Back to School 2021: 2 Teachers talk about Fusing Tech with Tradition in the New Normal

School has been pretty much interrupted the whole of 2020, what with the pandemic bringing about repeated school closures, the sudden start of virtual classes, the cancellation of UPSR and PT3 (for Standard 6 and Form 3) and postponements to major exams such as the SPM and STPM. School closures and exam postponements may sound like bonus preparation time for revisions or even a holiday but in actual fact, with exam tensions being dragged out and having the learning momentum broken, the situation is a stressful affair for the kids, their parents and their teachers. Enter the Stop-Gap Measure The sudden stops and starts to the 2020 school year have had students and teachers scrambling online to continue lessons. And although the internet provides a great stop-gap measure to circumvent these circumstances, not everyone has been successful making the transition to study remotely. For instance, many parents have noticed that their children find it hard paying attention or interacting with a computer screen. The lack of a conducive home environment that can replicate classroom energy is another contributing factor. It takes great adjustment on the part of the student to adapt to following lessons and tutorials or completing assignments while isolated from face-to-face, hands-on class interaction. As a result, many miss out on fully understanding what is being taught and get left far behind. Some eventually lose interest. Exam students probably have it worse. Last year’s students who should have finished schooling, now have to come back to school this year to sit for their exams because the 2020 SPM and the STPM will only be held in February and March of 2021. Not only will this result in a lot of students attending school in 2021, there will also be the need to hold “catch up” classes ─ presumably through online means ─ for those who didn’t get to complete their syllabus in 2020. Delay to Start of New School Year The school term for 2021 has also been delayed to Jan 20, 2021. Education Minister Dr Mohd Radzi Md Jidin had said that although online learning has been helpful somewhat, it is nonetheless not as effective as face-to-face classes, citing the students’ difficulty in grasping the minimum understanding of a subject. "(We are worried) that if students don't understand what they were supposed to learn last year (2020), then come March (2021), the students may lose their motivation because they feel they have missed out too much (of their education)." Other Problems And then, of course, there are other issues too with online learning such as families not being able to afford laptops (especially when there are several school going children in the household) and weak internet access in certain areas and states. There have been many reports of students having to resort to climbing up trees just to get a connection to attend online classes. Blended Learning Nevertheless, it's the way things are going to be for education in the new normal. And now, with so much uncertainty ahead of the new school term plus the added extension of the Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) for Selangor, Sabah and several localities in other states into January next year, are schools ready to merge technology with tradition and take on blended learning as the way forward? Two Teachers Speak about Teaching in the New Normal Two teachers (who are also mothers of young school-going children themselves) share their thoughts about how they got through last year, the complexities of online teaching and the changes they will likely see in the “new norm” of education in the immediate future. Primary School Teacher Linda Shuhaimi in her class of Level 2 students. inda Shuhaimi, mother of two young children ─ Adrian Shehnaz Amani (7) and Rahul Salman Andre (21 months) teaches Level 2 students in Standard 4, 5 and 6 at SK RTB Bukit Changgang, Banting, Selangor. This year marks her 10th year of teaching after receiving her Master of Education degree from University Malaya. Linda doesn’t teach all subjects, just English. She is also the Head of the English Panel in her school. Back in 2016, she won the innovative teacher award because of her invention of an English teaching technique she called the HOPSCOTCHING KIT. For her and for other teachers, students as well as their parents at home, 2020 has been exceptionally challenging. “We just had school sessions for only five months and were disrupted twice! At first, everything was so hard especially trying to reach the students who went off during the many lockdowns and semi lockdowns. But in time, we managed to find our rhythm.” UPSR Cancelled Linda teaches English to 10, 11 and 12 year-olds. Her focus is on Year 6 students who usually sit for their UPSR in September. With so many disruptions to the school year right from the start, UPSR, the major Standard 6 exam, got cancelled. The Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah or UPSR is the national primary school achievement test that is taken by all Standard 6 students in Malaysia to evaluate the learning these students have achieved in the six years of primary schooling. “These results are usually used to assess their entry into secondary school. Some of the brighter students will enter boarding schools but all will move on to secondary schooling,” explains Linda. But with the exam’s cancellation, and the rest of the school term in disarray, Linda, whose main task was usually to get the UPSR students ready for their exam, found her timetable upended. But that didn’t mean she would have it easy either. Her first challenge was in reaching her students who had all dispersed in the MCO. With perseverance, creativity and the use of “all possible platforms to reach my students”, she managed to hold online lessons to a growing list of attendees every week. “I did my own teaching videos and uploaded them on to my YouTube channel. Then using WhatApp to gather them together, I guided my students through Google Meet Classroom where we would do online worksheets. I would mark them online, then return them immediately to the students. On top of my own videos, I even did a TV Pendidikan recording