What am I teaching this semester?

I am very disappointed that I am not teaching any of the English language proficiency class this semester.  My institute received 3 new EL lecturers so my service is not needed to help the EL Department. Too bad... it is a lost for me and the students as well.

So, what are the classes I teach this semester?

1. Co curriculum management course
2. KRS
3. Bowling

SMILE! 

I am having fun this semester, huh?

Well, it is a blessing in disguise actually..... because I have started my PhD course at UM this semester.  I could use the time at the office doing my reading, thinking, planning and etc for research.

However, besides doing research for my post graduate study, I am also thinking of doing research for my unit about the issues of co-curriculum at school based on the students' perspective.  I have posted some issues for students to respond in the online forum.  I have yet to design questionnaire and interview questions to triangulate the data.  I will write more about it next time.

Reviving this blog

I've decided to revive this blog. Giving it a new name, I will record my reflections in teaching the pre service teachers at the college.  I know I should have done it long time ago but I kept on postponing it until Zaid Ali AlSagoff from IMU came to give a talk on the DNA or 21st century teachers at the college and assumed that it has been a culture among the educators to blog on their teaching experience.  I felt like knocking my head.  It should have been my culture. Duh! Well, no point worrying and regretting. Look forward and start documenting.  Until the next semester begins, whenever I could afford the time, I will recall what I have done this semester (June-November 2012). Not today though!

Final entry?

My heart suddenly turns melancholic thinking if it would be my last entry to write for this blog. Time really flies fast. We have nearly come to the end of the semester. Well, for the purpose of fulfilling the requirement in my DE class, this probably be my last entry. However, I will maintain this blog to document any information with regard to distance teaching and learning that I would come across through my reading or my experience since I am very convinced with the power of writing a reflection. To me, sometimes I feel surprised on how I could see things from different perspectives when I put my understanding into writing.

Hmm... 2 or 3 most meaningful things I've learned in this class, huh? There are a lot, sincerely! Alright, first, I like best when Dr Tee brought the class to collectively understand the definition of Distance education (DE) to be used throughout the course so that everyone would refer to the same ideas of DE. To me it is very important because my preconceived ideas before the definition was clarified was DE is equal to PJJ(pendidikan jarak jauh). PJJ is carried out when classes are conducted once a month for four hours with a lecturer. Only assignments are done and submitted from a distance. Whereas, DE in our course context is the learning group is seperated and instructions and resources are given from a distance using interactive telecommunication system like Moodle. Dr Tee also emphasizes that the keys to successful DE are in the design, development and delivery of instruction. Therefore, I would always refer to these three key elements when I were to design a blended course with my students in the future.

Second, is the dynamic model of knowledge construction (SECI) by Nonaka & Takeuchi. I am attracted to the first layer of the cycle brought forward by SECI model which are socialization, externalization, combination and internalization. I am thinking of using the model as the theoretical framework of my project paper since I am going to look at the use of online forum among English language teachers in sharing their best practices and facilitating knowledge construction. I am interested to find out if the teachers go through all the four processes through their interactions and discussions in the online forum and see if they are able to document their tacit knowledge through shared experience.

Third is the journey I took in developing the first wiki with the whole class. The experience of feeling the frustration when trying to get everybody to chip in ideas was very meaningful. I got to actually put myself in the real situation of DE learners who are trying to collaborate in developing and producing a product. At least, I know the difficulties faced by DE learners out there. Then, the process we went through together as a whole class to figure out the problems and how Dr Tee came up with the second wiki are priceless. I would be aware of what to do and how to do it when I am going to use wiki as a platform for my students to collaborate in completing a certain task given to them. So much on the technical part of the wiki, I think the experience in developing the content gives me more impact especially in the second wiki. It opens my eyes that I have to understand how people learn in order to design an instruction which suits best their learning. All this while I took it for granted. I may be aware that I am a constructivist but I did not think along the line of the principles of learning by Driscoll, especially the fourth principle that learning is reflective.

