To understand sustainable and futuristic teaching pedagogy and encourage academicians to enhance their engagement and interaction with students, the Centre for Curriculum Development and Innovation (CCDI) and the Centre for Learning and Teaching (CLT) jointly organised an online forum titled “Online Teaching and Learning (OTL) Forum 3.0” on 7 October 2021 via Zoom. The online forum attracted a total of 104 participants in attendance.

Invited to speak at the forum were Faculty of Engineering and Green Technology Assoc Prof Ir Dr Yeap Kim Ho and Faculty of Creative Industries academic Dr Sharon Jacqueline Albert Wilson. It was moderated by Faculty of Creative Industries academic Zachary Roland A.F. Anthony.

Dr Yeap began his topic “My teaching pedagogy and experience with students” by sharing his teaching philosophy that incorporated the triple “EEE” elements, which stood for education, enhancement and expansion. According to him, education is a duplex process that disseminates skills and knowledge and shares our thoughts, principles, behaviours and beliefs concurrently; the term enhancement means that educators have to constantly enhance their knowledge and share futuristic knowledge to their students. Lastly, the term expansion refers to the requirement to discover new knowledge or expand the existing store of knowledge and share it to the community.

Dr Yeap emphasised on implementing the law of parsimony in teaching disciplines; for instance, academicians are encouraged to find understandable and appropriate method instead of using bombastic words to give explanation to students as every student has different levels of capabilities in understanding knowledge and storing it in memory. He added, “An academician is required to be impartial and sincere in education; they should teach with complete sincerity and commitment and treat everyone unbiasedly to optimise students’ strengths and weaknesses.”

He continued by explaining that teaching pedagogy is significant in developing teaching approaches. He expressed, “Learning is not only about achieving good academic results, but also absorbing new knowledge. Therefore, simple and direct approaches such as using graphic illustration or analogies, bringing students to visit sites and introducing fun activities to students are important in teaching pedagogy.”

Dr Yeap further explained in detail the six important topics to include in a teaching portfolio and shared his ideas of creating a teaching portfolio. He also shared some ways for educators to engage with students through his work experience.

The forum continued with the second speaker Dr Sharon with her topic, “Engaging and interacting with millennial remotely”. In her talk, Dr Sharon first explained who are the millennial and generation Z. According to her, these two groups are digitally natives; technologically savvy; interactive; college-educated parents; more vocal than older generations; racially and ethnically diverse; prefer to create own content; best educated generation; anxious about future, and active in addressing important issues. “Educators have to well understand generation Y & generation Z such as their traits, ways of technology usage and learning skills as majority people in current student population are from these two generations,” said Dr Sharon.

Dr Sharon, then explained the effect of Covid-19 pandemic before and after millennial and generation Z. “Generation Z feels uncertain about the future instead of looking ahead to opportunities as the Covid-19 has changed the country’s social, political and economic landscapes. An analysis of job data showed that young workers were particularly at risk to job loss before the Covid-19 virus outbreak, as they were overrepresented in high-risk service industries,” she elucidated.

Dr Sharon continued by emphasising several aspects of e-learning that rose post-Covid-19 outbreak. She drew attention to the challenges encountered by many educators for the first time in their e-learning passage. “E-learning requires successful interaction between students and teachers. One of the most important elements in online classes is the situation of turning off/on the camera for the purpose of visual presentation during the class. Therefore, educators have to make comprehensive plans to interact with students during online classes such as setting the norm of having the camera turned on early; addressing potential interruptions and solving it; utilising active learning methods to keep students engaged; nurturing equity and studying the challenges underwent by students,” she said.

Moreover, she explained some methods to get students engaged and prevent them from switching off their camera during online classes. “The pattern of student engagement will be read out when the students are at ease whether emotionally, physically or socially; this must be respected. For instance, educators can include case studies for theoretical classes or incorporate trending culture in their online class,” explained Dr Sharon.

She also explained the method of moving from Pedagogy to Andragogy. She said that this can be another way for educators to get their students engaged during online classes. “Andragogy will prepare students to enter into the real world from classroom because it is directed towards self-actualisation, problem solving and gaining experience. Andragogy approaches also will raise the internal motivation to learn knowledge,” said Dr Sharon.

The forum saw an active interaction between the speakers and the participants and it ended with an insightful Q&A session.