Problem Based Learning (PBL)

The education process is one that is always adapting to changes with other social- technological developments. Science and technology are getting into the mainstreams of most vocations, compared to arts and literature in the last two decades. Today; the focus is on how people learn; rather than how you teach people. Students are the central of the education system rather than teachers or their schools. As such a lot of researches has gone into the sciences and arts of learning.

In this modern and well connected world, how do you teach?  Most students are well connected (wireless devices), with information at their finger tips. Chances are they already know a lot about what the teacher wants to teach. So can you blame the student when they felt bored with the teaching, as if its a rerun of the mid night movies.

While this is going on the graduates produced by many teaching institutions like schools, colleges, and universities entering the job markets find themselves inadequate to work. They have to be retrained. As if there are big gaps between the teaching, learning and working.

Thus comes PBL. A very radical approach to teaching and learning. New paradigm shift in education.
Shifting from:

• Teacher centered to student centered
• Learning through real life problems rather than lectures
• Seeking information rather than getting information
• Working in groups rather than individual
• Less formal
• Facilitator instead of teacher

Please visit the Republic Polytechnic Singapore web page to learn more about PBL.They are one of the leading institution on PBL in this region. I was there last year in one of the international conference on problem based learning.

I have started using PBL in my Bachelor of Aviation Management classes since Jan 2009. The result is very encouraging. And in the longer term more programs will be delivered in this manner at UniKL MIAT. This will eventually reduce the gaps between university and the industry.

Demand for skilled maintenance personnel

Recently the PM announced some incentives to the aerospace industry in Malaysia. He also mentioned that the country requires 16,000 new personnel for the industry. Currently the number of aerospace/ aviation graduates that are produced by all the universities and colleges is very much smaller that the demand. As such MIGHT and EPU have been entrusted to strategize with the training providers in producing the required numbers to support the industry needs.

We are not alone in facing this shortages. ICAO an international body states that in their industry research within just ten years time, global commercial aviation will be facing shortfalls of over 400,000 skilled maintenance personnel. The figures are inline with studies conducted by IATA, Boeing and Airbus.

Due to this imbalanced between supply and demand, we will see the market demand for MIAT's graduates will be much more in the next few years.

A student's view of airport facilities for the disabled.

One of my student, who is in his third semester of the Bachelor in Aviation Management wrote this in his learning log.....

In a group or team, everyone should give their best effort in order to achieve the goals that they have planned.Thinking about this makes me wonder how people work together until they could become so advanced in their lifestyle. We could see this in the 1^st world country where they have achieved high standard in their politics, economics, social, technology, legal and environmental aspects. If we look into this matter, how can a group of people differ from the other? How a country becomes so much advanced than the others? How the mentality of the members in the group or society is shaped until they could give their best in their work? Is it genetics that plays the role? Or years of country independence that makes people become so much different in different country? Or we could say that leadership that influences people? Or is it me that has done mistakes which influenced other people to commit the same mistakes? Could man blame God for all the sufferings in the world?

If we relate this to the aviation industry, I could say that it is our own fault that leads to the mistakes and problem that occurs. Recently, my group conducted survey to LCCT and KLIA to compare the facilities provided for the poor, elderly and disabled (PED) people. What I observed is that the facilities in LCCT for PED is really bad to the point that counter for wheelchair is closed and no one cares to attend people in need. The toilet is not clean and normal people use the PED toilet freely. In KLIA the facilities for PED much better but still the environment not friendly enough for PED to feel warmly treated by the service provided. Some workers do not even smile for the customer that they serve. I do wonder how in Japan they could maintain their service and cleanliness very well. Is it different how people think in Malaysia and how people think in Japan?

After all the thoughts that came across my mind, I realize that there is no room for me to blame others for I am part of the society and I am weak as well to change others even when working with my group members. We alone could not change the world but we need others to colour the world together. This life is a journey and I take what is necessary for me to reach destination.

By Ahmad Siddiq Hassan

Welcome

UniKL MIAT's hangar from petrolkar.blogspot.com

Welcome to my blog page. I hope to discuss matters related to the campus and aviation industry. The subjects of the blog are program offerings, student issues, academic matters and since we are an aviation related institute I will also discuss the aviation/ aerospace issues.