesting names , not forgetting funny ones! The objective is to empower camaraderie as they are working as a team.
For every round, I’ll mention a proverb and each team has to visualize the proverb, provide correct meaning and construct correct sentence based on the proverb, within 2 minutes. After 2 mins, I’ll go around checking their answers and award point to their groups.
I did this lesson with 2 classes, one with high proficiency level and another lower proficiency level. For the lower proficiency level, I gave more scaffolding in the lesson where I did MCQ for the meanings. Using Pictionary concept will enhance the visual-spatial competence and collaborative writing is a way to encourage reluctant writers to work together with their peers.
Students’ interests were piqued when I brought the whiteboards and that put them in an enthusiastic mode. They were competitive as they wanted to win and there were many strategies done by groups to ensure nobody steals their answers 😂 It was great to see students were laughing and having fun learning about proverbs. They did extensive exercises on proverb as their homework too, to ensure they are exposed to more proverbs & understand their meanings.
You see, I learn that when students feel engaged, they learn better and would want to know more. I learnt from Kak Rahmah Sayuti, GC JUSA C that sharing learning ideas is a pragmatic way to encourage knowledge sharing at professional level. I have been blogging on teaching & learning since 2008 and I believe sharing is caring. I’ve learnt a lot from other teachers too and I believe we need to encourage each other to give the best to our students.
After watching the amazing video of Adam Norrodin at MotoGP World Championship recently, I’ve decided to embed that as part of my lesson with my 2 C1 students this afternoon. The topic was Proud to be Malaysians. Did a pop quiz “How Malaysian are you?” with my students. Then, I showed the video and facilitated a discussion with my students.
After brainstorming and sharing ideas, they wrote an essay on Khairul Idham Pawi & Adam Norrodin. The students jot down positive messages for Adam on Padlet, an online social media platform http://padlet.com/n_fadzleen/dearadam
I believe that it’s important to share positive attitude and accolades of our homegrown talents. Never give up and dare to dream big.
Today, the topic in class is Making Choices. Students shared their feelings when making choices in life. They mapped up their feelings collaboratively and came up with strings of emotions such as happy, sad, anxious, daunting, frustrated and confused. Then, they moved around in the class, listening and sharing their experiences in making choices in life.
“Teacher, I’m sad because I didn’t get to go to MRSM after getting 5As in UPSR. So, I have no choice but to stay in this school.”
I looked at her and I was transported back to the time I was her age. I scored 5As too but I didn’t get into the school I wanted. Instead, I studied in the school in my kampung until I finished Form 5.
“I understand your frustration. I was in your shoes before. I faced similar situation. All of my best friends got offers to go to MCKK, STF, TKC and good schools. I was sad and down for days.”
My students listened intently before I continued, sharing my experience.
” I discovered that after awhile, it’s not that bad. In fact, I had great time being in my school, thanks to my awesome teachers and friends. I chose to be active in school and I represented my school at various competitions up to national level. Then, I am blessed to get scholarship to study in UK & US. Just because you study in a kampung, it doesn’t mean you have to be mediocre. You have the choice to learn and be better than yesterday.”
I paused and glanced at all 35 hopeful faces in my class.
“So, it doesn’t matter where you study as long you make the choice to work hard and improve yourself. What matters is be sincere, work hard and be humble. You may not get there straightaway but you will get there one day.”
I hope that my students will not give up hope and make the choice to be the best versions of themselves. They may only be 13-year-old students now but it’s never too early to foster tenacity and perseverance.
The paper I co-wrote with my supervisors entitled “A Conceptual Business Model for MOOCs Sustainability in Higher Education” just won the Outstanding Paper & Video award at the European MOOCs Stakeholders Summit 2016 at University of Graz, Austria. We were the only representative from Asian universities. I’m feeling on the top of the world! This motivates me to strive and produce better research for quality open education for all.
The conference delegate at MIT. What a great experience!
