I was selected representing my faculty FSKTM for a course called succession plan by PPKK UTHM. There were 22 PhD holders aged ranging from 29 to 52 years old. The objective of this course is to develop a group of talented leaders in future in view of many senior officers going to retire within this 5 years time.
The course was conducted by Colonel (R) Nik Zalaini from Pushing Limited Sdn Bhd. I like the company because they have few Chinese motivators along and they were very friendly and very out going.
On the main land, three special tasks were given to us. First to construct a bridge using 2 short wooden planks. Second task was to bring a drum of water (supposed to be special liquid) to the other side of island using 2 kinds of ropes tied between two big trees. Each group has 7 to 8 members of different sizes and weights. They timed the completion of each task. Our group came last on both occasions. (laugh)
The last task was to build a raft using floats and ropes. We are asked to use the raft to carry all the members to the other side of the island. I was very surprised to myself that I can tie 4 floaters using nylon ropes and the raft was successfully constructed within 30 minutes. The success can be seen when 7 of us got onto the raft , peddling it from the shore to a small motor boat a distant away. My tie never gave way to the small waves that hit the raft. What an achievement!
At night, Prof Dr Azraai from UTM talked about ‘characteristics of an academic dean’. I liked the talk very much where he showed us two kinds of ladders called academic and administrator type in any university.. But the only thing it dragged from 930 to 1130 pm . When the meeting was over, I could hardly see the button in the hotel’s lift. We hit the bed very late that night. But b4 I slept, I prayed that Dr Radzi will wake me up for fajar prayer in a nearby mosque since the next morning was a Friday. It was an important dawn prayer and big thawab that goes with it .. if we can attend congregational prayer at any Friday’s dawn. U know what? Dr Radzi went all alone to the mosque. I think he must have thought that I was so tired for I snored like a wild boar. Well , I forgave him. What can I do? Pehaps my intention is bigger than the praying itself.
My eyes were red when I came down for breakfast. At 0800am we were fortunate to hear a talk about Human Resource Corporation by ex-Exxon boss Dato’ Kamaruddin Md Jamal. He power point many definitions of a leader, contributor, manager, etc etc. I think he showed us 50 slides within 2 hour talk. Each slide was carefully developed with quotations from Ghandi, Churchill, Thatcher, Aldair, .. and he gave many kinds of examples based from his wide experience studying in RMC, working in the Malaysian army and his MBA in Cranfield, London, and 18 years attachment in Houston, USA. The best part is the way he answered many questions from Dr Ariff Adam, Dr Kathegeshu, Dr Rosmaini, Prof Dr Noraini and many more. He came so near to each of them while answering their questions. I think that’s the way an army is brought up when he/she is confronted with problems from his subordinates. I also asked him .. but .. (never mind) .. let’s go on to the next paragraph.
Our beloved Dato NC also came. He talked about the importance of developing very efficient leader in any organization. He has so many stories from his Imperial College London, his travels in Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam, and his fond memory working in UMS Sabah. Intersperse he mentioned datin, datin. I think he should have brought his wife next time (laugh). Well he talked very well and it was very refreshening to listen my top boss talking with so many ideas.
After Prof Dr Noraini Kaparawi talk and TNC(A) Prof Dr Abd Aziz briefing at 1200 am ..we checked out from the hotel and left home , stopping for Friday prayer in Tg Keling Masjid. Overall it was a great course knowing in advance I have so few more years left to leave any mark in UTHM’s history. I just say .. ‘I cross the bridge when I get there’. TQ Colonel Nik and associates. You ran the course very well indeed. Bravo!!
Last week I went to present 2 papers on mathematics education in a conference called “ICMER 2010” organized by UPM and UPSI in Melaka Hotel, Malaysia. 13 and 14 DECEMBER 2010. I brought along my wife and two daughters – one about to graduate in TESL UiTM and the other one a 15 year old PMR student. The objective was to expose them the ‘good’ life of a researcher in this conference.
I was very impressed with the key speakers namely Prof Robyn Jorgensen from Australia and Prof B. Kaur from Singapore. I missed the chance to hear from 2 key notes speakers from Japan and Germany because I was so absorbed entertaining my family in the Hotel Century Mahkota, Melaka.