session offered by the education ministry. The show aired on OKEY channel, RTM.” Learn English with Teacher Linda on OKEY channel, RTM https://www.youtube.com/watch?vfFkn7D7nesQ More English Lessons with Teacher Linda on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v1pLmYRtNNxE https://www.youtube.com/watch?vQN8uzXYesbk Constraints with Online Learning Linda conducting a class online. Of course, there were many problems with everybody suddenly having to do remote learning, but from what she could see, the main issues of using the internet for classes revolved around the lack of devices to go online with. Not every student owned smartphones and laptops. “Most of the students had to use their parents' gadgets and these were quite limited. Furthermore, many working parents were not at home to guide or monitor their children during online learning and this became one of the constraints faced. Apart from that, there were also basic issues like the lack of internet connection at home and also the students' own motivation and individual efforts at learning." “But so far, the students enjoyed their online learning experience, especially when I used Google Meet Classroom and my own teaching videos to liven up the class. They participated well in every online lesson. Most of them submitted their assignments to me and I was able to increase the number of attendees with every online lesson.” Attendance & Other Problems during the Pandemic English classes online. Linda recalls that when school reopened in July after the initial MCO, many parents did not allow their children to go back to school. As a result, there were many absentees. “But luckily for me, learning English is a skill and not a subject that is fully dependent on a syllabus. In that sense, there wasn’t really a problem with teaching English online.” The School Year Ahead Linda’s young students on Google Meet showing an interest in learning the English language. For Primary school, the beginning of every year would see the focus being placed on Year 6 students because of the UPSR. All programs such as extra weekend classes, UPSR clinic, working on past year papers, personal coaching and tutoring to students based on their weaknesses, would be planned and implemented from as early as February into August so that students would be sufficiently geared for the exam held in September every year. But with the UPSR cancelled and a hint that there will be a revision to the new exam format in 2021, much remains to be seen. “So what will happen next year will depend on how the pandemic will play out,” says Linda. She has yet to know of the 2021 timetable until she returns to school, but adds that if school sessions go on as planned, and examinations resume, then it is most probable that the face-to-face teaching method will resume as normal. Being a Mother and a Teacher Linda and her children Andre (centre) and Adrian Linda’s daughter Adrian entered Standard 1 in 2020 but it has been a tumultuous year. “I’m so sad to see how she's having her first school year’s experience, but what to do? I’m monitoring her closely at home, guiding her on every online class that her teachers conduct. That's the best I can do for her at home. Luckily, she can already master the English language, basic math and reading so it's not really going to be a problem for her when she enters Standard 2 this year. It’s just that she really misses all her friends and going to school for physical activities. Adrian learns ballet but even her ballet classes were conducted online this year!” “As a teacher, definitely I miss seeing all my kids in class. But it's all beyond our control. Naturally, I am concerned about history repeating itself ─ what if school sessions continue to be on hold like in 2020?” On the upside, Linda will be joining a team in Pejabat Pendidikan Daerah in 2021 as one of the panels in Module Making for English for Year 1 to Year 6. This means there are plans to come up with a standard module that can be applied to all schools in the district. “The committee will be doing this in 2021 regardless of whether school resumes as normal or not,” she says. Transitioning to the New Normal Thoughts from Linda on how to make the best of online learning and teaching. How to Make Online Teaching Successful "We teachers should be more creative in delivering our teaching online. This is so that we can provide optimal learning to our students. The key to make online teaching and learning work well is to have awareness. Otherwise, it won't be effective." How Students can Help Themselves "Students should take the initiative to learn. Be creative and always show your progress to your teacher as much as you can because only your own efforts will ensure your success. Teachers will always be there to help and guide you through the learning process." How Parents can Provide Support "Parents have to be very proactive in supporting their children, especially their young school children so that besides the teacher's efforts, parents' help can be the contributing factor to the success of the new norm in education which our children will have to thrive in. I know it's not easy but it's not impossible either. Just like me ─ if I let my daughter do her tasks without checking on her, definitely she won’t be careful or thorough in her work. So as a parent, I will check on her task every day to make sure she does it and sends it to the teacher on time. Normally, before I send my daughter's tasks over, I will check them first. I know this is extra work, and that it can be hard but what choice do we have? We need to do this in our children’s best interest." All pictures pertaining to primary schooling: courtesy of Linda Shuhaimi Secondary School Teacher Lim Li Ping (extreme right in blue top) with her class of students in the 2019 school year. econdary school teacher Lim Li Ping who has had 12 years teaching Forms 4 and 5 Additional Mathematics and who currently teaches at SMJK Yu Hua, Kajang, Selangor, says the pandemic did not really disrupt lessons because teachers did not stop teaching despite the implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO) on March 25, 2020. Although online teaching started during this first MCO, Li Ping says those initial