Forth is the 5 learning environment foundations by Hannfin et al, 1997: psychological, pedagogical, technological, cultural and pragmatic. When Dr Tee first explained during class on 21st January 2009, it makes little sense to me. At that time I merely wrote down and read the notes. Then when problems in wiki occured, Dr Tee brought up the factors again. Together as a class we unpacked the obstacles which hindered us from progressing in the development of wiki.
Then only I was able to relate the meaning of those terms in actual context. Again, I will consider all these 5 learning environment foundations in designing instructions for my students.

Fifth is producing a prototype. It is actually my first experience since the classes I took before this did not require any prototype but storyboards instead. I realize that it is not easy to come up with an effective course design and assessment especially when it is done in DE environment. Another big difference is Iza and I used to be the SMEs in producing different learning courseware or web based learning modules since we were not in the same group. The other members of the group were the technical expert and instructional designer. Now, when we have to do most of the technical stuffs by ourselves, it took us quite a while to come up with a satisfactory design. Nevertheless, I really hope that both iza's and my students could benefit from the website we designed.


Well, the list could go further but I guess this would do. To me it is really an honour for me to be Dr Tee's student. You really have put a lot of thoughts in designing this course for us all and you have done a tremendously excellent job. Since the first class, I know I would learn a lot from this young chap... and nothing has proven me wrong. You have set the standard in yourself and for us all when we are able to feel and see the high expectations you have towards the class. Of course we experience some tense at one point or more but thank God, we pulled through...pheww... May God bless us all. Thank you Dr Tee.

Reflection of activity two: Wiki

My reflection of activity two will be concerning the development of two wikis. The first wiki which is pxgt6308.wikispaces.com started with a very slow pace and was half way done. Deciding the structure of the wiki took about four weeks and delegation of topics took another two weeks. It became quite a frustrating experience for me when collaboration of ideas was ineffective. Three weeks nearing the due date, Dr Tee came up with a more structured wiki for us to work on, which is learninghaven.wikispaces.com. After being informed verbally of the purpose for developing the wiki , then only I understood that I need to understand how people learn in order to design effective instructions. Indeed, some scaffolding was very much needed at that point of time especially when everyone was still in the dark of what to do and how to proceed in developing the wiki.

Have I contributed enough to the development of wiki? What was the quality of my contribution to the wiki? To answer the first question, I admit that I have not contributed enough in terms of the quantity of the content. If given the time, I would probably contribute more. Answering the second question is hard because culturally, we do not boast about our contributions. However, for the purpose of doing this assignment, I would say, the quality of my contribution is higher in the first wiki as compared to the second wiki.. The reason is simply because I was trying to let others play their part after I initiated the activity for the second wiki since I did not assume myself as the initiator unlike in the first wiki. Besides, it is not easy to measure quality unless you set some standards to match.

The next question is how I could have improved the quality of the content. To improve the quality of the content in the first wiki, I guess I have to look at the organisation of content deductively so that I could identify and understand the bigger picture of the topic before I could identify the smaller parts to work on. The problem then was, we were still unable to focus on the main issue on how people learn but instead roamed around the topic of distance learning. On the other hand, with regard to the new wiki, I guess I have to read more and cite others’ views and work especially in responding to the topics of discussions. Other than that, probably, more pages could be created to present and discuss the topic from the perspectives of different learning theorists namely behaviourist, cognitivist and constructivist. Moreover, another page could also be created to share reviews of research findings done by others with regard to how people learn. In-depth discussion on the research findings will add to the weight of the discussion threads.

Last but not least, what have I learned from this activity? First, I was able to experience how difficult it was to collaborate ideas and develop content from a distance involving a lot of heads. For example, to decide on the structure alone took around 5 weeks before we could finalize on the outline. Second, I am more aware about the principles of learning outlined by Driscoll (2002) that learning occurs in context, is active, is social and is reflective. Besides, I am also aware that people from different range of age share some common ground when it comes to learning. They learn best when we set a conducive environment for them to learn which are through actual daily context, through active learning (physically and cognitively), through social interaction with peers and through synthesizing what has been learned by reflecting. Therefore, I must assess my learners learning behaviour to help me identify the best matched instructional strategies to be applied.

