WRITTEN ESSAY

As the entire world is being swept slowly by globalisation, some developing countries

transform their education system to cope with the demands of globalisation. In our prime

minister's speech, Dato' Seri Najib bin Razak that published in Malaysia Education Blueprint

(2013), he said that “In order to meet our high aspirations amidst an increasingly competitive

global environment, we cannot stand still. Our country requires a transformation of its entire

education system.” Thus, despite of government organisation, the most suitable person that

responsible for this pivotal role in education transformation is the teacher.

One of the roles that teacher should possess in order in order to uphold our

education system in Malaysia is teacher is a decision maker. Fuller (2014) defines that

decision making involves giving consideration to a matter, identifying the desired end result,

determining the options to get to the end result, and then selecting the most suitable option

to achieve the desired purpose. Apparently, teacher's decisions about the issues just

mentioned ultimately will influence student learning. Being decision maker needs boldness

as the teacher is taking risk to decide of what is best for the students. In today's curriculum,

as School Based Assessment (SBA) was implemented, teacher who is responsible and

accountable of the school assessment as school assessment is done by teachers as

formative assessment to gauge student’s mastery in order to improve teaching and learning.

Teacher has authority in assessing the students based on their progression throughout the

teaching and learning process. Thus, teacher has to be critical in making any decision so

that it will assist students' development. As suggested in Wave 1 (2013- 2015) in Malaysia

Blueprint (2013) on assessment," upgrading assessment framework to increase questions

that test higher-order thinking skills". To achieve the education aspiration, teacher needs to

always upgrade the assessment framework and emphasize on higher order thinking skills

evaluation to mould competence students. For example, teacher might provide the students

with more enrichment activities such as project-based learning. In the summary of Malaysia

Education Blueprint (2013) mentions that project and group- based work will provide

students with richer school experience, both academic and non academic, help them to

develop students’ higher-order thinking skills and ability to work both independently and

collaboratively in groups. With the qualities that teacher foster to the children, it will develop

their potential to serve the common good of this nation.

In conducting any activities or learning strategies, teacher should always consider

students' learning differences in term of abilities and learning styles. Elliot (2000)

emphasizes that to motivate students with weaker performance, teachers can structure the

tasks to suit their abilities and let them experience pride and confidence in having attained a

goal through reasonable efforts. Therefore, teacher should hold the role as critical and

constructive analyst to bring out the best in children to develop their full potential. Victorian

Curriculum and Assessment Authority (2008) states that careful planning and development

of the child’s experiences, with sensitive and appropriate intervention by the educator, will

help nurture students' eagerness to learn as well as enabling the child to learn effectively. If

the learning strategies do not appropriate with students' abilities, they might lose their

interest to learn. For instance, if the teacher still learn by using conventional 'chalk and talk'

strategy for kinaesthetic students, they may end up lose interest to learn. The teacher has

diminished their eagerness to learn as the students might think learning process is boring

and tedious task. Moreover, if the teacher decides to utilize ICT in class, teacher still has to

analyse some factors that might affect the students' learning such as suitability of the

materials and to what extent it benefits the students. As stated in Malaysia Education

Blueprint (2013), in 2011, researchers from the Higher Education Leadership Academy

observed some lessons in 41 schools across Malaysia and they found that the focus of

lessons were more on achieving surface-level content understanding for summative

assessment purposes, rather than on cultivating higher-order thinking skills. Prior to that, to

overcome the problem, teachers must be critical in analysing the appropriate learning

strategies to develop students' thinking skills as being emphasized in the Malaysia

Education Blueprint (2013). It states that in order to prepare the students to be globally

competitive, teachers must equip the children with a range of important cognitive skills,

including critical thinking, reasoning, creative thinking, and innovation.

