Transformative Journal [Roketah Binti Mohd Rahsid, U2003243] Team B
Project Title: Free Virtual Accounting Class For Form 5 Students
Transformative Journal:
Assalamualaikum and Hi everyone, my name is Roketah Binti Mohd Rahsid and I am a first year student who is taking a Bachelor of Accounting at University Malaya. For today's topics, I will be sharing my experience and feelings after taking the social engagement course in my second semester at University Malaya. I hope this journal will motivate you to keep challenging yourself and improve your performance in the future.
Before the event:
Honestly, I am only registered for this course as it is a compulsory subject for first year students. In the beginning for this course, I didn't really have any idea about what we will learn and do for this course. Since the name for this course is social engagement, I'm just guessing that we will do some charity projects to engage with the community. However, I’m concerned about how this project will be carried out in this current situation where there is a limitation for our movements and we are not allowed to do physical activity in a group. As time passed by, my thoughts just flew away as I’m busy with the activities from the club that I have joined for my curriculum which is UM Smart Tutor and registration for other courses. In the first week, there is no meeting conducted for this course as it takes some time to finalize the list of students that have been registered for this course since all
students are in the process of registering and dropping the subject that they will take for this semester. Luckily,we have our first meeting for this course with the program coordinator in the second week. From that meeting, we have been brief about what we are required to do for this course. So from that meeting, I realized that we need to conduct a virtual event to engage with the community based on topics that have relation with our main course which is accounting.
At first, I felt so nervous and worried on how to conduct this project and how to search for participants.This is because I have no experience in organizing and conducting the event before so I thought I might contribute less and not be helpful in planning the project. I am also an introverted person so I felt so shy when presenting in front of many people. Consequently, I just feel that I may ruin the project. During my high school days, remembered that I rarely participated in any school project as I have low confidence and courage to do so. Whenever I think about that time, I felt so regretful as I wasted the precious opportunity to improve and build myself during my high school days. Coming back to this course, instead of feeling nervous and scared I also felt excited as I have the opportunity to learn something new and improve my performance from this course such as increase my communication skill, discover how to organize and host the event. Therefore, I think I should have more courage and responsibility to give my best in conducting this project to ensure this project will run smoothly and be beneficial to the participants.
In the third week, me and other group 6 members have the first meeting with our program supervisor, Dr. Zalfa. From that meeting, we have been brief about the project and it’s requirements. Dr. also gives us some tips on what we need to pay attention to when planning the project. After that, we were assigned to a smaller group with 5 members and that’s how I ended up with my current teammates who are Santiyapriya, Sashneeta, Jian jian and Phavinna. At first, me and my teammates came out with many ideas for the project as each of us contributed one idea. After going through so many discussions, we finally chose to conduct a free online tuition class as it is the simplest and easiest project that we can do. I also have some experience in the tuition class as I joined UM Smart Tutor for my curriculum. From that club, I learned how to promote posters, make google forms for the registration process and reach participants for tutor roles. I also experienced how to interview someone so I assume that I can use that knowledge and experience in this project. Luckily all my group members agree with that idea after considering many things. Then after that, we discuss in more detail about this project in the whatsapp group such as what we will be teaching, who our target group is and so on. After that, we proceed with the preparation for the proposal for this project and submit it in the fourth week to the program supervisor.
In the following week, Dr, Zalfa asked us to present our idea for the project during the meeting. After the meeting, me and my group members need to change many things as our project content is too general and we also did not have a specific number of target groups and specific topics that we want to teach to the audience. So, me and my group members started to discuss the project in more detail than before. Finally, Dr Zalfa accepted our proposal and permitted us to conduct this project. Moving forward, me and my teammates started to assign tasks for everyone to ensure everyone contributes equally in conducting this project. For instance, I have been assigned as a teacher and technician for this project. Therefore, I am responsible for preparing the teaching material for my chosen topic which is cash budget. As a technician, I am just participating in hosting, preparing the registration form, pre-evaluation form, post-evaluation form and helping other members if they face any technical problem for the first day. Through this task, I felt more responsible in preparing this event to ensure this event ran smoothly.
