I have high hopes for lecturers in the academic profession, my eyes are wide open to the issues and challenges facing lecturers nowadays, particularly:
- Need for English competency of the students – full English conversation in classrooms and outside, high level English in communication and students’ works, so that I can portray to the students of my English capabilities and that the students can learn and adopt me as their role model and example.
- Need for multiple capabilities of the students – assignments and tasks to the students must always and always be all-rounder, and the works always engages in various and multiple skills and capabilities. For instance, submission of assignment in the forms of mindmaps, or video format. This way, the students would be able to grasp multiple types of skills, apart from the understanding of the lessons taught during the lectures and online meetings.
- Mismatch between the syllabus requirements against the students and the real-world needs of the legal practice – for instance, the students are taught to memorise the legal provisions and decided cases, when in fact in the real-world legal practice, the legal practitioners are holding onto the phrase: “a good lawyer does not know all the law, but it is he who knows where to find the law”.
Given this understanding, I am determined to hold on to my teaching and learning philosophy, which include the following ideas, and also that to my mind, a good academia must possess the following ideas:
(a) Actions speak for itself – ‘res ipsa loquitor’ it is highly important for me to portray my true self to the students, so that I can showcase to them who I really am, and what is it that I am teaching and promoting for the students to adopt and implement in their own lives.
(b) Holistic student – I wish to produce student with multiple capabilities, and if possible, holistically capable of various tasks. This would involve incorporation of learning modules of various aspects, apart from the academic syllabus for the program, but over and above that. The purpose of believing this is so that I can participate in the mission of UUM to produce leaders with holistic characteristics.
(c) Conducive working environment – it is very important that I emphasize to the students to have safe and conducive working environment, suitable for them to embark on the learning process.
Apart from that, I also make it a point to expand my knowledge and expertise to learn and participate in teaching and learning programs organised by the ministry and the university. One most intriguing program I joined was the Educator 4.0 Intensive program by Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysia on 5-6 August 2018 and facilitated by Prof Dato’ Dr. Mohd. Amin Embi of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Wan Zuhainis Saad of Universiti Putra Malaysia. Aimed at producing 600 lecturers who are equipped to lead fellow lecturers to face the challenges of Education 4.0, the program at UUM was participated by 25 aspiring and enthusiastic lecturers.
Next Page: Courses taught –>
<– Previous Page: Ani Munirah’s Online Portfolio
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ani Munirah Mohamad 