26 Jun 2015, Friday
By Lee Jo Ee
When we first arrived in SMK Katolik Petaling Jaya, we saw students hustle in and out. We were told that CHS (Catholic High School) Idol is happening in the school. CHS Idol is sort of audition like American Idol, a platform for the students to perform their talents. Everything in the event is well-organized and the students were given full authority to organize the event. Everyone is amused and the hall is surrounded by cheers and applause.
SMK Katolik PJ is a Cluster School which driven by a visionary principal, Mr Ong Boon Puah and goal-orientated teachers. As compared to other schools, SMK Katolik excels in both academic and co-curriculum. We would be wondering, what’s next? What does this school still have to achieve? As a supporter of CCI, Mr Ong set “PROACTIVE” as their school goal encourage active learning to produce a wholesome student.
Miss Shirena and Mr Eugene are innovate teachers in CCI program
According to Mr Eugene, an English teacher in Form 1 and 2, he includes active learning in his teaching. There are 3 presentations for this subject namely poem presentation, story presentation and drama presentation. These three presentations require every student participations and creativity. Students can present their topic in the way they like by adding music, actions, moral values or anything they perceived as appropriate. The outcome was amazingly good because everyone gets involved and the students even stay back or come early to practice. So far, two presentations were gone on and the students were anticipating for drama presentations. This shows the interest among students and their love towards learning when teacher includes interactive tools in their teachings. Teachings started to be fun when it comes to two way communications and not the solo show of the teachers themselves. Mr Eugene shared his ideas with other teachers and they started to implement this in their class.
He also mentioned another way to engage with students by emails. He encouraged students to consult him via Facebook message or emails so that students will get used of technology tools. In the instance given by another teacher, she assigned students to propose virtual “Tour Package” in their chosen states if Malaysia to other classes. Students have to gather information online and design marketing strategies to get the most number of “visitors”. According to Mr Ong, who observed the whole presentation said it was good and students were conducting it as if it’s a real business plan.
Values and habits are not merely promises or words but cognitively active learning behaviour. In this 21st century, students shouldn’t be questioning “what is this” but “how does it work this way?”. Likewise, the teachers are not supposed to come out with solutions for the students but to look into the problems and understand what the students want. The meeting ended gleefully with exchange of ideas among the educators and consent to develop a rounded student with CCI.
The posters of CCI were tied along the classes
