WHEN the Movement Control Order (MCO) first started, SMK Raja Permaisuri Bainun Ipoh English teacher Aishah Mohamed Hamdan took to digital platforms to ensure that teaching and learning continues.
Having used Telegram and Google Classroom, Aishah scoured YouTube for the best teaching videos to share with her students. Unfortunately, she could not find many videos that fit her criteria.
"The problem is that they are either too mundane, or too difficult or too easy. It is not easy to match them to my students' learning levels.
"Creating my own videos seems to be the best solution as I am able to deliver the content that I want to as I usually do in my classroom."
Realising the need to tailor the content to her students' needs, she began to work on her YouTube channel.
"It took me about three weeks to actually research and learn the essentials of filming and creating videos. I learned so many video editing skills and since then, I never looked back."
Aishah's channel has now grown into having nearly 400 subscribers and over 12,000 views.
"I never thought that I could venture into this and the views caught me by surprise. My pupils love everything about the video lessons and have requested other teachers in the same school to attempt the same thing.
"I started to get the hang of it, but editing videos is still challenging and takes so much time. I like to have a lot of visual effects and interesting content in my videos."
Aishah viewed her videos as a one-stop learning centre, which can benefit her students in immeasurable ways.
"It is a form of online lesson, where students can attempt all the tasks and activities as they watch the videos. In a way, my videos also serve as flipped classrooms, which I find very relevant to the current situation."
In the flipped classroom approach, students get to learn about a topic beforehand at their own pace. This will allow pupils to engage in higher levels of learning with their peers and teachers in the classroom.
Her videos centre around the textbook units for Form 2, Form 4 and Form 5 students.
"I will give my students a few days to watch the videos before scheduling a mass learning session where they can answer questions and engage in an interactive discussion.
"We use voice notes as well to communicate with each other, so the students can practice speaking in English.
"While the videos can stand on their own, I also prepare worksheets to share with other teachers and pupils who would like to print them out. This is for easy reference to complement the video lessons."
The video production can be a rigorous process, according to Aishah.
"It usually takes a day to prepare the powerpoint presentation that would be inserted into the video and gathering images. I will also be designing the tasks and answer schemes myself.
"Recording is the easiest part, which normally takes up to an hour with cuts in between and re-shooting where necessary. Then comes video editing, which takes between one to two days."
Content-wise, she strived to follow the Scheme of Work (SOW) provided by the Curriculum Development Division, Education Ministry.
"The textbook units follow a cycle of skills namely reading, language awareness, listening, speaking, and writing.
"Sometimes, I will combine some skills and choose to incorporate the more important topics in my videos. Meanwhile, the other topics will be assigned as tasks in telegram groups.
"When school resumes, I can just continue from the work I've done during the MCO. My students won't miss anything as they have the videos to fall back on."
To evaluate her students' comprehension and progress, Aishah said she would also ask her students to share clips of them speaking in English in a topic related to the video lesson.
"This could also be a form of Formative Assessment. Sometimes, I will include the clips in the final video on Youtube. For instance, I featured four pupils sharing about what online shopping means to them."
"Wanting my students to venture into the digital world more, I plan to get them to film clips of them speaking based on the themes of the lessons."
Planning to create a total of 20 videos before school resumes, Aishah has posted her contents on teachers' telegram groups namely Kinta Utara English Teachers' Group, Perak English Panel Group and CEFR Group in Malaysia. Her videos have also been shared by the Learning Sector, Perak State Education Department on Facebook.