I must say that I have actually undergone a contextual learning experience when I have gone through the process of developing the first wiki and participating in resorting to the development of the second wiki. The experience is priceless since I was able to actually go through the whole process of Rapid Prototyping on a contextual basis. Nevertheless, I still strongly believe that developing the wiki should not involve more than four heads. It would be difficult to collaborate since we have to wait for the others for feedback and responses.

To conclude, I gained 80% what I learned by personally experience it. I’ll top up another 20% by doing this reflection.

Web 3.0

I found this website which explain what web 3.0 is and compare it with web 1.0 and 2.0.
Web 3.0 is also called 'semantic web'. Below is a video which explains the differences among the three webs. The fact that technology grows so rapidly makes me wonder how are Malaysian teachers going to catch up with the existing technology when most of them are still at the entry level where application of ICT is concerned.

Feedbacks on my learning module

Let me just write the comments down while they are still fresh so that I could refer to them later.

I like Chun's question the most which is summarised as 'How do I justify - what is so unique about the learning module to be available online when students could actually print them out and do the activities on papers'. I like her way of thinking since she looks at the possible flaw(black hat thinking). My response to her was when the lesson is done in a digital environment, students will be able to get immediate feedback. Besides, learning could still be carried out outside the class.

Then Lim brought up the question on moderation. Will the moderator ask the students to do the activities in sequence? Could the students jump to the next activity without doing the previous one? Dr Tee added, how are we going to give feedback immediately when it involves around 40 students. True, 6 hats time 3 activities each is 18. 18 activities times 40 students, would the moderator be able to monitor and give prompt feedbacks to 720 posts.

When I use lesson function on Moodle, students would not be able to see each other's answers. The drawback is students won't be able see what others have posted and not able to do peer correction. After discussing with Iza and listening to input from Lim, I think we are going to change activites 1 and 2 to objective types of activity where the feedback would be immediate and students would know their score. We would leave activity 3 in a subjective format. Probably we will use wiki function so that students could do peer correction within the group before they submit their response to the moderator. Or we will design all the activities to be objective format and let the assessment part be in an essay format.

Many thinks that the page is too long for the students to scroll down. Probably a different platform could be used. When I showed them the website we prepared on freewebs and the prototype that Iza had worked on PPT, they like the one on freewebs better since the layout is website like and students will be more motivated to explore. We might want to change our target learners. Instead of using form 5 students as target learners, we are thinking of using our classmates in the DE class to be our clients since the Moodle feature is more suitable to adult learners.

I remember Dr Tee has asked us a question that forced me and Iza to give it a thought but I can't remember. He asked us to give a thought about it and come up with possible solution. I'll continue writing once I am able to recall what it was.

How people learn

I found this pdf file with a title: How people learn: Introduction to learning theory.

Below are the excerpts taken from the article.
How people learn was presented in three viewpoints: Philosophers, Psychologist and Educators.

Philosophers' viewpoint:

• Plato developed the belief that knowledge and truth can be discovered by self-reflection.
  
• Socrates also believed strongly that certain knowledge was only attainable through reason.
• Kant (1724–1804) refined and modernized Plato’s rationalist theory when he suggested that awareness of knowledge may begin with experience, but much knowledge exists prior to experience.

Psychologists' viewpoint:

1. Behaviourist
   

• Thorndike believed that learning was based on an association between sense impressions and an impulse to action. Thorndike favored students’ active learning and sought to structure the environment to ensure certain stimuli that would “produce” learning (Hilgard & Bower, 1975).
• B. F. Skinner behaviourist learning theory focuses on stimulus and response. He considered learning to be the production of desired behaviour and denied any influence of mental processes.

