DeTAR Putra, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak
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DeTAR Putra, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak
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The innovation brought forward by this program is the learning of STEM subjects that is reduced and simplified to meet the understanding level of very young children. The program leverages on the concept of utilizing learning spaces in meaningful ways, both hands-on and online. The program that we have conducted have reached multiple years of children, teachers and parents, either through voluntary participation to our programmes in campus or through our outreach programmes at their schools. In overall, various levels of feedback has been received for our review and improvement.
The program essentially goes by the 3H principles (Hands on, Heads On, Hearts On) to ensure effective delivery of the knowledge and thinking skills. The latest effort by the Mummie’s Lab team is to produce online learning videos on YouTube channel to reach out to the parents and children at home. This utilized the blended learning and
‘flipped-classroom’ principles that has been reported to enhance understanding and retention of knowledge.
Importance to education
The programme utilizes the approach and information that could expose and to bridge the gap of knowledge, particularly, the gap between urban and rural school children. This may be of benefit to the educational community members as well in terms of teaching methods and approaches. In addition, the programme also encourages the students to learn soft skills by focusing on communication and interaction. At the end of the programme, students should be able to understand the basic of knowledge learned and most importantly, they have enjoyed learning and should be able to practice similar method at home with their parents. These further emphasize that the aim of Let’s Go to Mummie’s Lab is very much in line with the STEM education movement in Malaysia.
Advantages of Let’s Go to Mummie’s Lab Towards Education and Community.
The main motivation of our innovation is to deliver the STEM knowledge to as many children as possible in the most accessible and innovatively fun and engaging way. Thus the design of modules is centered around household items and DIY-based materials so that any child, parent and family can try them out at home and in school without the direct and physical presence of the Mummie’s Lab team.
The Mummie’s Lab team visit to the schools and their presence in the program, such as the school holiday programmes, are seen as a way to reinforce the learning and to ‘put a face and real life experience’ to the knowledge. This will make the learning event more realistic, memorable and inspiring.
Commercial value in terms of marketability or profitability of Mummie’s Lab.
The designed modules would be able to be commercialized and has the potential to be marketed to wider community of students, teachers as well as parents. Since it is centered around the usage of household items and DIY materials, it has profitability potential as it is simple and affordable as compared to other similar modules in the market.
Apart from that, the Let’s Go to Mummie’s Lab STEM module incorporate multidisciplinary themes such as environment, engineering, science, mathematics that would enable users to be part of experiential learning scenario providing opportunities for productive and engaging learning tasks. Such modules are still lacking in the market particularly those that cater for young children in kindergarten and primary schools. Most parents and teachers do not have access to STEM resources and still lacking in knowledge to implement STEM learning hence, Let’s Go to Mummie’s Lab STEM modules would be able to give an introduction and the know-how of STEM. This indication would be able to contribute to potential market and profitability of these modules. The current acceptance and great response that Let’s Go to Mummie’s Lab has received from schools, NGOs, University of Malaya and the ministry (MESTECC) contributed to the marketing and branding of these modules. The Mummie’s Lab team has also received Silver Award at the Malaysia Technology Expo (MTE) in February 2019, signifying the impact of the program.
Table 1: List of Participants and Generated Income of Let’s Go to Mummie’s Lab from 2015-2019
Schools No. of Students No. of
Mentors
No. of Parents
No. of
Teachers/Le cturers
Generated Income
SK Convent Kajang (2016) 30 8 5 5 250
SK Convent Bukit Nanas (2) 60 8 4 8 250
SK Satu Sultan Alam Shah 1 38 6 2 - 100
SK Taman Medan 44 9 2 - 100
SK La Salle 60 12 2 - 100
SK Melayu Raya 30 10 5 7 250
SK Bandar Sri Damansara 3 30 8 2 5 250
SK Bangsar 30 8 - - 250
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SK Bukit Tinggi 30 8 4 - 250
Cresendo-HELP International School 60 10 5 5 500
Baitul Hasanah Klang (SK Sementa, Klang) SK Convent Kajang (2019)
Kingsley International School
30 80 129
8 16 15
- 10 -
- 2 7
-* 100 1000
* This is charity-based program
To date, our program has earned interest from private entities such as parents and private and international school members. Most of the paid program participants are among university staffs i.e. the parents, who sends their children during school holiday programs, and summer camps through agencies related to private schools.
Acknowledgement
We are grateful for the funding by Ministry of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change (MESTECC), IIRG033A-2019 (The Sciences of Play: Role of Parents Scaffoldings in Young STEM Learners) and IIRG033C- 2019 (Development of AR-Enabled Fun-Learning Education Module for Young Learners).
References
Zamzami Zainuddin & Siti Hajar Halili (2016). Flipped Classroom Research and Trends from Different Fields of Study. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning (IRRODL), 17 (3), 313-340.
Siti Hajar Halili, Rafiza Abdul Razak & Zamzami Zainuddin. (2015). Enhancing Collaborative Learning in Flipped Classroom. Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences. 9(7), 147-149
Sufean Hussin (2016) Transformasi Pendidikan: Cab
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