It is amazing how humans make discoveries about themselves. On a much personal level, there were various things happened during the course of study for this subject and all of them had impacted on how I think and act in the future. My groupmates and I had spent around 4 months observing, planning, executing and finally completing this project. This project had given me valuable insights and experiences which are crucial for personal learning and development.
Project Planning
At first, Social Engagement sounded very foreign to us as some of us did not participate much in activities which have engagement with people outside the university. After listened to a few briefing sessions on this subject, most of us were very confused and did not have any ideas on the selection of the available projects. But one of the students decided to take action by emailing the lecturer to obtain clearer information on the projects and eventually with the clear information obtained, we did have a clear idea on how we were going to execute the project. With that being said, it shows that communication between lecturers and students are very important, where accurate and clear information can be obtained faster and therefore planning of project can be accomplished very soon. Hence, without hesitation our group immediately started our discussion on project selection.
At first, we decided to visit the Orphanage home. My teammates has started doing research and phone calling to grant permissions from few orphanage homes. But when we were about to finalize our project title, second wave of
COVID-19 hit our country. Government announced Movement Control Order (MCO) where
universities must shut down and every academic activity must be conducted
virtually. This was an unfortunate news for everyone as all the planning being
done for the projects had to be cancelled as no more physical activities were
allowed nationwide. Not just the students, lecturers were also being affected
by this pandemic as they had to figured out new projects that were suitable for
us to be conducted during the E-learning period. Hence, planning and
discussions were put on hold and all the students were told to wait for new
updates. What I’ve learnt from this matter is that we always have to be
prepared with sudden changes on our plans as the future is very unpredictable,
such as the announcement of nationwide MCO.
After a few weeks, new projects were being announced and then all of us were given projects where we had to conduct virtual activities with secondary school students in our country. There are 14 activities listed by lecturer to be undertaken with the community, the STEM Carnival and Digital Learning. This virtual activity is a completely new things to all of us. I believe that all groups members were afraid and they had no ideas what to do. In the era of information technology, I personally think that this virtual activity is a good way to change our traditional mindset to a more creative and innovative virtual thinking. This is a new challenge to us and we decided to accept it and conquer it. Our group chose the STEM Carnival and got the approval of Mr. Nurhafizan. There are 5 groups involved in this STEM Carnival. Our group chose to hold a STEM Design and Innovation competition with SMK Puchong Utama 1. We quickly got into our first meeting and discussions. Our group leader, Jason had assigned the tasks to 9 categories - work in google form, poster, video for online class, find jury, edit video of participants, make gifts and certificates, setting competition terms, competition criteria and finally person incharge to contact participants. Our group was very cooperative and always pro-active in asking if they don't understand a thing. I found that we were able to help each other in every circumstances. Along the planning period, I have learnt that teamwork is very important in planning activities. With teamwork such as the engagement of everyone during the discussions, ideas can be exchanged, mistakes and bug can be amplified, and therefore having productive discussions.
Project Execution
I was assigned to create the competition Google form for registration purpose. This is my first few times doing Google form. At first, I had no idea what to write in the Google form. Luckily, another member from the other group was assigned to cooperate with me in completing this Google form. I was happy at that time because I knew that there's another person who i can rely on and help me to solve my problems. We two often had some discussions on Whatsapp and helped each other in completing the Google form. This was the first time i felt the importance of cooperation in teamwork. Cooperation is important because it allowed us to work together to achieve a common goal or derive mutual benefits. Cooperation allows me to exchange valuable information with my teammates that helps both sides improve knowledge bases and work in a time and resource efficient manner. Initially, the recruitment of participants was very underwhelming, we got only 2 individuals who registered. I was worried that maybe our project was not attractive enough for students. Soon, we realised that to get more participants we had to open the competition to other school students. Among the schools participating in our competition were SASER, MRSM Parit, MRSM Tun Dr Ismail and etc. After a period, we only got 8 participants. We felt a little bit disappointed because we are expecting more people to participate in this competition. Anyhow, our project would still have to continue as planned.
After that, our competition had a
ThinkerCAD learning session. This session was taught by Alvin, one of the group
members. I was proud of his courage and willingness in helping our team to
become a teacher for those secondary students. I was very impressed of his work
and the way he teaches, very interactive and interesting. Not only that, he was
able to attract students by giving them some small gifts like Tealive voucher.
I was deeply touched and encouraged to work hard to make this project a
success.
As of the end of the current
phase, 8 participants have successfully sent us their videos and ideas through
the provided Google Drive link. I was proud of those secondary students because
they had work hard on their own project and completed their task within a short
period of time. They came out with a project that contains good quality and
university standard even though they were still a secondary student. I was
impressed by their courageous and knowledge they had. I believe that they will
become a successful person in the future.
On closing day, the ceremony
was very smooth and very good. In particular, it was our first online event,
with over 80 attendees. But not everything works smoothly. For example, when
the winner's video was presenting, the video had no voice. We felt embarrassed
that we did not do any testing before the day but the problem was solved by
giving our viewers a link to winner's video. So they can watch the video at
their own time. This was a lesson for all of us.
Project Closing
Geoffrey Chaucer once said, “All good things must come
to an end”. A lot of good memories were made during the planning and execution
of this project. I’ve made new friends. I’ve gained a lot of valuable experiences.
I’ve learnt a lot of lessons which assisted in my future personal growth. I’ve
also improved my communication and presentation skills. This project was a
fruitful experience for me, and I believe for all members in my group as well.
I will miss the students and hope that they will ace in their future exams.
Our
roles in this project were mainly conveying knowledge to secondary students by
conducting TinkerCad learning session and helping them to know better about
science, technology, engineering and math. I believed at the end of this
project, each of us had achieved the objective which is to convey knowledge and
benefited from this project in terms of personal growth and development. This
pandemic hit us out of nowhere and affected all of our initial plans, but we
managed to overcome it with all the help and support from the lecturer and
students. In the future, I hope the university can come out with backup plans
for Social Engagement so that project planning and executions can be done
smoothly.
Lastly,
I feel so lucky to have an amazing team. All of them were so responsible in
carrying out their jobs. I would like to thank all my group members because
they always lend me a hand whenever I need help from them. I would like to give
a big applause to Jason Ng, our group leader, because he led and guided us to
complete our tasks effectively. Also, thanks to our lecturer, Mr Norhafizan Bin
Ahmad which gave us a lot of advices and suggestions. I am so grateful to have
a great time with you all. Thank you!
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