Neo Mai*, Heidi Tan Yeen-Ju, Lee Chin Poo, Nazirah Binti Mat Sin, Norayesha Nazli Binti Abdul Razak, Nik Idawani Binti Nik Ahmad Damian, Suriati Binti Kamis, Siti Hazwani Binti Abdul Rahman
Multimedia University, Cyberjaya, Malaysia
Highlights: Project ADEPT was undertaken to develop online platforms to improve productivity among staff in both teaching and learning, and in academic development. The ELITEOnline system is a learning portal that enables staff to acquire training online, learn at their own pace and time in a MOOC-style approach. The ACCOnline system supports curriculum change reviews within the faculties to enable OBE-driven syllabus reviews to be expedited. Both systems are underpinned by the MMU Teaching & Learning framework that aligns OBE with teaching and learning methods, and were effective in improving staff development at academic, and teaching and learning levels.
Keywords: Staff development, Curriculum Design, Training, MOOC, Teaching & Learning, OBE
Introduction
The Malaysian Education Blueprint (Higher Education) 2015-2025 has called for improved talents (Shift 2) and innovations ecosystems (Shift 7) that can develop holistic, balanced graduates (Shift 1). As such, digital Innovations and incorporating ICT into teaching and learning are becoming a dominant but challenging issue in the workplace where teachers are being tasked to reengineer their teaching skills to be more technologically-savvy to keep up with today’s student needs. This has led to workplace stress that can impede an employee’s work-life balance and mental health, especially for those struggling with this change. Project ADEPT was developed by the Office of Academic Development for Excellence in Programs and Teaching to address some of these issues of workplace stress of the staff.
This has resulted in the development of two online platforms, ELITEOnline and ACCOnline, specifically designed to alleviate the stress and challenges in professional development for staff.
Project ADEPT: Rationale
Recent changes such as the increasing use of information technology and diversity of teacher's role potentially increase the stress even further (Zahiruddin Othman & Vevehkanandar Sivasubramaniam, 2019). Furthermore, expectation to deliver quality teaching has become an issue among teachers and they are exposed to the risk of experiencing job stress (Abdullah & Ismail, 2018). Anastasiou & Papakonstantinou (2014) show that effective and systematic career training and development opportunities enhance teachers’ job satisfaction and reduce emotional stress.
A recent study by Foo (2018) showed that professional development and stress levels were related, and that professional development helped reduce work stress. However, simply going into workshops and trainings does not guarantee effective adoption, and can lead to increased stress, as staff may feel pressure to look savvy among other attendees, and have to remember the steps of the technology after the workshop ends. Learning and adapting to the new technology may require more time which one class cannot fulfil. With an online platform that is user-friendly and collaborative, these stressful issues can be reduced as staff can access these modules at their own time and pace, and revisit them as many times as needed to refresh their memory and skills. Similarly, with curriculum design and reviews, changes that are done manually and via emails, which can also causes work-place stress as staff feel overwhelmed to do these changes individually. With an online platform, redundant work can be eliminated and historical data on these reviews can be easily retrieved to make the next review process easier.
Therefore, because workplace skills development of today requires a more user-friendly approach, ADEPT sought to address this through two innovative online platforms for professional development that are 1) user-friendly, 2) scaffolding and collaborative, and 3) learner-centred.
Project ADEPT: ELITEOnline and ACCOnline
The MMU Teaching & Learning Framework encourages lecturers to improve their competencies in 3 areas: Teaching instruction, Knowledge and Pedagogy, and Curriculum Design. In doing so, trainings and workshops have been designed on two-fold educational philosophy: 1) Inculcate technology and blended learning skillsets to staff to improve their teaching methods, and 2) Create a process that would enable curriculum reviews to be OBE-centric (Outcome-Based Education) and student-centred. These platforms were underpinned by Kolb’s Experiential Learning theory which enables reflective and heuristic thinking to be attained by the staff.
