Reflection: Week 4

Assalamualaikum!!!

Holla!!! Pejam celik pejam celik dah minggu ke 4 dalam kelas web based development. So ada banyak benda baru yang telah saya pelajari sepanjang 3 minggu lepas. Termasuk la minggu ni, Dr Dayana bagi task untuk berbincang pasal approach model dalam kumpulan assignment. Actually banyak approach model yang boleh digunakan, namun Dr Dayana hanya menekankan pasal Inquiry Based Learning,Problem Based Learning dan Authentic Learning. Tujuan Dr untuk menekankan ketiga-tiga approach ini kerana approach ini selalu digunakan dalam bidang pendidikan. Nak tahu kenapa, nanti saya akan terangkan selanjutnya.... 

Inquiry Based Learning

"Inquiry" is defined as "a seeking for truth, information, or knowledge -- seeking information by questioning." Individuals carry on the process of inquiry from the time they are born until they die. This is true even though they might not reflect upon the process. Infants begin to make sense of the world by inquiring. From birth, babies observe faces that come near, they grasp objects, they put things in their mouths, and they turn toward voices. The process of inquiring begins with gathering information and data through applying the human senses -- seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling.

For example "In a science curriculum, this means that students are presented with a problem and the teacher guides them to solve it without making the solution explicit. This requires students to work together, to think critically, and to search for solutions based on the evidence rather than the predefined "correct" answer."

Unfortunately, our traditional educational system has worked in a way that discourages the natural process of inquiry. Students become less prone to ask questions as they move through the grade levels. In traditional schools, students learn not to ask too many questions, instead to listen and repeat the expected answers.

Some of the discouragement of our natural inquiry process may come from a lack of understanding about the deeper nature of inquiry-based learning. There is even a tendency to view it as "fluff" learning. Effective inquiry is more than just asking questions. A complex process is involved when individuals attempt to convert information and data into useful knowledge. Useful application of inquiry learning involves several factors: a context for questions, a framework for questions, a focus for questions, and different levels of questions. Well-designed inquiry learning produces knowledge formation that can be widely applied.

Problem Based Learning

Problem-based learning (PBL) is an approach that challenges students to learn through engagement in a real problem. It is a format that simultaneously develops both problem solving strategies and disciplinary knowledge bases and skills by placing students in the active role of problem-solvers confronted with an ill-structured situation that simulates the kind of problems they are likely to face as future managers in complex organizations.

Problem-based learning is student-centered. PBL makes a fundamental shift--from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning. The process is aimed at using the power of authentic problem solving to engage students and enhance their learning and motivation. 

Traditional education practices, starting from kindergarten through college, tend to produce students who are often disenchanted and bored with their education. They are faced with a vast amount of information to memorize, much of which seems irrelevant to the world as it exists outside of school. Students often forget much of what they learned, and that which they remember cannot often be applied to the problems and tasks they later face in the business world. Traditional classrooms also do not prepare students to work with others in collaborative team situations.

Research in educational psychology has found that traditional educational approaches (e.g., lectures) do not lead to a high rate of knowledge retention. Despite intense efforts on the part of both students and teachers, most material learned through lectures is soon forgotten, and natural problem solving abilities may actually be impaired. In fact, studies have shown that in 90 days students forget 90% of everything they have been told (Smilovitz, 1996). Motivation in such traditional classroom environments is also usually low.

Perhaps one of the greatest advantages of PBL is that students genuinely enjoy the process of learning. PBL is a challenging program which makes the study of organization design and change intriguing for students because they are motivated to learn by a need to understand and solve real managerial problems. The relevance of information learned is readily apparent; students become aware of a need for knowledge as they work to resolve the problems.

Authentic Learning


Authentic learning is real life learning. It is a style of learning that encourages students to create a tangible, useful product to be shared with their world. Once an educator provides a motivational challenge, they nurture and provide the necessary criteria, planning, timelines, resources and support to accommodate student success. 


Authentic learning engages all the senses allowing students to create a meaningful, useful, shared outcome. They are real life tasks, or simulated tasks that provide the learner with opportunities to connect with the real world.

Our greatest short coming in education these past few years has been to ignore the brain research that is richly available to us that affirms that implementing multi-sensory activities, pursuing meaningful tasks, exploring a variety of skills with real world applications is optimal learning and that it needs to be practiced regularly.

A student sitting at a desk, taking notes and regurgitating curriculum content uses approximately 3% of their brain's capacity. In general, students learn to sit quietly, respond in turn, follow instructions and complete tasks for the evaluation of a control teacher. Brain-based research shows that using all senses maximizes the learning experience. Interacting, manipulating, exploring, collaborating, discussing openly and sharing for meaningful reasons while having ample time to nurture a greater depth of reasoning and creativity is optimal learning.

In an authentic learning model the emphasis is mainly on the quality of process and innovation. The emphasis isn't about understanding teacher speak and regurgitating content just for a unit test, it's about developing a set of culminating skills sets, within a realistic timeline, using self-motivated inquiry methods to create a useful product to be shared with a specific audience.