By Nastura Nasir
Pictures by Abd Raai Osman

BANGI, 26 September 2016 – Teaching in the classroom can no longer remain conventional if universities want to produce competitive, innovative and creative graduates, said Prof. Dato’ Dr. Mohamed Amin Embi at his Inaugural Lecture entitled Rethinking and Redesigning 21st Century Teaching and Learning here recently.

Prof. Amin, who is also The National University of Malaysia’s Centre of Technology in Teaching and Learning Director said that those born in the era of mobile computing, which he called Generation Z, are skilled in sharing information through social media and are interested in learning new things online.

Therefore, educators need to create teaching and learning contents which can stimulate their learning experience.

Prof. Amin also identified three crucial steps which must be adhere to in order to stimulate students’ learning experience.

Firstly, educators need to understand the new 21st century learners, known as the Gen-Z and how they learn.

Secondly, the conventional content-based teacher centered conception of teaching needs to be redefined if one wants to remain relevant for the growing demands for preparing the students to function in the future.

Finally, there is an urge for educators to redesign the 21st century learning to suit the Gen-Z.

He added, this can be done by exploring redesigning learning using three main learning dimensions namely, Learning 1.0, Learning 2.0 and  Learning 3.0.

Redesigning Learning1.0 involves going green and digital by implementing e-Learning, mobile learning and blended learning which means that educators today should master how to digitize anytime, anywhere and across any platform.

On the other hand, instead of reinventing the wheel creating new content, Redesigning Learning 2.0 involves re-using, re-mixing and re-purposing available Open Educational Resources (OER) as well as going global via Massive Open Online Course (MOOC).

Redesigning 3.0 entails embracing the social media and web 2.0 in the teaching and learning process as well as engaging students in meaningful active learning experience via flipping the classroom.

Last but not least, Prof. Amin who is an expert in e-Learning, Web 2.0, OER and MOOC added, for these prepositions to be realised, there is also a need to transform the professional development of the 21st century teacher training.