Furthermore, I face some challenges in preparing the teaching material for my topic which is cash budget as i do not have the form 5 accounting textbooks. So, I don’t know the new information updated in the textbook. To counter this problem, I tried my best to find reliable information about the cash budget through google, blog, twitter and youtube. In order to ensure all participants understand the topic, I spend two days revising all materials that I have gathered from my searching through various applications. I also prepare the explanation for all my theoretical points and examples for calculation questions regarding this topic. As a result, the student will be able to understand the topic more deeply. I think understanding is more important for the students as they will be able to answer the questions in their own words instead of memorizing and copying the answer from the textbooks. Aside from teaching materials, I also prepared the quiz materials regarding the cash budget topic for the student . This is to determine the students' level of understanding regarding the cash budget after my discussion session ends and rate my teaching whether it is helpful to the students or not. Actually, I didn't worry too much about teaching and delivering information about the topic to students as I have many experiences in teaching during my high school and matriculation days. This is proven when I have been selected for the mentor roles for particular subjects during that time. However, I was still worried as I didn’t have any experience in teaching online. My internet connection is also not too good, so I’m predicting that I will face some connection problems on the event day.
As mentioned before, I am also participating in the event as a technician. To be honest, I’m not really familiar with technical functions and problems. So, I’m just contributing in preparing the google form for pre-evaluation, post-evaluation, registration form, reaching participants and hosting the event. I think from all tasks that I listed before, the most difficult and challenging to me are reaching participants and hosting the event. This is because I don’t have any experience for both tasks. At first, my group didn’t get many participants for this project since we only promoted the project in our social media. Due to that, I try to ask my junior, my niece, and my friends to promote the project to their friends and on their social media. Luckily, we started to get many participants for our project. From this, I started to realize that relationships and connections are very important in doing this task. If I didn’t ask them to help, I don’t think my group would get many participants for this project. Therefore, I’m really grateful to them for their help. I wish, I will be able to repay them in the future. Moreover, hosting also is very challenging to me since I need to speak in front of many people and to direct the flow of the event. So if I make mistakes, it will affect other members and the flow of the program. To counter this problem, I prepare the script to host the event and keep practicing hosting before the event.
During the event:
For your information, we have conducted our project on 22 and 23 May 2021 through google meet. On the first day of the event, I felt so nervous and worried as I think as the host I play an important role in starting and directing the flow of the event. If I do not perform well it may affect other members so I feel really responsible and anxious on that day. I only slept for 3 hours cause I felt too nervous and worried. Luckily, the event ran smoothly for both days. So, I felt so relieved after the event ended. I think I didn’t make any major mistakes in hosting the event since I prepared the script to host the event. So everything occurred like the one we planned but I noticed that the students did not actively participate when we spoke in english. So me and other group members try to speak in malay more frequently in order to make the participants comfortable communicating with us throughout the event.
At first, we started the project with the opening speech from Dr. Zalfa, who is our program supervisor. After that, we proceed to the next session which is a Bingo game. Through this session, I get the opportunity to know about the participants and participants also have the opportunity to make new friends with us and other participants. Actually, I’m so impressed with the participants as they sacrificed their weekend to gain more understanding in accounting. If I’m in their shoes, I will not join this event as I prefer to spend my time with something entertaining or with my family on the weekend. So, I think, I also learn something from them such as to gain something you need to sacrifice something. Through the bingo game, we found out that every participant comes from different states in Malaysia such as Johor, Kedah and Selangor. I think this is the main feature for online learning as everyone is able to stay connected even though everyone is from a different area.
Moving forward, we started with our first discussion topic which is adjustment for statements of financial position and profit or loss. This topic is presented by Santiyapriya. I think the discussion session went smoothly as Santiya is well prepared for that. She was also able to answer the questions from the participants regarding this topic on the spot. After that we proceed to the Kahoot session and Q&A session. There are some students who ask questions regarding this topic through a chat box during the Q&A session. We feel so happy to receive the questions as it shows the students really focus during the discussion session and we also are able to clear the students' queries regarding this topic. Then, we take a 10 minutes break. After that we proceed with the second topic for discussion session which is incomplete records. This topic is presented by Phavinna. During the discussion session, Phavinna has been facing some problem with her internet connection, so she is unable to open her camera when explaining the topic and her voice is also not so clear. However, she managed to successfully cover all points for that topic. Then, we continue with the Kahoot session and Q&A session for this topic and after everyone has finished ask the questions. We end the meeting for the program on the first day.
