Schoolchildren talking and working on a laptop

CreativeCulture 4.0

Transforming 21st century teaching and learning of STEM in Malaysia through play and gamification towards Education 4.0

Funder

British Council
Arts and Humanities Council (AHRC) Newton Fund

Total value of project

£93,512

Value to Coventry University

£74,809

Project team

Professor Sylvester Arnab, Dr Samantha Clarke, Alex Masters, Jayne Beaufoy

Duration of project

11/05/20 - 11/11/21

Website

www.creativeculture.my

Project overview

The project aims to broaden and extend the impact of experiential learning through play and gamification as a creative, emphatic and inclusive pedagogical practice in Malaysia towards Education 4.0 responding to Industry 4.0. The project builds on a previous collaboration between Coventry University and Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) via the Newton CreativeCulture project, which has produced a blueprint for Gamification for STEM education that includes a suite of playful pedagogical tools and gamified lessons created by teachers for teachers. We identified that sustainable and effective adoption can be achieved by enabling teachers to embed the approach in the curriculum and the empowerment of schools to review, redesign and progress their practices.

Acknowledging that access to inclusive andequitable quality education is still an impending issue at rural areas in Malaysia, CreativeCulture 4.0 will expand our user engagement, build practices, capacity and sustain creative approaches in participating schools and facilitate continuing dialogues with local and national communities towards realising the impact of creative education on economic development and social welfare.

Project objectives

Map the Gamification for STEM blueprint against the STEM Education Policy, responding to MEB and National Policy on Industry 4.0 to identify commonalities, gaps and opportunities and form intervention and evaluation pathways.
Develop 3-phase pathway: (1) onboarding - expand reach through teacher training and capacity building in creating gamified lessons (2) practice building - implement play and gamification in schools (3) consolidation - insights into adoption and sustainability for practice and policy recommendations.
Implement the onboarding phase in partnership with local Departments of Education (4 locations involving at least 100 teachers each) to develop case studies for curriculum adoption (at least 10 case studies).
Facilitate and evaluate the case studies adopted in schools during the practice building phase.
Consolidate findings and practice, engaging schools, policymakers, local communities and industries towards scientific, practice and policy publication.

Impact statement

The project responds to the mid-term review of the 11th Malaysia Plan on enhancing access to quality education for accelerating development in Malaysia Borneo. Marginalised groups have limited access to innovative education that often translates into low standard of academic achievement among rural and indigenous ethnic students. The project provides equitable and inclusive playful environments for students to acquire competencies towards economies and societies that are more productive, resilient and adaptable.

Through the onboarding, practice building and consolidation pathway, the project will impact via the upskilling of teachers, and the engagement of schools and students with creative practices. The outcomes of the training workshops, the adoption of the case studies and dialogues/workshops with policy makers and community groups are essential for informing sustainable pathway for curriculum adoption and teacher training beyond the project. Participating teachers will also be inducted into the ambassador programme.

The developed sustainable pathway includes adopting/adapting the training programme and the curriculum adoption pathway as part of the STEM Education agenda across Malaysia. Guidelines, protocol, tools and case studies will be further updated and disseminated by the local team, where the approach will also be embedded in the Masters of Learning Sciences programme. The physical Gamification Lab will host knowledge-exchange and training. In collaboration with teacher-ambassadors, the progression of students from primary to secondary, and to further education/employment will be followed up to track impact.

Read the final report for the project, including its outputs and impact.