UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MARA

EDU555: CURRICULUM and INSTRUCTION

TITLE: Driving the Agenda of Learning by Design in
Science Literacy in Malaysia

NAME

NO. ID

NUR AMALINA BINTI KARIM

:

2014653516

COURSE

ED 260 4A

LECTURERS NAME

: MR. MOHAMAD HISYAM BIN ISMAIL

The article that I chose for this assignment is about the identification of pedagogical skills
in science literacy in secondary schools. This article talked about the project that has been
conducted to introduce pedagogical skills to teacher and students. This project was carried out by
Ambigapathy Pandian and Shanthi Balraj on 2010. Both of them were from Universiti Sains
Malaysia at Penang in Malaysia. The objectives of this project are to encourage the development
of pedagogical skills among teacher and students, to enhance teaching and learning process in
school and also to create a good relationship between teacher and students. Besides, this project
also focused on the materials that provided in Malaysia science curriculum. In this project, the
researchers introduced a model that known as Learning by Design. This model helps teacher
and students to design the new methods of teaching and learning of science subjects in the
school. This project was carried out in five schools from different states. Based on this article, it
also shown the issues that happened among teachers during teaching process. One of the issues is
teachers still used examination oriented curriculum to test their students academic.. So, by
introducing this project, it helps to encourage teacher and students to improve their teaching and
learning process by using pedagogy skills. These skills will be discussed in the next session.
Finally, this project gives positive feedback to teacher, students and school too.
Next, I will discuss about the major points that have been described in this article. Before
that, understanding of water pollution has been used as a sample of learning element during
conducting this project. From this sample, researchers can determine the pedagogical skills that
are suitable for teachers to use during their teaching process. Now, the first major point that has
been discussed in this article is teacher need to create a good lesson plan to achieve teaching and
learning objectives. Based on this article, the researchers stated that teacher must create a
complete document that consist of learning objective, learning activities that related on the

knowledge that students learnt and the list of assessments of knowledge objective. From this
document, it helps teacher and students to connect the teaching and learning process in
imaginative and useful ways. I agreed in this point because as a teachers, they need to create a
good lesson plan to help them become more prepare before start to teach and also helps them to
be more confident during teaching session. According to Sharif, Cloke & Ambotang (2006), they
stated that lesson plan help teachers to indicate their relationship between teach intention, their
knowledge and classroom practices. Besides, teachers need to discover their student learning
process before create a good lesson plan (Guzey & Roehring, 2009).
Second point is teachers can design effective classroom in learning activities. This
articles shown that by conducting experiments, collecting data, watching videos, testing water
samples, going field trip and identifying substances in water, it gives opportunity for teacher and
students to combine their knowledge together in critical and creative ways. Other than that, it
also helps students to be more understands about the topic that has been discussed. Same as a
first point, I agreed on it. This is because it helps teacher be able to design their teaching styles in
critical and creative ways. Besides deliver the knowledge to students by talking in front the class,
teacher also can do some activities such as group discussion or conducting some exercises to
interact with students. Based on Guzey & Roehring (2009), they said that the best scientific
method that helps teacher to teach students to think critically is using inquired-based method.
Other than that, Sharif, Cloke & Ambotang (2006) stated that group discussion give a lot of
benefits to teacher and students especially in creative and critical thinking.
Last point of pedagogical skill that stated in this article is teachers can use the new media
technologies in their teaching process. This article stated that teacher can use video, images,
creative slides and sources of internet during deliver the knowledge to students. Besides, teacher

also can allow students to use media technologiies during doing their assignments. For example,
students are allow to create creative slides for drew their ideas about their understanding of water
pollution. This approach actually helps to encourage students to generate their knowledge in
creative and intelligent ways which suited with their teaching styles. I agreed in this point too
because technologies give a lot of benefits to teacher and students. It helps them to feel more
interesting during teaching and learning process in the class. In other words, by using technopedagogical give ability for teacher and students to make teaching and learning process become
easier (Gloria & Benjamin, 2014).
Finally, the comment that I can give for this article is this article is a good article because
it give a several skills of pedagogy for teachers that can be used in their teaching process. I like
this article too because it also provided the learning outcomes of the project. One of the learning
outcomes is the developing of critical inquiry and thinking skills among teacher and students.
From here, we know that the project was succeeded. However, this article must be improved for
future research. One of improvements is this article need to add more skills of pedagogical and
multimode skills. Besides, the researchers also need to show the results of the project by forming
the data. Other than that, this article needs to explain furthermore about the benefits of the
project. As a conclusion, it is important for science teachers to obtain the pedagogy skills in their
teaching style. This is because it helps them to educate their student in more systematic and
organized.

Reference
Bulba, D. (n.d.). What is Inquiry-Based Science. Retrieved April 18, 2016, from
https://ssec.si.edu/stemvisions-blog/what-inquiry-based-science
Gloria, R & Benjamin, A, E, W. (2014). Techno-Pedagogical Skills in Teacher Education.
The International Journal of Scientific Research 3(12), 91-92. Retrieved April 28, 2016,
from
http://www.worldwidejournals.com/ijsr/file.php?
val=December_2014_1417530624__29.pdf
Guzey, S, S, & Roehering, G, H. (2009). Teaching Science with technology: Case studies of
science teachers development of technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge. The
Journal of Contemporary Issue in Technology and Teacher Education 9(1), 25-45.
Retrieved from http://www.citejournal.org/articles/v9i1science1.pdf
Pandia, A & Balraj, S. (2010). Driving the Agenda of Learning by Design in Science Literacy in
Malaysia. The Journal of E-Learning and Digital Media 7(3), 301-315. Retrieved from
http://newlearningonline.com/_uploads/11_Pandian_ELEA_7_3_web.pdf
Sharif, S & Ambotang, A, S (2006). A Qualitative Study of Pedagogical Issues arising from The
Introduction of the Malaysian-Smart School Initiative. The Journal of Pedidik dan
Pendidikan 21, 129-147. Retrieved April 14, 2016 from
http://apjee.usm.my/APJEE_21_2006/9%20cloke%20(129-147).pdf