Next, we move to the second day for the event which is on Sunday. I didn’t take part in hosting the event since I will be teaching the topic for cash budgets on that day. So Phavinna has taken my role in hosting the event. We started our second day of the project by playing connect 4 games with participants. During the game session, all of the participants feel so excited to play it with other participants since this game requires two people to play it. From this, I can see that the participants felt more comfortable with us compared to the first day as they are actively participating in playing the game, so I felt so happy at that time. Then, we proceed with the third topic for the discussion session which is disposal of non-current assets. This topic is presented by Sashneeta. I think the discussion session went smoothly as Sashneeta is well prepared and does not face any internet connection problems at that time. She was also able to answer the questions from the participants regarding this topic on the spot. After that we proceed to the Kahoot session and Q&A session. There are several students who ask questions regarding this topic through a chat box during the Q&A session. We feel so happy to receive the questions as it shows the engagement between us and students during the discussion session and we also are able to clear the students' queries regarding this topic. Then, we take a 10 minutes break. After that we proceed with the last topic for the discussion session which is cash budget. This topic is presented by me. I think my session did not run smoothly like Sashneeta as I’m also facing an internet connection problem at that time. However, I managed to explain all things that I had prepared and planned before the event. There were some students who asked questions regarding this topic during the discussion session and I managed to answer the questions and explain it to her. Then, we proceed to the photo session since our project has already come to the end. I felt so relieved and feel like one burden has been removed from my shoulder. At first, I didn’t think that we were able to successfully run this program and I also didn’t expect anything from this program. However, as time goes by, I think this program is very precious and memorable to me as me and my teammates accomplished many things when conducting this project. Other than that, we also have the opportunity to contribute to society when running this project.
After the event:
I felt so relieved after the event ended. At the same time, I felt so proud of myself as me and my teammates have successfully conducted the event. We received many thank you messages from the participants in the whatsapp group. They also give us some feedback about this event and suggestions to improve this event in the future. Actually, we are also grateful to them because without them we may not be able to conduct this event successfully. I also feel grateful to my teammates as they cooperate and contribute in organizing and conducting the event. Even though Jian Jian did not participate in discussion of the topics in accounting during the discussion session due to language barrier, I think her contribution is still valuable in managing the technical problems, preparing feedback form and explaining the rules for connecting 4 games. Without her, I don’t think that anyone may be able to manage it as we are already busy preparing for the discussion session, Kahoot session and Q&A session.
Therefore, I would say that every member has their own contributions in conducting this event. After the event ended, there was one student that was still contacting me to ask questions regarding the cash budget topic so I am really happy about that since I can still help to clear her queries after the event. We also discovered that there is a great improvement in participants' understanding for particular topics that we have been presented before, so I felt so satisfied from that result. It feels like our effort is paid off. Lastly, I would like to say that this project really makes me interested and looking forward to this kind of social activities in the future.
What I have learned from the activities performed?
There are many things that I have learned from this project:
Teamwork plays a vital role in this project.
This is because without teamwork, I don’t think that we can successfully conduct this project. Even if the group has a perfect plan in organizing the project but if there are no people who want or cooperate to do it, it still leads the perfect plan to failure. Therefore, the contribution and cooperation from every member in organizing this project is really significant in building good teamwork. Moreover, trust is very important in teamwork as we believe each member will give their best in completing the task.
Confidence and be prepared
Since I have no experience conducting and organizing any program before, I don’t know how to engage with the participants. When my group conducted the rehearsal before the event I always stuttered while hosting the event since I did not know that we needed to prepare a script for it. So I just speak what's on my mind. However, Dr. Zalfa corrected me on this and she advised me to prepare a script when hosting the event and talk informally or in a friendly way to ensure the students felt more comfortable with us. During the presentation for the discussion session, Dr also advised me and my teammates to elaborate clearly and prepare the presentation slide with more pictures instead of just inserting the word. I learned from this that we need to make our slides more entertaining so the participants will not feel bored during the discussion session. We also need to make a positive impact on the participants and make them feel that our event is very enjoyable as we provide a fun learning session which includes beneficial information and playing time for the participants. From that session, we will be able to engage as much as possible with the participants. I also learned that if we want people to trust what we deliver, we need to deliver the information confidently. Success comes from thorough preparation.
Leadership and Interpersonal skill
As mentioned before, I am an introverted person, so I don't really have any leadership skills as I always follow orders from other people whenever there is group work. So through this project, I have the opportunity to show my leadership skill by assigning the task for other members and lead the group when conducting and organizing the event. Moreover, my interpersonal skill also has been improved as I frequently communicate with the group members and participants regarding this project. I also would be able to talk about my opinion when we are discussing something in the group.
How do the activities performed have impacted my life?
I would say that this event boosts my confidence and encourages me to keep challenging myself in learning and trying something new.
I also think that I will be able to conduct and organize other events after this as I already have experienced from this event.
I think it also changed my mindset to be more positive and not overthinking when doing something.
Lastly, I would like to thank Dr. Zalfa Laili for guiding me and my group members in conducting our social engagement project which is “Free Virtual Accounting Class For Form 5 Students”. Even though Dr has many times asked me and my group members to revise all materials that we have prepared, I feel so grateful as me and my teammates would be able to learn from our mistakes and keep improving ourselves in the future. Thank you to all my group members and GROUP 6 that are very kind and supportive from the beginning of this course until the end. I wish everyone best of luck for your future!!!
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