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All praise is due to Allah, and may He send salaam upon our Prophet Muhammad, the best individual amongst all creation  and upon his family, Companions, and all who follow his Sunnah.

Assalamualaikum dan very good morning everyone. It’s great to see you all. Thank you for coming for my last lecture today. How was your day everyone? What did you dream last night? Can you remember? What is your dream in your life? What are you dreaming about? Do you dream of becoming an educator? How to succeed in becoming a good educator?

Everyone have their own dream. People like to say without  dreams person cannot exist.  Without any aim in life you do not have any sense for living. From my experience I can surely say that of course, just dreaming is not always enough. That is why I want to propose you some advice how to achieve you dreams and successful, especially to becoming an effective and good educator.

1. Love yourself

You are 100% responsible for how your life turns out. What you make out of your life, your happiness, your relationships, your success, your health, your wealth, everything is in your hand. Yes you need someone to tell you that you’re great at what you do. You also need a boyfriend/girlfriend to tell you that you’re lovable. You need your friends’ approval and support you. Having loved ones and friends in your life is amazing, but know who you are first.

Love your family, your teachers,  your friends, your brothers and sisters in humanity. Love even those who think they’re your enemy. But most of all, love yourself. You can influence and create your life the way you want it to be. Your thoughts are your creative power to design your life how you want it to be. You just have to take the courage and take responsibility for yourself. First think things through and then do what you need to do.

Stand up for yourself. Assert yourself and fight for your rights when you feel the need. Don’t ever sell yourself short and always stand up for yourself. Remember be kind to yourself . Never let anybody call you stupid, including yourself.  Always happy and laugh anytime you want. The tools for happiness right inside you, mindfulness, gratitude, compassion, thoughtfulness, the ability to create and do something meaningful, even in a small way. They aren’t outside them. Many student seek happiness in food, drugs, alcohol, shopping, partying, sex, and this is not true.

Focus in all important areas of your life. So take care of your body and health by exercising and eating well, socialize a lot, make some room for yourself and keep an eye on your finances as well. Remember this,  importance of getting enough rest and balanced meals.

2-Being a Good Student/ Person

As a students, you have to develop your good study habits. Never stop learning. If you just learn something a little a day, it will add up over time immensely. You should listen first, try to understand second, and judge last. Always look at the two sides of the story before judging. Be have empathy for others  and an open mind.

To become a good student you must have a huge desire and passion to learn and explore something new. Everything would indeed seem very easy and enjoyable if you think of university as a place for discovering yourself as person not as a frustrating place where you are always pressured by a tremendous amount of work. Furthermore, a good student must be punctual, organized, and know how to develop self-discipline. For instance, you must always come to class and the assignments and projects on time.

Developing a good time-management and self-discipline is, in fact, a part of professional development for students and directly related to your success. In addition, a good student must be active and be polite. A good student would actively participate in the class discussions and would not hesitate to ask questions your lecturers. In addition, a good student would also always listen to the lecturers and never interrupt when your lecturers are talking or explaining something. Other aspects of a good student are honesty and consistency. A good student should be academically honest in all aspects of your schoolwork. For example, you would never cheat on tests or presents the work done by others (plagiarizes). Lastly, consistency is very critical in the process of learning since it helps you to achieve your academic goals.

To become a good person, you should respect and appreciate your parents on a daily basis. Allah mentions that human beings must recognise their parents and that this is second only to the recognition of Allah Himself. Throughout the Quran, we notice that parents are mentioned with appreciation and respect, even if they are senile. In the Quran, there is a very beautiful description of how parents are to be treated. The recognition and respect of parents is mentioned in the Quran eleven times. In every instance, Allah reminds children to recognise and to appreciate the love and care that they have received from their parents.

3. Learn From Mistakes and Be a Lifelong Learner

Education is not for few years learning process. It's a life long till the end of life process. Education also is one of the best things to make sure you will head into the right direction in life. Get a great education and also learn all by yourself about want fascinates you. Never stop learning and never stop reading. Never be afraid to try as a students. The worst thing that can happen is that you learn something. There is no such thing as “failure” if you stand up, learn and retry better. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. There are normal, students that make the same mistakes , again and again. Mistakes are some of the best teachers. Instead, learn accept the mistakes, and learn to learn from them, and learn to shrug them off so they don’t affect your profound confidence in who you are.

