ALYSSA IZADORA BINTI ABD AZIZ (MIC180003)
GIX1005: SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT
REFLECTIVE WRITING
ALYSSA IZADORA BINTI ABD AZIZ (MIC180003) 29/3/2020
This programme has been a wholesome experience. I personally have never joined a volunteering programme that involves immersion projects at high schools as I was never good at teaching other people. However, this was a great chance for me to try something out of my comfort zone.
Dr Puah, our course coordinator, met up with us last semester, much earlier before we registered for the course, and already explained to us what we are expected to do, the project we will carry out and all the workload that comes with it. At first, I was sceptical because for this project, we were supposed to collaborate with the first year students, which can be really trying as we have different schedules and views all together. Nonetheless, I can only try to be positive and optimistic about what the future has to offer. Dr Puah then asked us to divide ourselves into groups and distributed the topics we were supposed to work on as a group.
The project is about teaching Form 4 students at various high schools about the studies related to DNA, microbiology, and give a little introduction on what Biomedical Science is all about as well. It is found that high school students lack understanding on what DNA or microbiology really is as it is a study that cannot be seen by our naked eyes, but can be understood and only be seen under microscopes, staining and extraction procedures. This project aims to expose the students to the world of DNA and microbiology, helping pique their interest in such subjects without thinking it will be boring, dry or hard subjects to immerse into. Personally, I would’ve appreciate a teaching session as this back in high school if I was given a chance myself, so that I wouldn’t have had a wrong impression of these subject as I entered foundation and university later on, as these 2 were never my fondest subject.
As preparation for the project, my team and I have created PowerPoint slides for the short teaching session and also the quiz session. It is important for us to teach the students the concepts in a simple way as possible but informative enough that it won’t be oversimplified for their level of study. Our aim as a team was to make sure they do not have a hard time digesting the concepts we will teach them and be as interactive as possible during our session. I thought that our team did an amazing job together as we manage to complete our tasks earlier than the deadline and we were sharing opinions as a group on how to make the slides better and interesting.
Before we went SMK (P) Sri Aman, the high school assigned to us, we attended internal workshops hosted by Dr Puah and her assistants, where we were given hands on training on how to conduct the experiments we will carry out at the school with the students. We conducted the experiment and tried to fully understand the concepts and procedures behind it so that we can explain it better to the students during the actual day. It was exciting for me as well because some of the experiments were new to me. We had to attend two internal workshops prior to the actual day, and I would say it was a good initiative as I felt more confident and braver to teach the students than I was before.
On the actual day, we departed from UM at noon to SMK (P) Sri Aman. It was exciting as it was finally time to carry out everything that we have prepared for months before. Meeting the girls was such a breath of fresh air. I am reminded over how giddy, curious, friendly and loud girls’ high school students were, seeing that I was from a girls’ school as well. It was super fun to teach the girls about our topic of the day, asking them questions to keep them thinking and inquiring about things they are curious about. We carried out the experiments as what we have practiced and guided the girls to conduct themselves. Separating us into smaller groups to monitor the students was a great move as it gave a more personalized teaching to the students for them to understand the objectives of the experiment we conducted.
The energy that they gave was amazing that it kept us energize the whole day as well, which I think was one of the major measuring factor of success of the programme. We ended the day on a high note, and was touched by how they said they thoroughly enjoyed the programme and wanted us to come again for another programme as this. All of us facilitators had a short post-mortem meeting with together with our coordinator, Dr Puah, and our accompanying lecturer, Dr Chai, to discuss how we felt about the programme, what we loved and what we could improve for the next projects to come.
Personally, I felt that we were overwhelmed by the response given by the students and we somehow did not follow through with the plan that we had already agreed earlier on. So, the flow of the programme and how it was handled was pretty messy and out of control at some point, but we managed to pull through nonetheless. Some miscommunications happened as well between the facilitators with the lecturers, causing some mishaps to happen. Lastly, the quiz session also had some slip ups due to incorrect answers provided to the students and some errors on the slides, but we managed to overcome it in the end. Overall, it was a wholesome experience for me, as it was something I never thought of being involved in. Mistakes happen but that’s just a better reason to improve ourselves and learn for it. I will definitely consider volunteering for activities such as this in the future if given the chance.
