Sector: Education

Country location: Malaysia, Australia

Grantee: Charles Darwin University

Project Description

This project will trial the use of the Question Formulation Technique, a structured approach to teaching students how to formulate and refine their own questions supplemented by various hands-on techniques supported by digital technology. Developing questioning skills is important for effective inquiry-based learning and fundamental to the critical thinking and problem-solving skills recognised by educators advocating focused development of "21st century skills". This is also the case with digital literacy skills, and when combined, these skills are pivotal in student-centred pedagogies. In Malaysian schools, however, student-initiated questioning is not encouraged. The project will involve participation of Malaysian preservice teachers while also surveying students after classroom trials about their experience. The project aims to determine the suitability of this technique in Malaysian schools in a policy environment in which professional development of teaching practices is prominent. This project is timely given that Malaysian student performance is declining as suggested by the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey results which shows Malaysia as placed in the bottom third, ranking 52 out of 65 countries.

Key Dates

• Initial workshops with pre-service teachers, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 03 - 07 October 2016
• Workshop with Education academics, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 31 October 2016 to 04 November 2016

Social media accounts: Project will develop its own website; CDU International Graduate Centre of Education social media Twitter CDUni; https://youtu.be/RVGE3dLFXn4

Australia-ASEAN Council grant offer: $13,420 including GST

Total project value: $49,000

Website: www.cdu.edu.au/