By Chow Jing Yi
Lecturers of Han Chiang University College of Communication, Mr Arif Bahari Mohamed Musli and Mr Mohd Hanafi Jumrah, were presented with the Best Paper Award at the International Virtual Conference on Human Resource Development (ICHRD 2021). Their paper was entitled ‘Perspective of Applied Emerging Media in Educators Teaching Methods during Covid-19 Pandemic’.
The ICHRD 2021 was held on 5 and 6 April, a virtual conference organised by the School of Human Resource Development, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). The aim of the Conference was to provide opportunities for innovation and emergence of new ideas and research findings in the field of social sciences and human resource development.
As educators who have had to adjust to online teaching during the pandemic, Mr Arif and Mr Hanafi found the theme of the Conference, “Future of HRD : Adapting to the New Norm through Reskilling and Upskilling”, to be highly relevant and relatable to their professional lives.
“During the nation-wide lockdown, many educators worked from home and conducted online classes,” Mr Hanafi said.
Mr Arif and Mr Hanafi lamented that current studies have shed light on the impact of online learning on students, but the perspectives and experiences of lecturers with regard to online teaching has not received much attention. The paper they have co-written featured the voices of about twenty educators who were interviewed on their use of online teaching methods, their experiences of online teaching and learning, and experimentation with new media in online classes.
“We wanted to highlight the experiences of online learning from the perspective of the educator,” Mr Hanafi quipped.
Mr Arif stated his surprise at winning the ‘Best Paper Award’ together with Mr Hanafi.
“We did not expect anything, really. We just tried our best to carry out the research and produce the findings. As an educator, my responsibility is not just to deliver knowledge through processes of teaching and learning, but also conduct research and publish academic papers,”’ said Mr Arif.
Mr Arif explained that researching this topic did not come without its challenges, one of them being time management. Both researchers juggle heavy work responsibilities with family obligations and duties. Even so, Mr Arif and Mr Hanafi plan to co-write more papers in the near future, focusing on topics like education and the media.
“My goal is to earn a doctorate degree. Hence gaining experiences in writing academic papers and teaching is important to me. I thank Hanafi who is very experienced in academic writing, and for suggesting a collaboration to produce a paper. He has helped me a lot throughout the process,” Mr Arif said.
Mr Arif advised all educators and students not to give up during this trying time of the pandemic and associated fatigue of online learning. He recommended that being disciplined, and gaining positive support from friends and family members, are key to developing resilience. Education, according to him, is a lifelong journey.
“Don’t stop learning until the day you are no longer in this world,” he said.
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