I joined the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia on 1 July 2018 with excitement and open mind. It is still the long vacation before the start of the academic year in September. This is not the first time that I teach in a Bachelor level curriculum, but a first for me teaching in Malaysia. I have relatives in this country and have visited it many times, but it is different to working in a new country, let alone shaping minds of the youth of the nation. I was a tutor before for the Geographic Information Systems subject at the University of Melbourne in 2001, and the Ecological Planning subject for the Master of Science (Environmental Management) course at the National University of Singapore in 2012 and 2013. I also taught and manage several subjects for the Diploma in Landscape Architecture at the Singapore Polytechnic between 2007 and 2009.

Soon after joining, the Director of the Bachelor of Landscape Architecture (BLA) programme, Dr Sapura, asked me if I would like to join the Curriculum Review Task Force. I gladly said yes since this will be a great opportunity to manage the curriculum of a Bachelor degree course in landscape architecture. The University opens the door for the various programmes to review their curriculum every five years. I joined the University just in time for such a review. I felt honoured to be asked so fast, because this would mean that I will have a hand in reviewing and re-crafting the whole curriculum for the BLA programme. True enough, I coordinated and edited the Course Information for all the subjects of this programme for the past week, once the lecturers had given me the draft. I felt needed and trusted to being given such a big task.

The University has directed the faculties to increase the credits of general subjects taken by the students, which means that the profession related subjects needs to be consolidated or merged such that the total credits remain about the same. This took several discussions with all the lecturers for the BLA programme. I learnt a lot from this process in terms of what to keep and what to merge. It is tricky because the programme is accredited with the Institute of Landscape Architecture Malaysia (ILAM), hence core subjects need to be maintained to ensure that the programme is relevant to the industry and profession, yet broad enough to ensure that the students get a holistic education through general subjects.

I attended the meeting and presentation to the University Curriculum Committee today to support my colleague who presented the curriculum review. The presentation went well and we have to prepare the presentation to the Senate next.

Back to school. Did walkbout at campus to teach more trees and palms. Lecture on Pests and diseases. I expanded the lecture slides by explaining 1 pest and disease per slide rather than lump all in one. Also expanded on physical, chemical, biological and integrated pest management. At nursery, students hav eto check plants for pests and diseases. Physical approach and also applied slug pellets. Did fertilising with liquid fertiliser.

My students did well. No failures. One casualty – pulled out because lack of motivation. Four passed with merit and top student got Lee Kuan Yew Award + 5 other awards. Another one received the NParks award too.

Decided to use students powerpoint slides and incorporate into lecture – JIGSAW

I was very pleased today that some of the weaker students have shown a lot of improvement and is making a lot of effort to produce great graphics, presentation and documentation drawings. Well done!

I went to see my instructor today as a post mortem for the videotaping session. I was honoured and happy when he said that I was one of the best lecturers they had and that I was also one of the friendliest ones. Thank you! His comment was that I should think of how to Up the ante, ie. making it better.

I and my co-lecturer organised a hands-on session at the nursery. The students were required to prepare a planting bed around an existing timber decking. This includes maintenance activities like pruning, bed preparation and setting out plants. The students then planted he plants in the bed and fertilise and water them. It was a good session, killing two birds with one stone. We also fulfilled the goal of enhancing the spatial quality of the timber decking as part of campus rejuvenation.

In order to create an engaging lesson and meaningful class exercise for this dry topic, I brought the students out for a walk around campus and taught them the different types of drainage and how water flows through the system the moment rain touches the ground. The exercise involves them drawing arrows of water flow and to draw symbols of the different types of drains. The students are more engaged than if they were to just do the exercise in class.

I was videotaped whilst giving a lecture today. There were few students as many have gone for a conference thus I was not nervous. I tried to create some fun by implementing the Think Pair Share with timer and Kagan’s random name caller software because the topic was dry: Drainage and the Public Stormwater System. I had very good comments from my instructor. It was funny seeing the video of myself teaching though.

http://164.78.70.31/Distribution/TP%20for%20Distribution/TP%20-%20Abdul%20Rahim%2020080724/Abdul%20Rahim%2020080724.wmv