AUSMAT won the BEST SMART SCHOOL award at the 2019 Edutech Asia Award!

AUSMAT Sunway College was awarded gold medal honours for Best Smart School at the Edutech Asia 2019 Awards in Singapore! This award recognizes a school that has used advanced technologies and equipment in classrooms to enhance student learning experiences.

The award was open to all K-12 and tertiary institutions from across Asia Pacific countries. Over 300 applicants have been received by the organizer for the awards as they recognize the most inspiring, innovative and successful stories of the last 12 months. Receiving this award affirms AUSMAT’s vision to nurture 21st century learners by creating blended and immersive learning experience among students using effective education technology tools. Congratulations to the Director of AUSMAT programme, Vanitha Satchithanadan, Ed Tech Coordinator Anandraj Govindaraj and all our lecturers in achieving this vision.

This recognition comes through initiative of bridging the gap between the current traditional professional development trainings and implementation of technology use in classroom with collaboration of different stake holders of the school such as management, IT services department and educators. The initiative kicked off in early 2017 by introducing a promising professional development model to provide sustainable and continuous support to educators with consideration of educators’ needs and skills level in learning a new technology.

Many new pedagogy techniques were introduced to lecturers to enhance 21st century skills among students in the classroom. Lecturers were guided in designing student-centered classroom activities.  Station rotation flipped classroom are some of the teaching strategies employed by lecturers. Training on SAMR model (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition) were provided to the lecturers to help them reflect on their level of technology integration into the lessons. A variety of tech-tools were introduced to the lecturers for different purposes. Among it were Microsoft Teams, Microsoft OneNote, EdPuzzle, Microsoft Form, and Microsoft Sway.
The lecturers were also provided training and assistance in creating their own teaching videos. As a result, AUSMAT lecturers can readily integrate technology into their lessons at ease as they have been well coached. More than 500 videos were prepared by the AUSMAT lecturers and shared on our school YouTube channel. Most of these videos serve as resources for flipped learning and revision for examination preparation.

Mr. Anandraj, AUSMAT Ed Tech Coordinator commented “I believe one of the true successes of our model is when we successfully achieved the buy-in from our non-digital native lecturers to embrace technology to deliver lessons. On the onset of this initiative, our lecturers had different levels of EdTech competencies, but today they have progressed to advance their competencies. There are many growing experts among our lecturers on tech-tools as well as technology-integration in lesson delivery.”

Lecturers were always encouraged to share their innovative teaching approaches during departmental meetings. Some of AUSMAT Lecturers have also presented at international conferences on their innovative technology learning strategies to inspire transformation in education. Ms. Vanitha, Director of AUSMAT shared that she is delighted that EduTech Asia 2019 recognized the strong commitment of the AUSMAT team of lecturers to upskill and transform their teaching practices to prepare their students for the future!

AUSMAT students’ response towards technology adaptation in the classroom has also been positive. They appreciate the use of innovative technology-based resources as it enhances their learning. A recent survey conducted shows that students agree using technology as part of learning have not only enhanced and deepened their learning, but also allows them to collaborate among peers and lecturers promoting creative and critical thinking in solving problems. This year as lecturers have developed digitalized learning materials on OneNote Class Notebook, students were encouraged to bring their own laptop or notebook. The resources were valued by students as they refer to the material during their lesson in class. This change in culture is cultivated through lecturers’ adoption and reinforcement on the use of the material during lessons in stimulating students’ interest.

In near future AUSMAT visions to create future-ready classrooms that supports collaborative environment where all students can succeed to their highest potential by providing excellent teaching and personalized learning approaches enhanced through technology. The team are currently working towards wireless classroom where lecturers and students have the mobility to present from anywhere in the classroom, and achieve real-time interaction with wireless touch display and touch-back functionality.