Hazita Azman

Creating and maintaining online communities of practice in Malaysian Smart Schools: challenging realities

Wenger describes an educational community of practice (CoP) as a group of professionals who share a passionate concern for practice‐based issues and who voluntarily choose to deepen their knowledge, understanding and skills through collaborative and critical dialogue. Peer collaboration of this kind, which involves social interaction, reflection and a critical engagement with practice issues, has been widely suggested to be effective for teacher learning and professional development. The online continuing professional development for teachers (e‐CPDelT) Vision 2020 model outlined here aims to bring about innovation in practice through an online or virtual CoP (VCoP). Twenty Malaysian teachers in five Smart Schools were invited to take part in a Higher Education (HE) project, funded by one of the main universities in Malaysia. By participating collaboratively in this CoP, it was anticipated that the teachers would form an active online CoP that would lead in turn to innovation in teaching and learning practices in the schools. An action research approach was used in tracing the developmental process of the three subject‐based CoPs (namely, Mathematics, Science and English) and identifying challenges faced by the higher education institution (HEI) project team in fostering the active participation and commitment of the teachers. Preliminary data generated from mentor forum discussion, focus groups and blogs suggested that low levels of participation in VCoP activities were a result of low levels of trust and social affiliation, performance anxiety, time pressure and failure to see the relevance of online interaction as directly related to their individual needs as practitioners. Approaches to remediating these challenges and promoting more authentic teacher engagement are outlined.

Teacher Learning Via Communities of Practice: A Malaysian Case Study

Abstract This article features the extent of learning traced during the development of online communities of practice (CoPs) among a group of Smart School teachers in a partnership model designed to help them develop professionally through the use of online tools. In the e-CPDelT project which involved 20 teachers of English, Mathematics and Science from five Smart Schools, teachers collaborated with other teachers by sharing classroom issues and experiences using online tools. A central conviction underlying the design of the project is that teacher collaboration in online CoPs can help teachers grow professionally. This article attempts to probe whether the CoP approach facilitates teacher learning in the English cohort. The Community of Inquiry (CoI) model propounded by Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2000) was used to understand the dynamics of online teacher learning. Although social, cognitive and teaching presences are the prerequisites for a successful and meaningful educational experience, for the purpose of this preliminary study, only cognitive presence is examined since it is related to knowledge-building through inquiry and refl ection. The findings based on participant blog entries revealed that teacher learning was evident in the blog interactions to a small extent due to varied participation patterns and group dynamics. The article concludes with several recommended measures to enhance teacher learning.

Social transformation for the 21 st century: Impact of e-Community centers on e-literacy in rural Malaysia

Transformation literacies required in the new economy characterized by changes in social, political, economic and civic life that have come in the wake of globalisation in the 21st century, demand Malaysians to possess new literacies to help them cope with the enormous changes. New literacies include e-literacy which consists of awareness of the IT and the information environment, confidence in using generic IT and information tools and applications, evaluation of information-handling operations and products, which translates into the ability to access, understand, analyse and critique information and the capacity to produce, communicate and use knowledge from various sources for varied tasks and activities. Recognizing that IT and access to knowledge has a potent force for transforming social, economic and political life of rural Malaysia, its government had introduced telecommunication centres or e-community centres in rural communities throughout the country since 1997. This paper explores the effort at measuring impact of these telecentres on the development of e-literacy in terms of IT awareness and readiness as well as e-literacy practices among rural youth in particular. Malaysia has about 4.4 million youth and 60% of them are located in the rural areas. This fact highlights the important role of rural youth in the social transformation of rural Malaysia for the 21st century.

Implementation and Challenges of English Language Education Reform in Malaysian Primary Schools

This article elucidates the implementation of English as a second language (ESL) learning and teaching programmes at the primary school level, spanning three decades of English language education (ELE) in Malaysia, its reform initiatives as well as the arising realities. The realities highlighted underscore the paradoxical challenges experienced with each ELE reform that are introduced, arising from the multilingual and plural socio-political circumstances of the country. In particular, among recent reforms that are examined, is the consequence that the new Primary School Standards-Based Curriculum for English language education (SBELC), which was introduced in 2011, has on the literacy performance of year three pupils when they sit for the LINUS LBI (literacy and Numeracy Screening for English Literacy) test, and the extent to which the English teachers and these young learners are ready to embrace the new curriculum. Concurrently, a review of the Malaysia Education Blueprint (2013-2025) as well as the Malaysia English Language Roadmap (2015-2025), is undertaken and their implications for yet another major language in education reform juxtaposed against existing problems related to teacher’s language proficiency, inadequate trained and skilled teachers, mismatch between curriculum and practices, limited language exposure, and most significantly, the foreboding view of the English language as a threat towards maintaining multilingual plurality, are duly extrapolated. By way of conclusion, this article draws upon selected innovative practices to illustrate the creative pathways that have emerged from these multifarious circumstances and have ironically shown potential in strengthening the young learners’ English language proficiency, notwithstanding identified impeding factors. Keywords: ESL Literacy; English Language Education Reform; English Language Proficiency; Language in Education Policy; Primary Education DOI: http://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2016-2203-05