2. Cognitivist cum constructivist

• Jean Piaget recognized that students construct knowledge Based on their experiences.
• Vygotsky extended Piaget's theory and emphasized that learning occurs in a cultural context and involves social interaction.

The article summed up that research has found that

*the brain plays a role in learning,
• the way the learning environment is constructed makes a difference,
• learning is based on the associations or connections we make,
• learning occurs in particular social and cultural environments, and finally,
• the different ways people think and feel about their own learning affects their development as learners.

I definitely agree that the five factors above play important roles in the process of learning. Teachers need to understand how learners learn best in order to be able to design meaningful instructions which suit best different types of learners. Having good brain without conducive environment for the learners to learn will disappoint learners and this condition will contribute to unhealthy attitude of the learners. Unhealthy attitude here refers to students behaviour of not wanting to learn, hating certain subjects or teachers or going to school to hang out with friends.

Students learn best when they are able to relate what they learn with past experiences and apply them in a real environment or in a true context of their life. That is why school environment plays a very important role towards students' achievements.

People used to say 'Schools everywhere are just the same. It is up to the students to learn. If the student has good brain, he could excel no matter where he learns'. As a teacher of 19 years and as a mother of 5 school going children, I disagree with the opinion above. The environment of the school, the dedicated teachers, the working culture of the school definitely play important roles in determining the students' success. I do not know if others agree, but to me as a mother I want the best for my children and I would give the best to my students as if they are my own. After all I believe what goes round comes round...

Why 6 thinking hats?

Why did Izawany and I decide to design and develop a learning module for form 5 students using the idea created by Edward de Bono in training students to chunk their thinking using 6 different thinking hats? We are aiming:

1. to help them adopt a higher thinking order (able to analyze, synthesize and evaluate)
   
2. to help them think critically, constructively and creatively
3. to help them to see things deductively and inductively
4. to help them become alert towards their surroundings ( aware of possibilities, setbacks, alternatives and consequences).
   

Being both English teachers we found that majority of the students have a hard time to develop ideas. I sincerely think that the reason why their thinking scope is very limited because they don't read enough. For example, when I asked my form five students (the best class) to debate on the issue of the cancellation of building the crooked bridge to replace the existing Johor bridge, I ended up giving them all the information via newspaper cuttings and articles from the internet. They were not able to debate on the issue not because of language barrier but because they do not read enough. When students lack reading, they do not have substance. How could we train them to think when they have no ideas on what to think.

Iza and I hope by introducing Six Thinking Hats to students, they are able to train their thinking
in six different perspectives. The aim is not only for the students to use the skills in developing ideas in speaking and writing at secondary level but also to make them realize that people do think differently and they would need to be able to adopt and adapt as they merge into the mainstream in the society.

We use moodle http://www.nurulhana.com/course/view.php?id=3 for our website. This is version 0.02. The first feedback I received was from Lim last week when I showed him the first version. Lim commented that the layout was not interesting. He suggested that I put animated hats instead to capture students' attention. Up to now I still could not find any free animated hats yet. What I did instead was insert a row of 6 colours hats at the top of the web page.
Another alternative would be to use Joomla but I am afraid I would need to have more time to learn how to develop the content using Joomla.

Once the school reopens on Monday, Iza will ask her students to try out the learning activity and answer the evaluation part at the end of the lesson. Once that is done meaning we have gone through the second cycle of the Design->Develop->Evaluate of ADDIE Model. Before that, I think I still need to redesign the activities and break them into levels 1, 2 and 3 for beginner, intermediate and advanced.

Reflection on Normie's and Maryam's presentation

I agree with Dr Tee that both presenters had done a good job in interpreting and presenting dry topics of chapter 11 and 12 which are 'Copyright and distance education' and ' Managing and leading a distance education organisation' respectively. The issue of copyright is relevant to our current environment as learners but the second topic is quite a distant and does not relate to learners unless we would want to open up our own distance education later on. I pity Maryam for having to go through the pain of presenting something which does not interest the listener. I could actually see some of the audiences talking among themselves. However, I admire Maryam's courage in trying to complete the presentation.

