YSEALI Educators sharing experience
YSEALI EMPOWERING SOUTHEAST ASIA EDUCATORS or YSEALI Edu KL is a YSEALI regional workshop on Education theme during 19-23th August 2019 at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Overview video link: https://www.facebook.com/1377717149140655/posts/2409343945977965?sfns=mo
Who are the participants/What background does participants come from?
This workshop bring around 100 educators across 11 South East Asia countries to share, exchange, and create project-based learning in the region. If we heard the word "Educator" for the first time, I guess many people will come up with similar word "Teacher". Teacher is also includes in educators but educators is more than that. Educators also includes the principles, ministry of education’s officers, academic department’s officers, etc.
“The job of Educator is not to teach, but to inspire others to be better and better" - Javier
What about me?
I am Sakhone or my nickname is Keo. I’m one of representative from Laos. I am the youngest among Laos participants and my teammates. I am not a teacher, but I do many social projects that related to youth empowerment and education such as workshops, career fairs, major guiding workshop(MGW), etc. I want to be a part of education development and create skillful human resources for the country.
Application Processes
We applied online application by creating a 90-seconds video on question “Why should you be selected for this program?” and writing 5 essays in 200-300 words for each such as volunteer opportunity, leadership, your successful project, expectation, etc.
Pre-online training
After the selection process, we have received emails for confirmation. Then, everyone accessed to the pre-online training in the canvas.instructure.com . We have to access to an online module which the main organizer will post the questions in every week such as teacher belief, how do student learn best, project-based learning (PBL), design thinking, driving question, rubric, curriculum backward design, etc.We should reply our own answer as well as give a comment to other delegate’s answer.
- Project-based learning(PBL)
Many teachers have their students do projects. Science Fair is a good example. Students do their own experiments, usually at home with help from their parents, and then they present their work to judges. While there is some value in doing projects, they are not the same as project-based learning.
In PBL, class projects are designed around a question that encourages students to explore multiple aspects of a problem. Ideally this problem relates to the community around the school.
As students work towards a solution to the problem, they learn content that the teacher is required to teach (central to the curriculum). These questions drive instruction so they are called driving questions.
Project-based units can be as short as 2–3 weeks or as long as an entire course.
Why PBL?
- Allows some individualization while also ensuring content coverage
2. PBL gives real-world context to classroom learning
3. PBL helps students develop soft skills
4. PBL motivates students
5. Involving community/parents can increase buy-in.
Below are some videos of PBL classes in different grades and contents:
An introduction to PBL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFySmS9_y_0&t=11s
PBL at Melrose Elementary School: https://vimeo.com/30418561
Newsome Park Science magnet: https://www.edutopia.org/video/worms-wall-street-projects-prompt-active-authentic-learning
Melrose Elementary School — http://vimeo.com/30418561 (Links to an external site.)
Engineering is Elementary curriculum units: http://www.eie.org/eie-curriculum/curriculum-units
Mathematics — Design a High School for 2050: https://www.edutopia.org/video/applying-math-skills-real-world-problem
And many more topics:
https://www.edutopia.org/topic-index
“Educators are change-makers who create positive impacts to our communities"
- Design Thinking
The first step in the design thinking process is to empathize. Ask ourselves, “What is the current situation?” You may want to collect some data to support ideas but be open to new possibilities. Who is target audience? In other words, who will benefit from the solution to the problem? Is it the community as a whole, is it parents, the elderly, young children? We might want to ask our target audience what they feel about the problem and what their ideas are.
PBL relies on choosing a problem that students can solve. We can use the design thinking process to identify problems that your students can work on. Empathize with our community and our students. Think about the problems they face. Are there any problems that relate to our content area?
- Rubric
A rubric contains criteria and levels of performance. The criteria are the aspects educators want to assess. Examples could include the accuracy of the information, the number of examples or tests, the degree of teamwork, etc.,
List all the criteria for the assessment and then determine what levels of quality look like. Especially, in some schools, they don’t measure students by exam grades, this tool become a measurement of their performance, abilities, soft skills, etc.
Resources and Tools for PBL Start to Finish: https://www.edutopia.org/stw-project-based-learning-best-practices-resources-lesson-plans
Rubistar: http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php
iRubric: https://www.rcampus.com/indexrubric.cfm?
The workshop
The workshops have many high-quality contents in each session, it’s difficult for me to share all of them. So, I will share some of my key take away contents to all of you.
