Jointly reported by:
Chloe Chan Po Yi JR1Z(3)
Grace Low Shing Wei Sr1ScA
Lim Zhe Yih Sr3ScE
On 16 July 2021, Kuen Cheng High School organised a talk to consolidate the ways for students to learn in the incoming AI Era, with Prof Dr Ewe Hong Tat, President of Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) as the guest speaker of the day. The webinar in English was open to teachers and admin staff from a total of fourteen schools. It started with the host, Madam Loh Hoi Yuen, Head of our Academic Department, giving a welcoming speech. She presented the objectives of this webinar and expressed her gratitude towards Prof Dr Ewe for agreeing to attend this event.
After that, Prof Ewe kicked off his lecture by greeting the attendees and giving a brief self-introduction. Then, he started by introducing the technological revolution from the past and showed the evolution of the economy. He uses the statement from Professor Klaus Schwab, which is that the world is entering the beginning of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Prof Ewe mentioned that during the 4th industrial revolution, the world needs more knowledge workers with a growth mindset and empathy on how people feel and how to connect the human world and AI machine world. Then, Prof Ewe continued to show the audience a mindmap of the ways towards a knowledge economy. He mentioned that learning and memorising data and information is going to be replaced by AI machines, but knowledge, intelligence and wisdom will be the work done by humans in the future, with the help of AI machines. He strongly advises the teachers if they want to train students well, then they must assist the students to achieve knowledge and intelligence but not just memorise information given.
Knowledge Economy Chart
Next, he shows a chart of the change of job types in the USA over the past 160 years to predict that although in the future, some jobs might be gone or replaced, more new jobs will appear. Therefore, people must have a growth mindset and are willing to learn things. Then, he suggests the audience to imagine education like organic farming, although different plants may have different qualities, but if they help each other, they might even grow better. This is due to the environment given to the plants. Bringing it back to the school, he told the audience that if the school can train students to have a growth mindset, then the students with the same mindset will then form an environment that can influence others.
The Evolution of Economy
After that, Prof Ewe introduces Professor Carol Dweck from Stanford University, the renowned psychologist who has discovered the power of mindset: difference between a fixed mindset and growth mindset. According to Professor Carol Dweck, Prof Ewe used an example from her: when a child won a competition and his parents praised him that he was smart, this will form a fixed mindset for the child because when they fail, they will think that they are not smart anymore and will just give up. But if the parents praise their child’s success due to their effort, this will cause the child to form a growth mindset because they will think that they didn’t put enough effort and they are willing to try again next time.
Later, Prof Ewe also emphasized the importance of empathy by giving examples such as innovation comes from having a deep sense of empathy, stated by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Then, our guest speaker mentioned that in the next wave of technological revolution, there will be more innovations such as self driving, virtual reality and 3D printing due to the presence of the 5G internet which causes the internet speed to increase. Next, Prof Ewe introduces a youtube channel to the audience called Boston Dynamics, which produces robots that can do different actions to show the improvements of robotics during recent years. Then, he also introduced a famous author amidst his speech, Yuval Noah Harari. From the books, the author mentioned that there are 2 skills needed in the future, which are adaptability to keep learning and emotional knowledge. He uses this statement to bring out the challenges of 21st century education to the audience, which is that during the past, teachers would expect that what they taught would last their students a lifetime. Prof Ewe said that this statement was true in the past but it is totally wrong nowadays, because of the improvements in technology, as no one knows what will happen in the future.
Prof Ewe then told the audience about the concept of the 4C’s, which are critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity. He said that the 4C’s knowledge can be taught to children anytime, anywhere. Our speaker also shed light on a topic called Higher Order Development. He shared with the audience that nowadays everyone carries a smartphone around. He also mentioned that accessing info is easy but determining the right info requires cognitive skill. Despite the given advantages of technology, people must think and solve problems themselves instead of flipping through textbooks. Therefore, high order thinking is getting increasingly more important. The speaker emphasized that people with knowledge can solve problems with a fixed answer, whereas people with hands-on skills manage to solve problems with no determined answer. Prof Ewe once again stated that mastering hands-on skills is going to be much more important than studying.
High Order Thinking Details
Afterwards, Prof Ewe introduced Monster.com, a website for people to hunt for jobs. He said that the applicants need to have transferable skills, job-related skills and adaptive skills. He then proceeded to talk about these three skills in detail. Transferable skills are acquired in one setting but can be applied in many types of businesses. Job-related skills are specific to a certain line of employment or trade and may require you to have received training to perform. Adaptive skills are sorts of aptitudes that are sometimes less obvious and harder to quantify because they rely on personality traits rather than learning. Prof Ewe also highlighted that it is very important to build an environment starting with school.
Our speaker then continued to brief the audience on the theory of multiple intelligences created by Professor Howard Gardner. The multiple intelligences include: Bodily-Kinesthetic, Intrapersonal, Naturalistic and many others. He also mentioned the purposes of undergraduate education. Undergraduates learn to communicate and think, build character, prepare for nation building and a global society and many more! Prof Ewe then ended this part of the talk with a quote by Charles Darwin, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”
Charles Darwin’s quote
Prof Ewe also gave us some useful advice in lifelong learning. He said the best way of learning is to learn slowly and deliberately. Because when we burn the midnight oil trying to cram our brain with all the knowledge we learnt, they won’t be stored as a long term memory because our brain isn’t processing them well enough. We tend to forget them in a very short period. The joy of learning develops over a long time, and thus lifelong learning is the fundamental way to improve ourselves.
Besides, Prof Ewe gave us some suggestions on how to motivate students during the pandemic. Motivation in self-directed learning is always important, especially these days when we have to stay at home. We must adapt ourselves to this change of lifestyle. Plan and implement with resources and time for personal development with habits like reading, lifelong learning, exercise and balanced diet etc. Reward ourselves if we manage to complete those habits everyday.
According to Prof Ewe, author of Altered Traits, Professor Richard Davidson, introduced four challenges faced by the society. They are distractibility, loneliness, negative self-talk and loss of purpose in life. How do we settle distractibility? Well, in positive psychology, we must reach the flow state in order to focus well. Flow state is the mental state in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energised focus, full involvement and enjoyment in the process of the activity. The joy of learning is also achieved when we reach the flow state. On top of that, we can motivate ourselves with self-determination theory. The task given must be suitable for students’ level to keep them motivated. Students are suggested to set a timer and think of how long they need to solve a problem.
Chart of Self Determination Theory
In order to learn more effectively, we must eat a balanced diet and at least 3 square meals per day. Besides, Prof Ewe also emphasised on the importance of exercising. When we exercise, our body releases endorphins, dopamine and serotonin that boost our mood and overall sense of well-being. Eventually we can focus more and perform better on a daily basis.
Benefits of exercise