Last Tuesday, 3 March 2020, was our first face-to-face class after two weeks of learning from home and via Zoom. It was good to see their faces again. Nothing beats face-to-face interaction because we get that energy, connection and buzz that you don’t get during teleconferencing. The students did not like Zoom. I reassured them that this was only a trial just in case the COVID-19 situation gets worse and we all had to do eLearning and learning from home, like many institutions in Singapore just across the border already. I told them that I was reassured that they know how to use Zoom.

As for Problem-Based Learning, one lady told me it was hard. I explained to them that PBL has worked for Republic Polytechnic, Singapore, where students who did not do very well for the GCE ‘O’ Level International Exams (akin to the Malaysian SPM exam) attained high GPAs via the RP pedagogical system. I know that it takes a bit more work in the part of both the students and educator but it may pay off. I explained that in the past, and I have taught many undergraduate LA course subjects at UTM, of which three classes involved examinations, my students did badly for the examinations component. This brought their grades down to B- and Cs. There must be a cognitive issue somewhere even though I have inserted cooperative learning activities, quizzes via Kahoot, and reflective learning in between breaks in a lecture. Perhaps it is language, the difficulty of the topic or the lecture slides that I provide. I am testing this in an action research.

I must say they love Kahoot although I realize that in order for Kahoot to be useful, we as educators need to explain the right answer for every question as they come.

Therefore, I hope my students put some trust in me, follow where I am leading them, and hopefully the examination results in the coming months will speak for itself.