(987 WORDS)
REFLECTIVE WRITING
ALYSSA IZADORA BINTI ABD AZIZ (MIC180003) 29/3/2020
This programme has been a wholesome experience. I personally have never joined a volunteering programme that involves immersion projects at high schools as I was never good at teaching other people. However, this was a great chance for me to try something out of my comfort zone.
Dr Puah, our course coordinator, met up with us last semester, much earlier before we registered for the course, and already explained to us what we are expected to do, the project we will carry out and all the workload that comes with it. At first, I was sceptical because for this project, we were supposed to collaborate with the first year students, which can be really trying as we have different schedules and views all together. Nonetheless, I can only try to be positive and optimistic about what the future has to offer. Dr Puah then asked us to divide ourselves into groups and distributed the topics we were supposed to work on as a group.
The project is about teaching Form 4 students at various high schools about the studies related to DNA, microbiology, and give a little introduction on what Biomedical Science is all about as well. It is found that high school students lack understanding on what DNA or microbiology really is as it is a study that cannot be seen by our naked eyes, but can be understood and only be seen under microscopes, staining and extraction procedures. This project aims to expose the students to the world of DNA and microbiology, helping pique their interest in such subjects without thinking it will be boring, dry or hard subjects to immerse into. Personally, I would’ve appreciate a teaching session as this back in high school if I was given a chance myself, so that I wouldn’t have had a wrong impression of these subject as I entered foundation and university later on, as these 2 were never my fondest subject.
As preparation for the project, my team and I have created PowerPoint slides for the short teaching session and also the quiz session. It is important for us to teach the students the concepts in a simple way as possible but informative enough that it won’t be oversimplified for their level of study. Our aim as a team was to make sure they do not have a hard time digesting the concepts we will teach them and be as interactive as possible during our session. I thought that our team did an amazing job together as we manage to complete our tasks earlier than the deadline and we were sharing opinions as a group on how to make the slides better and interesting.
Before we went SMK (P) Sri Aman, the high school assigned to us, we attended internal workshops hosted by Dr Puah and her assistants, where we were given hands on training on how to conduct the experiments we will carry out at the school with the students. We conducted the experiment and tried to fully understand the concepts and procedures behind it so that we can explain it better to the students during the actual day. It was exciting for me as well because some of the experiments were new to me. We had to attend two internal workshops prior to the actual day, and I would say it was a good initiative as I felt more confident and braver to teach the students than I was before.
On the actual day, we departed from UM at noon to SMK (P) Sri Aman. It was exciting as it was finally time to carry out everything that we have prepared for months before. Meeting the girls was such a breath of fresh air. I am reminded over how giddy, curious, friendly and loud girls’ high school students were, seeing that I was from a girls’ school as well. It was super fun to teach the girls about our topic of the day, asking them questions to keep them thinking and inquiring about things they are curious about. We carried out the experiments as what we have practiced and guided the girls to conduct themselves. Separating us into smaller groups to monitor the students was a great move as it gave a more personalized teaching to the students for them to understand the objectives of the experiment we conducted.
The energy that they gave was amazing that it kept us energize the whole day as well, which I think was one of the major measuring factor of success of the programme. We ended the day on a high note, and was touched by how they said they thoroughly enjoyed the programme and wanted us to come again for another programme as this. All of us facilitators had a short post-mortem meeting with together with our coordinator, Dr Puah, and our accompanying lecturer, Dr Chai, to discuss how we felt about the programme, what we loved and what we could improve for the next projects to come.
Personally, I felt that we were overwhelmed by the response given by the students and we somehow did not follow through with the plan that we had already agreed earlier on. So, the flow of the programme and how it was handled was pretty messy and out of control at some point, but we managed to pull through nonetheless. Some miscommunications happened as well between the facilitators with the lecturers, causing some mishaps to happen. Lastly, the quiz session also had some slip ups due to incorrect answers provided to the students and some errors on the slides, but we managed to overcome it in the end. Overall, it was a wholesome experience for me, as it was something I never thought of being involved in. Mistakes happen but that’s just a better reason to improve ourselves and learn for it. I will definitely consider volunteering for activities such as this in the future if given the chance.
(987 WORDS)
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