Teacher as researcher is one of the role that teacher should acquire to help

curriculum and our students development. Teachers who are willing to do research to

improve their professional, problems that they faced in school or happened to their students

are very bold and critical to ensure our educational policy and implementation of curriculum

would be useful to develop the best elements from the students. In addition, their research

will be very meaningful as they encounter real problems, experience obstacles to

understanding, and ponder daily as to why things are as they are. What distinguishes

teacher research from teaching reflectively is the commitment to a disciplined method for

gathering and analyzing data, and the fact that the research can be publicly shared (Borko,

Liston, & Whitcomb 2007). The commitment that the teacher devours in conducting the

research will be significant and worth the time spent as they will become more reflective,

more critical and analytical in their teaching, and more open and committed to professional

development. Rust (2007) supports that being a researcher also helps teachers become

more deliberate in their decision making and actions in the classroom. Teachers who are

used to research will carefully identify and make revision before implementing any learning

strategies in class so that it will cater students learning styles and differences. For instance,

the teacher might try to see the effectiveness of using ICT in class to trigger students'

interest to learn. Thus, the teacher should do some research of how to utilize the ICT in

order to cater the students' needs. Besides that, role of teacher as a researcher in fulfilling

the aim to make transformation, develop a better understanding of their practice which helps

in developing the professional dispositions of lifelong learning, reflective and mindful

teaching, and self-transformation (Mills 2000; Stringer 2007). Example of initiative that

shows teacher is responsible for his/her own professional growth is by attending courses

such as online learning course and English proficiency training for self enrichment which

help them to be competent in order to serve the best for students' development. With close

reference to the Malaysia Education Blueprint (2013), National Education Technology

Standards (NETS) requires the teachers to engage in professional growth and leadership by

improving their professional practice and model lifelong learning. Thus, the courses might

help the teachers to improve their professional growth for their students' progression.

Davis (2009) ever claims that students and teachers demand relevant, current, local

examples to increase their understanding and reach the ultimate goal of curriculum change

in the classroom: curriculum improvement and increased student learning. Teachers hold

vital roles in order to gear the younger generation towards transformation of education.

According to Fullan (2012), the developmental role is helping students to become self

learners, with teachers not playing a passive role, but a very active agent change agent role.

By playing the active roles as decision maker, critical analyst and constructive researchers,

teachers will be able to work hand in hand with the government to improve our education

system to be competent globally and internationally.

REFERENCES

Borko, H., D. Liston, & J. Whitcomb. 2007. Genres of empirical research in teacher

education. Journal of Teacher Education 58 (1): 3–11.

Davis, H. C. (2009). Curriculum Improvement: The Teacher Perspective On Change In The

Classroom. Curriculum Instruction. Retrieved from

http://etd.lib.umt.edu/theses/available/etd-10022009-

140421/unrestricted/Davis_umt_0136D_10044.pdf

Elliott, S. N. (2000). Educational psychology: Effective teaching, effective learning.

Retrieved from http://www.engbooks.cz/fotky31847/fotov/_ps_742mixed.pdf

Fullan, M., (2012) The Teacher is the Change Agent. Retrieved on 18th August 2015, from

http://dailyedventures.com/index.php/2012/01/16/putting-education-reform-into-

practice-ontario-canada/

Fuller, A. (2014). The Teachers As A Decision Maker. Retrieved from https://www.pearsonhighered.com/assets/hip/us/hip_us_pearsonhighered/samplechapter/0132698161.pdf

Malaysia. Kementerian Pendidikan, issuing body. (2013). Malaysia education blueprint 2013-2025: Preschool to post-secondary education. Retrieved from Kementerian Pendidikan Malaysia website: http://www.moe.gov.my/cms/upload_files/articlefile/2013/articlefile_file_003108.pdf

Mills, G. 2000. Action research: A guide for the teacher researcher. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice-Hall.

Rust, F.O. 2007. Action research in early childhood contexts. In Early childhood qualitative

research, ed. J.A. Hatch, 95–108. New York: Routledge

Stringer, E.T. 2007. Action research. 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority. (2008). Analysis of Curriculum/Learning

Frameworks for the Early Years (Birth to Age 8). East Melbourne, Victoria: Author.