My suggestion in presenting a topic like this is to involve the audience. Probably two scenarios involving managing distance education organisation could be given to us. Then, in groups, we are to point out the PMI (Plus, minus, interesting) and compare between the 2 scenarios. Another alternative would be, prepare a checklist and evaluate distance education organisations and compare the strengths and weaknesses. Some time we have to be selective in what we are presenting. Lay out the big picture but highlight only the relevant points.

Some time, we come to the end of the road and we see walls, turn around, look for familiar faces and seek help or advice. A lot of ideas would be coming in when we talk it out with our friends and lecturers. I believe at masters level, we don't compete among our classmates but we help, cooperate and collaborate so that every body are able to learn from one another. Every one has his/her own strengths. It must be pretty amazing when these strengths work together for the benefit of ourselves and our learners.

LearningHaven.wikispaces

Throughout his week, my classmates and I are supposed to 'play around' with the newly set up learninghaven.wikispaces and then answer the following questions in our blog.

• What do you think of the new "how people learn" wiki?
• What helps you learn?
• What gets in the way of your learning?

I think the new LearningHaven wiki is very much structured. It gives a very clear path of where Dr Tee would want to lead us to. He wants us to understand the process of how people learn by asking us to watch how people learn at primary, secondary and tertiary levels so that we are able to design instructions based on how learners learn. It is quite fun to be able to watch the videos and analyze how lessons are conducted in other parts of the world although Dr Tee could have asked us to find the videos instead. The process of watching and listing how the students learn fit the first two stages of Bloom's taxonomy which are knowledge and understanding. The following activities A-D involve application, analysis and synthesis of Bloom's taxonomy whereby we are to match and categorise the processes according to a template prepared. The reflection part of activity D fits the evaluation stage of Bloom's taxonomy. Therefore the content of the new wiki is designed and developed according to the stages involved in Bloom's taxonomy which is from easy to difficult.

Now that I have answered the first question, I'll move on to the second question. What helps me learn? A teacher's vivid explanation and instructions made it easier for me to learn. Listening to lectures alone will help me to retain maybe 40% of what is being taught, but involving in activities will engage me more in the learning process. I may be able to retain the lesson up to 90% or more. Being a hyperthyrotoxicosis patient for quite some time, I could not sit still and listen to lectures or mundane meetings for more than at most 20 minutes. I will either fall asleep or end up doing something else.

Move on to the third question, what gets in the way of my learning? Hmm... well I would say if I don't have a basic knowledge of what I am about to learn, I will feel lost especially when I was not able to connect my existing knowledge to the new acquired knowledge. I'll give an example, when I first entered Instructional Design and Development class last two semesters, I have zero knowledge on the subject since my first degree was in ESL/Pedagogy. When I walked out of the first three classes I fell like yelling and crying outloud. I did not know where to hook my worry and concern and where to start. Knowing that the reputation and expectation of the lecturer is high give me an ever greater pressure. What helped me most then were my teammates. Working collaboratively in completing assignments and projects help me to learn and grasp what is required of me. Besides, after three weeks, I began to see connections and relate the new acquired knowledge with the existing knowledge I have. Furthermore, the lecturer did give a little scaffolding when she prepared templates for learner analysis and guided questions to guide us in doing our project.

I've answerd all the three question, now let me write about my personal view of our new wiki.
I appreciate Dr Tee's effort in preparing all the materials and it is a lot easier for us to see what are required for us to do. Probably, realizing that we do not have much time left to complete the first wiki on our own besides not getting the outline and the content right, Dr Tee has gone to the extent of guiding the whole class every step of the way. Of course we would be delighted to have our weight lifted. Of course, we think and see things differently, that is why none of us could think and see the way Dr Tee sees how the wiki should be like :) It is as if Dr Tee is holding a torch light and has prepared for us the ladder. Now our job is to climb up the ladder one by one while Dr Tee holds the light and torch our way up.