Lim Jing Yu (KIG180058)

Project Reflection

They say social engagement is boring! But that's certainly not for me. My name is Lim Jing Yu, a second year Mechanical Engineering Student from University of Malaya. Before I was enrolled in the Social Engagement course this year, my thought on social engagement activities will be something like be a volunteer in the National Zoo which will need to clean animal's cage and that's all. However, only after the first meeting with our lecturer for this course, Mr Norhafizan Ahmad. I realized that social engagement is far more than what I expected. The aim of the social engagement activities is to make positive influences in the society meanwhile exposing ourselves to a new skill. This is where the story will begin and I would like to share the whole experience from planning stage to execution stage and finally the post-event stage.

Preparation Stage

    During the planning stage, I was confused on what kind of social engagement activities should we conduct as not much information was given in the spectrum as reference. However, after a few explanation session from our lecturer, I was able to understand on what social engagement activities are all about and examples of the activities lead by him in the past. Furthermore, what a relieve for me after I know that I will not be alone to conduct the activities. Whew... Then, there were me and my teammates forming the team quite randomly considering all of us do not have much to do with each others in other situations.

    At the beginning, we were given some topics from our lecturer to pick. The topic was chosen and everything is going smoothly. But BOOM, suddenly the Covid-19 outbreak around the world and landed on Malaysia. That was when the nightmare came, Movement Control Order (MCO) was announced, and everything have to be transformed into online as physical gathering was not allowed. The social engagement activities were halted and out on hold until the coordinators decide how to conduct social engagement activities in an alternative way.

    The decision was made and 6 topics were proposed by our lecturer initially. However,  discussion by our group leader, Jason Ng and other group leader with the lecturer lead to the decision that the 6 topics were transformed into 3 topics due to some of the topics were not feasible as MCO were extended. To be honest, during the MCO period, most of us was not clear on what we should do for the topics. But all of us were able to understand after discussion in our WhatsApp group as everyone gave complete cooperation.

    Our group chosen the topic to conduct a online STEM Carnival for secondary school students, which aim to expose secondary school students to STEM related activities during the free time in MCO. Our group-STEM 4 and another group-STEM 5 were partnering for the competition namely 'Pertandingan Rekacipta Dan Inovasi Teknologi Hijau'. The tasks were distributed evenly by our leaders and all of us chose the task we interested the most with first come first serve basis. I chose to make the video or live teaching session on TinkerCad, which is the web based design and modeling software for participants for the competition. I chose this task because I always have a thought of doing tutorial and explanation video to educate people and this is the opportunity I am hoping all the time.

Execution Stage

    After all the preparation, we went to the execution stage of the project. Meanwhile my group members are executing their tasks from designing posters to finding the participants, I was not sleeping at home. To conduct my task of teaching TinkerCad to the students, me myself have to be a student to learn and understand the software before planning the recording. Even though I had prior experience in other design and modeling software like Solidwork and AutoCAD, I would say that learning this new software is still a exciting journey for me as the software was made with built in tutorials and the learning resources was easily found on the Internet. Moreover, a meeting with other groups in STEM made the learning process more excited and engaging.

    To ensure our participants can completely understand our tutorial on TinkerCad, discussion with our partner group were done and we agreed that we should prepare a pre-recorded tutorial and live teaching session on TinkerCad. Where I will be preparing the live teaching session and my partner, Danial will be in charging of the pre-recorded tutorial. We also discussed on what and how the tutorial should be prepared to ensure the participants will be able to understand the basic and advance feature of TinkerCad.

    I was clueless at a point on how to teach the TinkerCad to the participants and our background are different as our skill level on design and modeling is obviously different. What more is the teaching will be LIVE, I knew that I must prepare it in a way that it will be short and concise as well as easy and interesting to follow. Luckily, discussing with Jason and Danial clear my thoughts and allow me to prepare my live teaching as they were very understanding on my situation and willing to help me out when I have question.

    Here is how I prepare myself for the live. First and foremost, I put my at a complete beginner viewpoint to identify what are the basic features and functions that I must know to use the software efficiently. From there, I was able to list out the outline of the tutorial. Then, from my own experience of learning design and modeling, I deduced that the participants will not be able to absorb well if they just learn by only watching but not applying. 

    Hence, I decided to show an example on what they can do with the software. Problem arose with the problem is whether I should make the example in live or showing the prepared example, but showing the example without showing the process is just nonsense. I challenged myself to design the example in the live despite of the time period of 1 hour set for the live session. For the example, it must not be too simple and to be related on what participant should prepare for the competition.

    I felt quite anxious before the live teaching session, as the live was recommended to be conducted by using Malay, but I was not confident to teach in Malay. One of the achievements for me is I was be able to conduct a live teaching session using Malay. Although Jason and Danial have nothing to do with the live session, yet they agreed to join the live just in case there were some technical error occur during the live as my laptop and connection is another challenge for me to conduct the live. I was lucky as they were in the live as my laptop shut down just as I expected, Jason announce a 5 minutes break for the participants while I attempt the restart my laptop. I was panic even if they were there to control the situation.

    The live was a success for me and hopefully for the participants as well. It turn out to be the case as the feedback from participants feedback form was very positive as all of them were able to understand the functions in TinkerCad after the live and they liked about the live teaching session conducted.

Post Event

    Finally, come to the post event stage. A general feedback form was submitted by everyone participants to collects their feedback and thoughts about the competition. This is to analyze the outcome of our competition and enable us to learn from the mistake we made. Beside the general feedback form for the competition, a particular feedback form was also made for the live teaching session on TinkerCad.

Conclusion

    The most meaningful learning experience for me is to prepare the live session from scratch. From the anxious to speak Malay in live, to panic when technical error occur during live and ultimately relieve and happy to know that the participants absorbed well in live and like my teaching.

    The most important awareness for me is the difficulty in teaching virtually especially in live. During the process of preparing and delivering the live, I was aware that a clear outline on what to teach during live must be prepared well to ensure the teaching to be smooth. It is difficult also in terms of unable to know whether participants understands the lesson explained as I unable to know whether they're listening and following the lesson, and they will not answer the question asked most of the time.

    In conclusion, through the social engagement activities conducted. I will involved in social engagement activities in the future because I would like to make more positive impacts in the society and acquire more new skills for myself.

Lim Jing Yu

KIG180058