WRITTEN ESSAY

As the entire world is being swept slowly by globalisation, some developing countries
transform their education system to cope with the demands of globalisation. In our prime
minister's speech, Dato' Seri Najib bin Razak that published in Malaysia Education Blueprint
(2013), he said that In order to meet our high aspirations amidst an increasingly competitive
global environment, we cannot stand still. Our country requires a transformation of its entire
education system. Thus, despite of government organisation, the most suitable person that
responsible for this pivotal role in education transformation is the teacher.
One of the roles that teacher should possess in order in order to uphold our
education system in Malaysia is teacher is a decision maker. Fuller (2014) defines that
decision making involves giving consideration to a matter, identifying the desired end result,
determining the options to get to the end result, and then selecting the most suitable option
to achieve the desired purpose. Apparently, teacher's decisions about the issues just
mentioned ultimately will influence student learning. Being decision maker needs boldness
as the teacher is taking risk to decide of what is best for the students. In today's curriculum,
as School Based Assessment (SBA) was implemented, teacher who is responsible and
accountable of the school assessment as school assessment is done by teachers as
formative assessment to gauge students mastery in order to improve teaching and learning.
Teacher has authority in assessing the students based on their progression throughout the
teaching and learning process. Thus, teacher has to be critical in making any decision so
that it will assist students' development. As suggested in Wave 1 (2013- 2015) in Malaysia
Blueprint (2013) on assessment," upgrading assessment framework to increase questions
that test higher-order thinking skills". To achieve the education aspiration, teacher needs to
always upgrade the assessment framework and emphasize on higher order thinking skills
evaluation to mould competence students. For example, teacher might provide the students
with more enrichment activities such as project-based learning. In the summary of Malaysia
Education Blueprint (2013) mentions that project and group- based work will provide
students with richer school experience, both academic and non academic, help them to
develop students higher-order thinking skills and ability to work both independently and
collaboratively in groups. With the qualities that teacher foster to the children, it will develop
their potential to serve the common good of this nation.

In conducting any activities or learning strategies, teacher should always consider

students' learning differences in term of abilities and learning styles. Elliot (2000)
emphasizes that to motivate students with weaker performance, teachers can structure the

tasks to suit their abilities and let them experience pride and confidence in having attained a
goal through reasonable efforts. Therefore, teacher should hold the role as critical and
constructive analyst to bring out the best in children to develop their full potential. Victorian
Curriculum and Assessment Authority (2008) states that careful planning and development
of the childs experiences, with sensitive and appropriate intervention by the educator, will
help nurture students' eagerness to learn as well as enabling the child to learn effectively. If
the learning strategies do not appropriate with students' abilities, they might lose their
interest to learn. For instance, if the teacher still learn by using conventional 'chalk and talk'
strategy for kinaesthetic students, they may end up lose interest to learn. The teacher has
diminished their eagerness to learn as the students might think learning process is boring
and tedious task. Moreover, if the teacher decides to utilize ICT in class, teacher still has to
analyse some factors that might affect the students' learning such as suitability of the
materials and to what extent it benefits the students. As stated in Malaysia Education
Blueprint (2013), in 2011, researchers from the Higher Education Leadership Academy
observed some lessons in 41 schools across Malaysia and they found that the focus of
lessons were more on achieving surface-level content understanding for summative
assessment purposes, rather than on cultivating higher-order thinking skills. Prior to that, to
overcome the problem, teachers must be critical in analysing the appropriate learning
strategies to develop students' thinking skills as being emphasized in the Malaysia
Education Blueprint (2013). It states that in order to prepare the students to be globally
competitive, teachers must equip the children with a range of important cognitive skills,
including critical thinking, reasoning, creative thinking, and innovation.
Teacher as researcher is one of the role that teacher should acquire to help
curriculum and our students development. Teachers who are willing to do research to
improve their professional, problems that they faced in school or happened to their students
are very bold and critical to ensure our educational policy and implementation of curriculum
would be useful to develop the best elements from the students. In addition, their research
will be very meaningful as they encounter real problems, experience obstacles to
understanding, and ponder daily as to why things are as they are. What distinguishes
teacher research from teaching reflectively is the commitment to a disciplined method for
gathering and analyzing data, and the fact that the research can be publicly shared (Borko,
Liston, & Whitcomb 2007). The commitment that the teacher devours in conducting the
research will be significant and worth the time spent as they will become more reflective,
more critical and analytical in their teaching, and more open and committed to professional
development. Rust (2007) supports that being a researcher also helps teachers become
more deliberate in their decision making and actions in the classroom. Teachers who are

used to research will carefully identify and make revision before implementing any learning
strategies in class so that it will cater students learning styles and differences. For instance,
the teacher might try to see the effectiveness of using ICT in class to trigger students'
interest to learn. Thus, the teacher should do some research of how to utilize the ICT in
order to cater the students' needs. Besides that, role of teacher as a researcher in fulfilling
the aim to make transformation, develop a better understanding of their practice which helps
in developing the professional dispositions of lifelong learning, reflective and mindful
teaching, and self-transformation (Mills 2000; Stringer 2007). Example of initiative that
shows teacher is responsible for his/her own professional growth is by attending courses
such as online learning course and English proficiency training for self enrichment which
help them to be competent in order to serve the best for students' development. With close
reference to the Malaysia Education Blueprint (2013), National Education Technology
Standards (NETS) requires the teachers to engage in professional growth and leadership by
improving their professional practice and model lifelong learning. Thus, the courses might
help the teachers to improve their professional growth for their students' progression.
Davis (2009) ever claims that students and teachers demand relevant, current, local
examples to increase their understanding and reach the ultimate goal of curriculum change
in the classroom: curriculum improvement and increased student learning. Teachers hold
vital roles in order to gear the younger generation towards transformation of education.
According to Fullan (2012), the developmental role is helping students to become self
learners, with teachers not playing a passive role, but a very active agent change agent role.
By playing the active roles as decision maker, critical analyst and constructive researchers,
teachers will be able to work hand in hand with the government to improve our education
system to be competent globally and internationally.

REFERENCES
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Elliott, S. N. (2000). Educational psychology: Effective teaching, effective learning.
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