The ELITEOnline (Engaging Learners, Innovating Teaching Environment) is an online learning portal that serves as a resource for all of ADEPT’s digital teaching and learning content, in line with our T&L Framework. It provides supplementary support to the workshops that ADEPT conducts, whereby participants are able to gain fundamental
DeTAR Putra, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak
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The online learning portal was designed and developed similarly to platforms that hosts MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) but is used primarily as Small Private Online Courses (SPOCs). Each training is a short “course”
with multiple modules that participants can access and complete in their own time. Courses were developed by trainers and subject matter experts with the guidance of an instructional design expert. Each module within the course would contain articles, videos, activities, and quizzes that are designed to engage participants. A comment section is available after each module that participants can use to leave comments, feedback, or questions. Badges are also awarded to participants at certain milestones and custom badges can be awarded by trainers to selected participants. Completion of certain online courses will provide participants with teaching and learning training hours and a certificate of completion.
The ACCOnline (Academic Cluster Committee) is responsible for the review of curriculum design. The ACC review cycle involves several levels, namely Faculty Manager, Secretariat of ACC, ACC member, OBE Champion and Deputy / Deputy Director of ADEPT. In the previous practice, all processes were done via emails and normally took a few weeks to months to complete a review cycle. In order to efficiently manage the ACC review process, the ACCOnline system was developed to automate these processes. ACCOnline manages not only the review process, but also serves as a discussion platform for the reviewers, creating a more collaborative approach to curriculum design and review. In addition, ACCOnline also features a comprehensive reporting tool for all users. This enables all relevant parties to be actively involved in the process, thus enabling a more efficient constructive alignment of OBE into the syllabus, resulting in better learning outcomes for students. With ACCOnline, the review cycle is shortened to days and the consolidated reports are just one click away.
Figure 1 presents the two platforms under Project ADEPT (ELITEOnline and ACCOnline)
Impact:
The advantages of both systems are that 1) They are in line with the Malaysian Education Blueprint’s (Higher Education) Shifts 2 and 7; 2) The have increased the productivity levels of curriculum design and teaching methods by allowing 24/7 access and collaboration; 3) They were designed to be user-friendly with the pedagogically sound underpinnings for effective learning that reduced workplace stress among staff; 4) They are scalable and sustainable for continuous quality improvement, and 5) They were successful in creating a community of learners within the online platforms.
The ACCOnline system has been very successful in reducing the stress of curriculum design and reviews. The system has reduced the turnaround process of 3 months to 11 days, with the collaborative input from domain-specific ACC evaluators and OBE Champions, allowing over 800 syllabus reviews to be conducted in a year. Feedback from users were positive and encouraging. Feedback on ELITEOnline has also been very positive as users were able to undergo their training online at their own pace with the facilitation from instructors and peers. Project ADEPT has acquired 2 copyrights for both systems, and will continue to be improved upon. Both systems have high potential marketability and can be scaled to other content domains, making them sustainable online platforms.
Acknowledgement
We would like to thank the Vice President of Academic & Internationalisation Office (VPAIO), IT Services Department (ITSD), MMU Teaching & Learning Agents (TALENTs), ACC members and OBE Champions, and MMU staff, for their feedback and support for this project.
References
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Abdullah, A. S., & Ismail, S. N. (2018). A Structural Equation Model Describes Factors Contributing Teachers’ Job Stress in Primary Schools.
International Journal of Instruction, 12(1), 1251–1262. http://doi.org/10.29333/iji.2019.12180a
Anastasiou, S., & Papakonstantinou, G. (2014). Factors affecting job satisfaction, stress and work performance of secondary education teachers in Epirus, NW Greece. International Journal Management in Education, 8(1), 37–53.
Foo, K. Y. (2018). Two in five Malaysians fear losing jobs in rising digital economy — survey. The Edge Markets, pp. 23–26. Retrieved from https://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/two-five-malaysians-fear-losing-jobs-rising-digital-economy-—-survey
Zahiruddin Othman & Vevehkanandar Sivasubramaniam. (2019). Depression , Anxiety , and Stress among Secondary School Teachers in Klang, Malaysia. International Medical Journal (1994), 26(2), 71–74. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2586221
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