Tina Abdullah

Academics transformational leadership: an investigation of heads of department leadership behaviours in Malaysian public universities

Presently, the role and the function of universities in Malaysia have been described as being in a state of change. Several strategies have been adopted to assist in the re-branding of higher institutions of learning. As a consequence, an effective model of leadership practices, particularly at the Malaysian academic departmental level, has to be generated in order to replace the traditional leadership practices in meeting the national aspirations. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between department heads’ leadership behaviour with academics’ organisational commitment. Survey responses from 430 academics from Malaysian public universities were received and analysed. The main finding of this study reveals that the adoption of encouraging leadership behaviour (Kouzes and Posner’s Transformational Leadership) shows a 55% direct positive relationship with academics’ organisational commitment, with demographical factors playing no role as a moderator with either variable. This reinforces the rationalisation for adopting the model within the Malaysian academic setting, where department heads should indeed lead the academic organisation.

Digital Storytelling to Unlock Reflective Practice in the Classroom

It is a common practice that teachers tell stories in the classroom when teaching literature. They are enthusiastic in their teaching profession but students nowadays are diverse in their learning styles and they need different approaches to be taught. Therefore, this study advocates teachers to reflect on their teaching practice to use technology specifically digital storytelling as a teaching method in the classroom. The single case study involved a pre-service teacher who underwent a micro-teaching session in teaching literature. The instruments used were peer observation checklist, the artefacts of digital storytelling, video recording, and reflective journal. The findings indicated that the participant was able to be more aware of her strengths and weaknesses in the crafts of storytelling, personalise her own learning and improve her teaching practice. The implications are for the educators to encourage pre-service teachers to use digital storytelling in the classroom, provide coaching and support to improve their crafts of storytelling in the teaching of children’s literature as well as use digital storytelling as a tool for reflective practice in teacher education.

A Reflective Practice of Using Digital Storytelling During Teaching Practicum

Teacher education programme often encourages the pre-service teachers (PSTs) to engage in reflective practice. It is essential during teaching practicum to apply the theories learnt in the real classroom. This study explores the use of reflective practice in teaching children’s literature using digital storytelling. The case study involved 20 participants from an institute of teacher education in Malaysia. The instruments used were students’ product of digital storytelling, reflective journals and interview. The findings show they enhanced understanding of pedagogical content knowledge, improved teaching practice and professional development when they use digital storytelling in the classroom. The implication is for teacher educators to coach and support the PSTs to become effective reflective practitioners.