classes only consisted of uploaded materials and exercises through Google Classroom. If students had queries, they would ask questions through WhatsApp or Google Classroom. Real online teaching only began on June 23, 2020, via Google Meet during the start of CMCO for students from Forms 1 to 4. Form 5 students, however, still had to physically come to school to prepare for their impending SPM and to sit for their trials which started in early October but which had to stop on October 14 due to the CMCO in October. These trials will be continued when students return to school in January, joining the new batch of Form 5 students entering the 2021 school year. Naturally, there will be a lot of students going back to school come the new year and some things will have to be worked out to accommodate the situation. Challenges of Online Learning With her last online class held on Dec 17, 2020 The good news is, 2020’s Form 5 syllabus has already been completed for the old batch well before October. “I have been revising with my Form 5 students online twice a week according to the school’s timetable. The revision consisted of going through certain topics that the students were weak in. We also discussed the trial exam papers. Form 5 students are more mature and can follow online classes quite well. Of course, there were also some students who were absent from these classes.” It’s the new way of learning, she says and understandably, younger students such as those in Form 4 might find it difficult to adapt, especially when it comes to a new subject such as Add Maths. Of course, there were some issues with the younger students, she says. “As for me, when my Form 4 students were back in physical class in July 15, 2020, I tried to teach them back all the chapters that they learned in Goggle Classroom and Goggle Meet. By the time CMCO came around again in October 2020, students were already used to the ‘new normal’”. Challenges of Online Teaching “I find teaching to be very rewarding, especially when it comes to the end of the year when students come to you and thank you. It is so satisfying when you see them getting good results. Even when you see students making a breakthrough and finally understand what you are explaining, I will also feel so good.” ~ Lim Li Ping For the teacher, online teaching posed some initial problems too. “Goggle Classroom and Goggle Meet are actually new platforms for both teachers as well as students,” she says. “I had to quickly pick up this skill through YouTube tutorials as I did not master it during the workshop organised by the school early in the year. I needed to prepare many things before the lessons; for example notes in PowerPoint, Word docs etc. I also had to learn and explore new materials or get new apps for my classes. At first, it is very tough for me too. Now that I am getting used to it, I find it quite fun. “To make the lessons go on smoothly, I bought some new gadgets such as a drawing tablet so that I can write the mathematical equations easily, a headset, and even a new laptop. I also upgraded my house WiFi speed to 100mbps to support my online classes.” Being a Mother and a Teacher Li Ping’s children. (From left) Carnation and Skye Ong. Li Ping is also a mother of two young children ─ a girl who will be entering Standard 4 in 2021 and a five-year-old boy who is in kindergarten. Both have made the transition to online learning in 2020, including her son who gets one hour 45 minutes of Zoom lessons from his kindergarten every day. He is taught a different subject each day online and it ranges from English, Chinese and Bahasa Malaysia to Mathematics and Science as well as story-telling and art and craft and activities during the weekends. During MCO, the children helped out with many household activities like preparing meals. “I usually have to sit beside my son to guide him because at his age, he can’t really sit still during his lessons. “As for my daughter, she is already nine years old, so she can manage her own classes as she knows her timetable well,” says Li Ping. She doesn’t need to sit beside her daughter to monitor but listens from afar as she needs to cook dinner and manage the housework as well. “When my daughter attends online classes, she is required to attend with the camera on, so the teacher can monitor. “As a working mother, with my husband working outstation, it is very challenging to juggle work, the children’s online lessons and household chores. So, I do not have much time to attend to their school work.” But she does remind her daughter to check the messages her teachers have left her in the WhatsApp groups to make sure she attends to them, she says. Online Schooling VS Face-to-Face With blended learning (which combines tech with tradition) as the new approach in education, how does Li Ping feel about online classes in general? “Although my daughter completes all her online work, I think physical classes are more important as they can communicate face to face, do experiments, explorations and resume physical activities. I definitely wish she can go back to physical class and learn more from her school teachers.” “As a parent, I have the responsibility to assist and guide my child to move towards this new educational method. I provide my child with the necessary support at home. I help my child to create a routine and we try to stick on to it. That is the best I can do for my primary school child.” Tips for Doing Well in Add Maths Li Ping with one of her students. Teacher Li Ping has some tips for Add Maths students: “Additional Mathematics is about solving lots of questions. The more questions you are exposed to, the more familiar and confident you will be in an exam. There are no short cuts to scoring well." “Additionally, there are also many experienced teachers who conduct workshops for free via Zoom, YouTube or even Goggle Meet. Many resources for further understanding the subject have been uploaded online this year, making this very convenient for students who want to learn more." “The most important thing is to take the initiative to learn, explore and discover." All pictures pertaining to secondary schooling & featured image: courtesy of Lim Li Ping

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