Educational Innovation Fellowship

From left: Tan, Dr Ngeow, Dr Ng, Alen Weng, Prof Chong, Lim, Prof Lim, Prof Wu, Prof Ewe, Prof Pua, Gan, Teoh, Kiu, Beh, Choi and Lee

“GHF Educational Innovation Fellowship (Malaysia Round Selection) 2018” was jointly organised by UTAR Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS), Sayling Wen Cultural and Educational Foundation, and Global Highlight for Future Hub (GHFhub) at Sungai Long Campus on 24 August 2018. The Fellowship provided an opportunity to work together with Taiwan’s GHF education innovators and to promote Malaysia’s educational innovation experiment programme. It also aimed to discover Malaysian talents for teaching innovation, including pre-school, primary and secondary school educators.

Invited to be the judges were UTAR Vice President for Internationalisation and Academic Development Prof Ir Dr Ewe Hong Tat, GHFhub Creative Director-cum-National Chengchi University Founder for Graduate Institute of Technology, Innovation and Intellectual Property Management Prof Wu Se-Hwa, GHFhub Global Network Program Host-cum-Fu Jen Catholic University Professor for Graduate Institute of Educational Leadership and Development Prof Lim Shih-Ling, Sunway University Deputy Vice-Chancellor Prof Pua Eng Chong, Ministry of Education Head of Chinese Language Unit Curriculum Development Division Lim Yock Chong and The Federation of Alumni Association of Taiwan Universities, Malaysia Vice President for Arts and Cultural Division Gan Chin Hui. Both Prof Wu and Prof Lim were accompanied by Sayling Wen Cultural and Educational Foundation Associate Project Manager Alen Weng.

During the guideline briefing

Before the presentation started, the judges were briefed by ICS Dean Assoc Prof Dr Chong Siou Wei and ICS Dr Ng Bung Chen on the guidelines and procedures of the presentation.

A total of six finalists were selected to present their creative ideas on innovative educational methods. Each finalist was given 30 minutes to present either in group or individually. Fifteen minutes were allocated for the presentation and another 15 minutes for Q&A session.

From left: Choi and Lee presenting “Programme Honey Bee”.

The first to present were SJK(C) Kuala Kemaman, Terengganu Vice President for Student Affairs Lee Geok Hua and Vice President for Administration Choi Yin Fuen with their presentation titled “Programme Honey Bee”. “Parents choose to send their kids to our school because their kids are unmanageable and are in need of special care. Having to deal with the discipline issues of our students is rather time consuming and it affects our teachers’ teaching progress. However, adhering to love education is the norm for our school. To solve this issue and to cultivate students’ interest in education, we had a discussion with them. We choose “Bee” as our representative symbol and there were eight types of stamps which symbolised the Bee’s personalities. Students must accomplish the missions in each of the personality traits to earn a stamp and get themselves a reward,” said Choi.

Beh presenting “Man Man Learning Classroom”

The second presenter was SJK (C) Pai Teik, Penang teacher Beh Sun Yin with her presentation titled “Man Man Learning Classroom”. “I have introduced four types of mind mapping methods in my classroom, namely paragraph summarisation, story characters analysis, event description and element summarisation. This method helps teachers to be more systematic to guide students in texts reading and contexts summarisation. Besides, it helps students to improve their reading capability, self-learning ability, thinking ability and also their ability to work in a team. I hope this method will be useful for school children in under developing countries and it can be used to assist them in reading,” said Beh.

Teoh presenting “‘Symphony’ Educational Research”

The third presenter was Hin Hua High School, Klang Head of Education Research and Development Committee Teoh Hee Chong with his presentation titled “‘Symphony’ Educational Research”. “This research proposed a way to improve the teaching progress of a teacher in an independent school and improve educational quality. To tie in with this quality education, we have provided short teaching courses for our teachers. This research encourages teachers to seek for new changes. Instead of waiting for the school administrators to solve the problems, it encourages teachers to provide feedback on their classroom teaching and propose effective solutions on the matters arising,” he said. “Hin Hua High School has organised various seminars in the past and this brought great recognition to the school. In the year 2015, Dong Zong - United Chinese School Committees’ Association of Malaysia organised a national education seminar. Among the published papers, most of the collections were from Hin Hua High School teachers,” added Teoh.

Kiu presenting “Comprehensive Diversity, Sensory Experience, Thematic Development Curriculum”

The fourth presenter was Windmill Care Centre, Klang Founder Kiu Yee Ni with her presentation titled “Comprehensive Diversity, Sensory Experience, Thematic Development Curriculum”. “Our school is different compared to others; our students have more outdoor activities like cycling and playing with sand and mud. We even have our own farm and orchard and students will help to reap the vegetables and fruits. Orchard also serves as a playground for our students. In this way, they get to play around, at the same time, keep in touch with nature. Physical training is also provided for our students. Handcraft is basically their homework. We train them to become self-independent; they clean up their bowls and the place after they eat, and they even help to do house chores like sweeping the floor. We let our students to vote for their own representative and to be in charge of solving problems that take place in the school. Basically, we do not provide textbooks for teaching purpose, instead we use nature as study materials for our students. Our students have their own special reports to complete as well. Their reports are done based on the keywords given or places that we have visited. Sometimes, we ask questions like ‘What can we do to repay the society?, and then we conclude the suggestions from our students. One of our students suggested cooking for the poor. So, we contacted one of the charity management and asked for their cooperation. We let the students bring their own cooking materials with the help of their parents and we guided them to cook. This is how we want our students to grow up, so we let them experience it themselves,” said Kiu.

Tan presenting “Keen Readers Programme”

The last presenter was Keen Readers Programme, Penang Founder Tan Kien Hooi with his research titled “Keen Readers Programme”. “This programme is meant for children who are suffering from dyslexia— a problem in learning to read and write. Different teaching methods are employed based on the students’ reading level. I conduct seminars for the teachers and send them for training to make sure they use appropriate teaching methods. We use the traditional way to teach our students, like reading stories and using flashcards for word recognition. However, I have also come out with different methods to improve their word recognition ability by using dough, colours and actions to help them improve better. I want to cultivate their consciousness in writing. The idea is about allowing our students to analyse and categories the words within a period of time, not about how many words the students can recognise. We will also test our students’ reading and writing ability by having them to write down short story paragraphs,” said Tan.

The meeting then ended with a group photograph session followed by a short meeting for the finalist selection. The result will be announced before 28 September 2018 at Malaysia’s GHF official website: http://www.ghfhub.org