Lecture
- Challenges
Almost countries in ASEAN, more than 50%, we still have Rote Learning method (memorization) that students need to memorize the contents in the textbook in order to use that memory to answer the exam sheets.
On the other hand, some of us might see the news about education system in Singapore that they don’t use exam grade but measure student’s ability in other way such as by using soft skills. However, it just started and only few schools that use this method, this is gonna take time for Singapore to adopt this in the whole country in the future.
Personally, in another aspect, I understand about education system’s and teacher’s situation since many countries have similar challenges such as the salary, the image of being teacher comparing to other jobs, the amount of students per class (many countries has more than 40 students per room), etc. These reasons cause the student-centered based learning to be difficult to adapt in education system.
"When one teach, two learn" - Robert Heinlein
- Urbanization/opportunities
Another big challenge is the accessibility opportunities to quality education. In the Capital or some main cities in each country has infrastructure, facilities, public services available and of course the high-quality schools. Furthermore, in ASEAN, graduated high school students will apply to entrance the universities where often located in the capital of country. So, people who live in rural area are hardly grab great learning opportunities.
- Student-centered based learning
Student-centered learning is based on the constructivist theories of education championed by Swiss clinical psychologist Jean Piaget. Piaget observed that children cognitively construct knowledge and meaning through new experiences and interactions, as opposed to rote memorization.
Student-centered based learning have many types such as personalizing based learning, inquiry based learning, project based learning(PBL), etc.
"I have never teach my pupils, I only provide condition in which they can learn" -Albert Einstein
- Learning from playing
This session was lead by the Science Bridge Academy. They adapt the teaching method throughout playing and practical experiences such as creating toys, organizing science fair, doing experiment, inventing prototypes, etc.
“Intelligence is creativity having fun" - Albert Einstein
Educational site visits
- Me Reka Makerspace
Me.reka is an innovative and alternative education space. By removing all barriers to designing and making, they teach students and professionals to excel in the industries and businesses that will shape the future of Malaysia.
- Petronas Museum
Petrosains, The Discovery Centre is just one essential part of PETRONAS Malaysia’s aim to cultivate an eco-system that has future-forward education and life-long learning as a foundation
- Petronas Twins Tower Bridge
Pitching
Before pitching, my teammates and me didn't expect any prize because of many reasons. During the pitching, every team have to pitch project-based learning by open wix website for 5 minutes and question & answer (Q&A) 2-3 minutes.
During the announcement, the organizer inform us that it's gonna be 3 prizes.
- Third prize USD500 goes to Anti-Bullying Team.
- Second prize USD1,000 goes to Social Media — Fake news Team.
- And first prize USD1,500 goes to Finance Literacy (or Personal Finance Management) Team which is my team.
“Expect nothing, appreciate everything"
Post-program
After finishing program, I have persuaded some Lao participants to share our knowledge and experiences at American Center Thatdam (ACT) by doing 40 minutes Facebook Live and another 40 minutes presentation about what we have learned and tips on applying YSEALI scholarship.
FB live record(in Lao language) link: https://www.facebook.com/usembassyvte/videos/551553225587656/
“If we would were to empower and help these educators in the region, they would be able to help the future generation to be a better place as well” — Nurul Amalina Che Affrin, YSEALI coordinator
Educate yourself
Last but not least, I would like to say that everyone can be an educator. Try to improve and educate yourself to be better. In addition, I can say that I am not a perfect educator, but I try to empower others in many ways like my social projects and this blog is also one of small piece that I can share to you. You guys also can empower others too by starting doing a small impact.
Suggestion for applying YSEALI
I have applied YSEALI for 11 times (Academic for 7 times and Regional Workshop for 4 times). I was officially selected to become YSEALI member in this program. What I have observed is that we should highlight on Leadership and Initiate as the full name of YSEALI - Young Southeast Asia Leaders Initiative.
-Leadership: Yeah! One of the essay question is "tell me about your leadership". The judge committee, they want to see our leadership as a young change maker who can create innovative solution address to social issues.
"Never too young to lead" - one of YSEALI slogans
-Initiate: YSEALI loves young leaders who create projects or volunteer that has a positive impact society to be better. In YSEALI, I also have seen many social projects happen in the region. Therefore, you should show your positive impact that you do and tell how does it important to you and this world.
“This could be you” - US Embassy Vientiane’s campaign
Thank you for reading till the end🙏. If are there anything wrong, please do apologize for errors or my mistakes😊
