21st Century Learning or Pembelajaran Abad ke-21 (PAK21), refers to the MOE's initiative which champions a student-centred learning process that is steered by five main elements, which are communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and values and ethics (4C1V). PAK21 defines the pertinent knowledge, competency, and characteristics that students should embody to be competitively relevant and empowered to take on the challenges of 21 st Century volatilities. PAK21, which was formulated in the second wave of Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025, would generate more creative thinking processes and instil better human values, while preparing the students for the Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0). Malaysian teachers should embrace the PAK21 to ensure the students are equipped with the right skills and values for the future. This paper shares some findings on Malaysia secondary school teachers' readiness in implementing PAK21. In specific, the characteristics as 21st century teachers were assessed as well as the level of teachers' readiness in implementing 21st century learning (PAK21). The analysis shows the mean of respondents' selfassessment as 21st century teacher (M=3.6170, SD=.56341) was slightly higher than the mean of respondents' self-assessment on teachers' readiness in implementing PAK21 (M=2.9813, SD=.31161). Analysis also indicates a significant positive strong relationship between the two assessments (r=.715, p<.01), and hence implies higher scores of respondents' assessment as 21 st century teacher are associated with higher scores of respondents' assessment on teachers' readiness in implementing PAK21. Further survey on the professional development was also conducted to see the influences of these programs on teachers' readiness in implementing PAK21. The findings of this study serve to inform educational policy makers and stakeholders on secondary school teachers' readiness to PAK21 and how the current professional development influences their level of readiness.
This study seeks to examine university students’ attitudes and their perceptions on calculus education. Lecturers’ suggestions to remedy the current situation of calculus learning were also investigated. The instruments of this study consisted of three sets of questionnaires, aimed at collecting data regarding students’ attitudes and perceptions on calculus and lecturers’ suggestions. The respondents consisted of 278 full-time diploma students in a public university in Malaysia. The findings indicate that the students’ attitudes towards the Course of calculus according to gender were insignificant. However, there was a significant difference in the students’ attitudes towards the Field of calculus between female and male students. Students of Pre-Calculus and Calculus I were found to be feeling, thinking, and behaving similarly about calculus. Their attitudes towards the Field of calculus among the four engineering and science programmes were significant. After attempting 39.27% of the given questions, students’ perceptions on the difficulty of the questions remained the same, which was neither easier nor harder than they expected. Nevertheless, students’ perceptions changed positively (questions more difficult than expected) in 19.45% of the questions and negatively (questions easier than expected) in 41.28% of the questions. The implications from these findings provided inputs to improve calculus teaching and learning. Information regarding students’ attitudes toward calculus could help lecturers to design comprehensive calculus lessons that suit all kinds of students. Students also need to change their attitudes towards calculus, for example by having a closer inspection of the exact nature of the calculus questions before attempting them.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.