School can teach you many things Be open for new inspirations and for the different perspectives. Try to keep your curiosity up and never stop learning something new. Challenge yourself to come out of your comfort zone from time to time. Give your best and go for the best always. Be self-confident in what you are and what you are capable of and deserve.

Life doesn’t have to be hard. What you have to do first and foremost is get on the right track. Think about what you truly want, what you need, what life asks of you, and then focus on that.

4. Never Give Up

Be active in developing yourself by learning, having goals in you life and building your self-awareness. You will meet failing, and of course you will accomplish mistakes. Like a real warrior you will be on  a war field, before you will get a long expected prize. But always remember that the satisfaction that you will get at the end, you will remember forever. Quitting is not an option. The more we sweat in peace, the less we bleed in war.

Never give up on them, no matter what. To believe in your dreams, make sure to find what you absolutely love to do and then make it your dream. To believe in your dreams, you’ve got to know what you want. One of the best ways to figure that out is to  write it out. Your dreams take consistent enthusiasm to keep them burning. A small movement or a small action is all you need to always keep up your dream in the right way.  Take a small action each day to keep it alive. By doing this consistently you’ll start to realize your dreams, one step at a time. Don’t let anyone steal your dreams.

Finally, to muslim students, Salat prayer is the most important practice in Islam, because it is our daily worship no matter how busy you are. Also find time to read and recite Quran, despite your busy routines as a students.

All above are guidelines and pieces of advice I wished to offer all students today. Let us pray to Allah that we do our best to respect our parents, our teachers,  honour them, be kind to them, assist them, and please them so that we may attain the love of Allah. I ask Allah to best guidance, success, integrity, and eminence to the Muslims in this world and the hereafter. All praise is for Allah alone, and may He praise, send peace and blessings upon our Prophet Muhammad and his Companions. Thank you.

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Introduction
Three important aspects of teaching and learning that I will share with my new friend/ new lecture are teaching and learning facilities, teaching and learning with new technology, and lesson planning.

1. Teaching and Learning Facilities
Teaching and learning facilities can have a profound impact on both lecturers and students outcomes. With respect to lecturers, teaching and learning facilities affect lecturer recruitment, retention, commitment, and effort. With respect to students, teaching and learning facilities affect health, behavior, engagement, learning, and growth in achievement.
In UNIMAS in general, and in the FSS in particular, there are some teaching facilities that need to be known as lecturers before starting classes at the beginning of the semester. The following are teaching and learning facilities that need to be addressed:

( i ) CAIS ( The Centre for Academic Information Services )
The Centre for Academic Information Services (CAIS), Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) was established in early 1993 and began its operation in May 1993. The Centre has actively acquired library materials including online databases to build its collection. CAIS provides the following facilities; computer labs, patron shelfcheck system, electronic security system, auditorium, 24 hour reading room, carell rooms, exhibition area, lockers, video conference room, executive knowledge café, student lounge, free ringing zone and chill-out rooms.

( ii ) Central Teaching Facilities (CTF)
Central Teaching Facilities (CTF) acts as a teaching hub in UNIMAS. Until now, UNIMAS has 4 CTFs ( CTF1, CTF2, CTF3 and CTF4 ) in the campus. Each CTF is equipped with teaching facilities to boost the learning impact among the students. CTF1 and 2 have a lecture hall each, which can accommodate 540 students at the same time.  Apart from that, every CTF has 6 Seminar Rooms that can accommodate 150 students at a time.

( iii ) Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities teaching and learning facilities
The faculty has three computer lab, two multimedia rooms and one conference room besides lecture rooms and tutorial rooms available at Central Teaching Facilities (CTF). Three computer labs used for teaching and learning activities, named as Computer Lab 4, Computer Lab 7 and Madah Samarahan Lab.

