My Role as An Educator

My role as an educator in Informatics Engineering has been influenced by methods and philosophies of many lecturer in UIN Suska Riau, University of Riau and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, especially my supervisor Prof. Zakree Ahmad Nazri. In the past few years, my approach to student education has shifted from teacher-centered learning to student centered learning (SCL). Teacher-centered learning strategy focuses on teacher transmitting knowledge, from the expert to the novice. In contrast, student-centred learning is focusing on the students’ learning and “what students do to achieve this, rather than what the teacher does” Harden and Crosby (2000:335). SCL doesn’t mean there is no lecture at all. Lectures are not abandoned but reduced to have more SCL activities i.e the basics classroom dialectics: giving knowledge and facilitating understanding; theory and application, helping and challenging a wide diversity of students. My teaching style also has been guided by the idea of simplifying complex concepts and tries to embed them into a broad general framework.