Innovations & Creativity

“The important thing for you is to be alert, to question, to find out, so that your own initiative may be awakened.”

~Bruce Lee

Learning happens when you trap a student in an environment where they can’t escape without thinking.

Active learning, cooperative and collaborative learning are the main approaches to engage students with the class materials and to encourage high participation of students in class.

"It’s got to be engaging."

CREATIVITY

Active and Collaborative Learning: Game-based challenge

Create a dynamic environment that can inspire students to develop skills and competencies as they focus on the activities of the game
Outcomes: students can function effectively in classroom, work collaboratively among themselves and enjoy the competitive sense.

Students play the game in groups. Each group must have a whiteboard to write down the solutions.

- The questions appear one by one on the screen within the set time limit before it changes to the next question. Students need to answer the questions on the board in instance. The game creates a situation where students need to think and act fast.
- Marks are given based on the correct answer and the fastest.
- Prizes are waiting for the best three groups which collect the highest marks.

Cooperative Learning: Jigsaw puzzles

Jigsaw puzzle is one of the cooperative learning activities to increase positive educational outcomes.
Students work independently among themselves and self-learning is driven. They just not doing it for fun however they develop self-confidence and conduct peer learning.
Outcomes: develop self-confidence and conduct peer learning.

A. Divide students into 5 person jigsaw groups. The day’s lesson is divided into 5 topics. Assign each student to learn one topic in 20 minutes.

B. Form temporary “expert groups” by having one student from each jigsaw group join other students assigned to discuss the main points of their topic in 30 minutes.

C. Bring the students back into their jigsaw groups and they have to present the topic to the group. Observation and an intervention will occur when needed.

D. At the end of the session, students are given a question to solve in their jigsaw groups and submit the solutions via Ulearn.

Active Learning: Think-Pair-Share

The most method that I use in the classroom.

Discussing with a partner next to you.
Outcomes: maximizes participation, focuses attention and engages students in comprehending the topics.

Educational tools

Kahoot, Padlet, Edpuzzle, Quizizz as teaching aid to make learning fun and provide different ways of teaching.

INNOVATIONS

A. Video Assignments – Encourage students with collaborative activity and increase student potential.

Marking Rubrics for video assignment

The objectives of the video assignment are

1. to encourage students to demonstrate their skills, knowledge orally in a clear, efficient and organized delivery.

2. to enhance students problem-solving abilities.

3. to improve students computer efficiency

4. to unleash students creativity

5. all group members involve in the making of the video and students work efficiently in group.

Feedback from students shows that most of them find this video assignment helps them to increase their understanding and develop problem solving skills

The final products of the video assignments were posted in Youtube which they can share publicly. As the outcomes, I can see the potentials coming out from students to be more confidence in explaining mathematical working calculation. They become more creative to demonstrate their skills and knowledge. They explore wider usage of mathematical softwares / tools such as Microsoft Excel, MATLAB and GeoGebra.

B. Padlet as a tool to increase student's engagement in online class

This part highlights the Padlet activities in teaching mathematics and how I frame the teaching content to help and guide students in online teaching. The satisfaction survey has been conducted to review students’ feedback and comments. The results indicate that students agreed by using Padlet in online class helped them to enhance their understanding. It also found that the Padlet was effective to provide alternative platform as good as face-to-face meeting. Furthermore, the engagement in online classroom could be improved using Padlet.

The list of Padlet activities that have been designed.

Breakout Rooms Activity

Students are divided into several breakout rooms during class. The breakout rooms are conducted via Microsoft Teams (a platform of meeting hub). Each room is assigned one set of questions to be solved within the set time. Students must upload their solutions by group in the Padlet. Before the class ends, lecturer gives feedback and comments to the student’s works and students are required to make corrections after class hour.

Hands-on activity

Students solve one hands-on question at the end of explanation of one subtopic. The solutions are uploaded in the Padlet and lecturer responses to the submission in instance. Students get the feedback and do correction.

Video Assignment Activity

Choose one question from the tutorial questions. Students upload one video to explain their solution in Padlet. Students can view, like and comment their friend’s video.

Self-learning activity

Students are given a task to learn about a new topic from various sources. create an infographic, share and present his/her work in Padlet.

An example of self-learning activity is as follow:

The effectiveness of using Padlet in online class

The effectiveness of Padlet board in online teaching and learning is studied and the results are shown in the above figures.

The findings indicate that the use of Padlet has a significant effect in online teaching and learning, and it helps students to enhance their understanding of the discussed topics.
On the other hand, it is proven that the synchronous session is conducted interactively using Padlet which improves students’ engagement.
The performance of students was slightly improved in the final exam as compared to the midterm test.

C. Student-centered instructional strategy in classroom

Heutagogy Learning (self-determined learning): A student-centered instructional strategy that emphasizes the development of autonomy, capacity, and capability to teach lifelong learning.

In this activity, the discussed topics are the four applications of partial derivatives. Students have been taught the definition of partial derivatives before the activity is conducted.

The Student-centered instruction activity allows students to make decisions on the topic that they want to explore through various sources such as internet, text books, and lecture materials.
Based on what they explore, an infographic note about the topic is created.
Now, the students become the expert in the particular topic.
Students have to present their infographic and finding in classroom in a gallery walk atmosphere where students can walk around group by group to learn about the other topics.
The activity creates the awareness of seeking knowledge and learning the process to understand a topic. It also requires high participation of each student and therefore increases the engagement in the learning process.

The topics are measured in Test (10%) and Final Exam (15%) for Program Outcome 1 (PO1) of the course.

The description of the activity is as follow:

GROUP ACTIVITY CHAPTER 1.pdf

Sharing the infographic for all 4 topics via Padlet.

The Heutagogy Learning Activity

The feedback of heutagogy learning activity in classroom.

Analysis of student's performances

The figure shows a comparison of students' percentage based on related assessment of PO1 achievement (marks of PO1/25) for two different groups;

Direct-Instruction Learning and Student-centered Instruction Learning.

Direct-Instruction Learning - Instructor presenting material (Lecturing) but includes time for guided and independent practice by students.

Student-centered Instruction Learning - Allow students to decide how they want to learn the topic through various of sources (books, internet, lecture materials), create the learning materials, and present and share the finding to their classmates.

It shows that the 25% PO1 achievement for Student-centered Instruction Learning via this activity is better than the achievement for Direct-Instruction Learning.

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