It took me two different days to present my work. First it was about the effect of a multimedia interactive courseware in learning pre-algebra among 137 students in a polytechnic, PKB, Kelantan. Malaysia. The findings was many students can learn effectively pre-algebra using technology and team discussion. Without collaborative learning (team work) they can still learn pre-algebra. Doing remedial work in the polytechnic set-up is too time consuming if the lecturers are too involved in helping the poor achievers. The courseware is more than enough. The point is the polytechnic should let the students use the courseware and learn pre-algebra by themselves. Let them be independent learners. The lecturers should focus on higher level of mathematical skills like problem solving.
The next day, I presented another paper called The influence of team work in learning pre-algebra without technology. The findings was learning collaboratively on word problem solving among 30 students was far worst than the control group (traditional teaching). I found out that there were problem in playing the roles under STAD set up as recommended by Slavin (1995). They didn’t work because they failed to understand the major roles that they should play as the temm leader, assistant team leader, reporter, general manager and time keeper. Each team has 5 players. The main block was the difficulty to solve the word problem as Phamjit Singh (UiTM, Shah Alam) had found out from his study among upper primary school students. During conversations and interview sessions, these polytechnic students confessed that solving word problem, was a new experience to them as in the secondary schools their teachers concentrated more on solving number problems like fractions and direct computations. Some teachers helped them to score the minimum passing marks in order to enter the polytechnics’ education set up. By doing so, the teachers always missed many important topics such as the final challenging tasks - word problem solving (Marzita Puteh, 2003).
Other than presenting my papers, I watched closely the work by UTP and MMU as a whole. And there were few things that I need to mention. First, they have 2 groups only ( experimental and control ) groups. Of course both universities discovered that experimental group outperform the control group. It was obvious .. but none of them mention anything on the Hawthorn effects. That surprised me. For your information, I set up four different groups called Collaborative Learning only group, CD only group, CDiCL only group and the control group. In the analysis section I had used ANCOVA where pre-test marks were taken as covariate and post-test marks as the dependent variable. Gain score was incorporated in the post-test marks.
Other papers were from Iran and other Arab countries. I listened attentively to what they wanted to say .. but .. as a whole .. their ‘spoken’ English has so much to catch up with the world. I prefered the papers from Singapore since NUS came out among the top 10 universities in the world. The papers were written very clearly. I think I should try to write as clearly as theirs in future. Now I am thinking hard to attend a conference in Singapore in the coming future. Insyallah.
I missed the key speaker from Japan. My friend from MMU Miss Aminah Ahmad told they were very good indeed. Well if you brought your family along to a conference, there must be some plus and minus all along the way. The plus was .. you enjoyed their companionship throughout the 2 days in Melaka and the minus point was .. you missed so much of the golden time you should have interacted with the foreigners. God willing I will come again to ICMER in future .. but this time I will come alone. Laugh.
Good. UPM and UPSI. You did a very good job. Congratulation!!
p/s: why not UPM gave us old Journal in Mathematics Education as a souvenir instead of the book mark (tags)? He..he..
salam
Dah tinggal 10 hari lagi ..tahun 2010 ini. So far, I tak habis-habis menghadhiri majlis kenduri-khawin. Ada yang best dan ada yang tak best. He..he..
2) yang best-best
Dapat jumpa kawan-kawan lama dan sanak saudara. yang hebatnya, satu majlis itu ..pengantin adalah bekas pelajar saya dan ibu mertua dia adalah mantan guru-guru saya di Tengku mahmud School, Besut Trengganu. macam-macam boleh jadi kan? Dunia ni kecil sangatlah.
3) yang tak best ..
ialah .. musim ni kan musim tengkujuh. Banyak sangat hari yang hujan lebat dan kurang sangat hari yang mana mentari senyum ceria dari pagi ke petang. He..he.. satu lagi .. jarak perjalanan sangatlah jauh. Yang menjadi masalah ialah .. kita jer yang jadi pemandu kereta. Sakit urat mata dan badan dikerjakan kita. sebagai pemandu, kita kena bukak biji mata luas-luas... sedangkan penumpang tidur jer memanjang.. ada yang tidur sambil tersenyum lebar jer. Mungkin dia happay sangat dapat jumpa sanak saudara dia lah tu. sakit urat adalah kerana .. badan kita pun makin hari makin tua. nak suruh dia tolong picitkan ... banyak mulut dari tangan dan jari untuk mengurut badan kita yang tersangatlah penat. Cuba tanya ..pemandu bas dan lori .. sedap tak memandu kereta/bas/lori bagi jarak yang jauh ..?
Itu sajalah buat kali ini. kalau ditulis panjang-panjang ,,nanti ada orang yang sakit hati.
ha..ha..
Sekian. Wallah hukaklam.