National Webinar & Forum
Resource: 2nd Webinar- Merge Slides draft
In the last few weeks, the coronavirus pandemic has affected many areas including education field. Even before the Malaysia Government issues the Restriction Movement Order from 18th to 31st of March 2020, many institutions have taken the initiatives to contain the spread of the disease by cancelling the class and moving some of the sessions to the online learning. As the Restriction Movement Order started on 18th March 2020, health professional educators are concerns as this will affect teaching and learning activities in their institutions. They are also concern on how to conduct an effective teaching and learning activities during the Restriction Movement Order period. The initiative was taken by the International Medical University team, led by Prof Vishna Devi Nadarajah to organise a Health Professional Educators Support Webinar via Zoom. The initiative of this inter-institutional forum on remote and online learning was brought up after discussion and concerns were raised by health professional educators from public and private institution across Malaysia. IMU received great collaboration from other faculty across Malaysia to come up with a programme in 24 hours to deliver a webinar covering various topics on online and remote learning. This webinar consists of three forums, questions and answer sessions, and inter-institutional discussions. The sessions were facilitated by Prof Vishna Devi Nadarajah and a total of nine speakers from public and private institutions deliver their short presentation. The webinar supported by Malaysian Association of Education in Medical & Health Sciences (MAEMHS) manages to gather 83 health professional educators in Malaysia. The webinar covers topics on Online Teaching & Learning Activities, Online and Open Book Assessment, Resource Management, Challenges in conducting Online Teaching and Learning & Lesson Learnt. Meanwhile, the Inter-Institutional Discussion revolves around how every institution decides what to take online and how they do it including the challenges of implementing online learning and assessment. The participants also discussed the strategies to ensure students and faculties mental health wellbeing during this crisis. From the discussion, most agree that online learning should not just be utilised during the crisis time but moving forward, this could change the landscape of educational process in all institutions. We realize that learning doesn’t necessarily require a physical face to face, and we can learn at any time, from different geographical location utilising multiple modes. As the learners can probably adapt well with the technologies, the faculty also must become fast learners and appropriate training should be given to all faculties and supported team members before we can embark the journey of online learning. This webinar also shows us that teaching and learning for health professional educators will not stop in the time of crisis. Similar to other health professionals, educators also work hand-in-hand to ensure students’ preparedness and mental health well-being, enable them to continue with their learning despite the crisis.