2. Teaching and Learning With New Technology ( E-leap AND MOOC )
Technology is the application of science to make the community, society and the world in general more efficient. It is an application of scientific knowledge in industrial methods (Deacon 2011). Technology is also the application and organization of people, method, techniques, equipment and materials, systematically and scientifically in order to solve teaching and learning problems, as well as improve on the education system worldwide (Delhin 2012).

( i ) E-leap
The Academic Support System (ASSIST) is the system that supports the online teaching-learning initiative in UNIMAS. ASSIST comprises of various systems that support teaching-learning practices in UNIMAS of which E-leap is one of them.
E-leap allows students and instructors to share documents online, edit them in real time and project them on a screen. This gives students a collaborative platform in which to brainstorm ideas and document their work using text and images. In e-leap learning, learning solution is created through a mixture of face-to-face and online learning activities. As lecturers, we are expected to conduct sufficient online activities (via eleap course page) in order to supplement our in-class lectures or tutorials.

( ii ) Unimas MOOC ( Open Learning )
Open Learning is an online learning platform that goes beyond content delivery to focus on community, connectedness, and student engagement. At open learning educators revolutionizing online learning to be a social and engaging experience for students. Goal for open learning is to help others across the world to create experiences for students everywhere. Through open learning platform, instructors can create the tools they need to create a learning community, not just an online course.
In Unimas, open learning is known as MOOC ( Massive Open Online Courses ). Unimas MOOC  is a collection of online courses offered openly and freely to the world via the OpenLearning platform. Courses in UNIMAS MOOC are presented mostly via teaching videos and engage learners through various online learning activities such as ViFlection, discussion, peer-review assignment, as well as various forms of assessments. Besides, offering life-long learning opportunities to learners from all over the world. These courses are also actively used by UNIMAS students via the blended learning approach.

3. Lesson Planning ( Course Outline and Course Plan )

Lesson planning is a significant element of teaching-learning system. A lesson plan comprise course outline and course plan ). A lesson plan is a step-by-step guide that provides a structure for an essential learning. Before planning a lesson, it is essential to classify the learning outcomes for the class. It is important because it helps the teacher in maintaining a standard teaching pattern and does not let the class deviate from the topic. Lesson planning also can help the teacher to be well prepared and be aware of what he/she intends on teaching the students. It can also help the teacher to focus more on the basic knowledge first then take the students towards the next step. The teacher will never stammer or mumble during the lecture because of the timely preparation of the lesson.

Pre-planning helps the teacher to be better equipped in answering questions asked by the students during the lecture. An effective lesson plan has three basic components; aims and objectives of the course, teaching and learning activities and, assessments to check student understanding of the topic.

( i ) Aims and objectives of the course

In order to begin with lesson planning, it is important to know the aims and objectives of the course being taught to students. A teacher should be prepared not only to teach the students but also to make sure that they take some fruitful thought regarding the lesson at the end of the class. The aims and objectives should answer questions regarding all the angles of the course.

( ii ) Teaching and learning activities

Once the aims and objectives are in place, it is important to make sure that the planned lesson is understandable by the students. The teacher should prepare different explanation methods for the students to understand the topic easily. The methods could include giving real-life examples or creating the scenario related to the topic. Moreover, showing videos related to the topic may also assist in better understanding. Including e-learning activities related to the lesson is helpful for students to participate more in the class and remember the topic being taught. A teacher has to time all the activities during the class hours in order to finish the lesson according to the plan. Everything including explanation, examples, and activities have to be timed in a manner that the lesson is not extended for the next class.

( iii ) Student Assessments

Assessment is the primary method educators/ lecturers use to discover what students are learning or have learned in their courses. That may sound fairly straightforward, but in reality assessment is a complex issue that has many facets. Student assessment is a critical aspect of the teaching and learning process. Whether teaching at the undergraduate or graduate level, it is important for instructors/ lecturers to strategically evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching by measuring the extent to which students in the classroom are learning the course material.

The Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities  using the two approaches in assessing students. First one through continous assessment and then through final examination. Assessment through continous assessment includes mid semester examination, individual and group assignment, project, social experiment, presentation, class participation and more. Beside that, final examinations have traditionally been viewed as a gold standard of assessment in education, particularly in university settings. Like essays they can be summative or formative forms of assessment.

In order to check the understanding after the planning and learning activities, it is important that the teacher drafts questions in different ways to check the knowledge and understanding of the topic. It’s the teacher’s decision to check the understanding orally or in writing.. The questions have to be preplanned. The teacher should be aware of what she/ he planned for the students to learn so that questions can be drafted accordingly. Also, activities can be planned to check the knowledge and understanding of the matter. Examples of activities that can be done to assess students are kahoot, socrative, menti and many more.

Conclusion

Hopefully with all the explanation and introduction to these three important aspects of teaching and learning my peer mentee will be able to start the new semester more effectively and successfully.

References :

Deacon, C. (2011). Educational Technology in the third world schools, New York, Macmillan.

Delhin, P.C, (2012). Computers instructional Technology in Primary and Secondary Schools,

Ibadan, International Publishers.

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E-Portfolios 1 : Art and Science of Teaching 

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E-Portfolios 1 : Art and Science of Teaching 

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Teaching is a process that facilitates learning. Teaching is the specialized application of knowledge, skills and attributes designed to provide unique service to meet the educational needs of the individual and of society. In addition to providing students with learning opportunities to meet curriculum outcomes, teaching emphasizes the development of values and guides students in their social relationships. Teachers employ practices that develop positive self-concept in students. Although the work of teachers typically takes place in a classroom setting, the direct interaction between teacher and student is the single most important element in teaching.

A teacher has professional knowledge and skills gained through formal preparation and experience. Teachers provide personal, caring service to students by diagnosing their needs and by planning, selecting and using methods and evaluation procedures designed to promote learning. The processes of teaching include identifying and responding to student learning needs, then providing effective and responsive instruction, assessing and communicating student learning, respectful environment conducive to student learning and establishing and maintaining professional relationships.

Teachers and students in today educational systems use different information and communication technologies (ICTs) for teaching and learning activities in classrooms. Another concept that has emerged during the last 15 to 20 years is “e-learning”. E-learning describes the interaction in which students use different types of ICTs in their learning process. Education in a knowledge society context is given a key role for developing new ideas in learning and teaching through e-learning is a form of education that is increasingly being used in higher education in the developed world. ICTs and e-learning are important for teachers and students in higher education. One reason is that utilisation of such technologies creates more flexible solutions for students that mainly have the opportunity to study online . ICT and e-learning are both science and art as is teaching. They are a collaborative exercise/ activities in the classroom.

Conventional modes of learning, such as classroom lectures or text-heavy online modules often face the problem of being passive. Usually learners sit through such training sessions while the subject matter passes by them. They might read the content or even take notes, but they are not actively participating in gaining practical knowledge. In order to make the most of these learning methods, it is necessary that learners can focus on the subject. However, this doesn’t mean the conventional methods of learning are less effective and not capable of imparting high quality knowledge among the students. In the general scheme of things, they do an excellent job, but there are some instances wherein one needs to go beyond convention to create a successful learning environment.

Using games and simulations for learning purposes have emerged as two important pillars of offering our students out of the box learning solutions. Game-based content uses games embedded in your subject matter as a medium for learning. In this way, games are both science and art as is teaching. Really, they are a collaborative exercise in the construction of meaning, co-authored by the teacher/designer and the student/player. In simple word, something that some feel is an art, example connecting with students, motivation, mentoring, participation and engagement. Diagnosing a child's motivation, emotional state and other factors, which would have a large impact on the learning also are probably all an art.

Finally, teaching is probably a little bit of art and a little bit of science. After all, our students are not experimental subjects.  They bring with them into our classrooms their hopes, fears, joys, and sorrows, that we consider an arts. They each have the potential to surprise us, to create new knowledge, to develop insights that move our disciplines forward, collaborative exercise and activities in the classroom that we consider as science.

Pictures :  Combination of Art and Science in Teaching and Learning Activity