Revolutionizing Learning: Innovative Teaching Techniques
I have found that a proactive approach to instilling integrity values in students and fostering a culture of integrity beyond a course is producing creative assessments that help push students to higher thinking.
I have used collaborative learning, experiential learningand work-integrated learning to develop “Industry in my classroom” - through guest talk series, field trips and by organizing mentoring programs such as WISP and ReBitVlogs.
"Zeenath has shown tremendous foresight and initiative in developing an assessment for the COMM101: Principles of Responsible Commerce (2015 Summer, UOWD) cohort that demonstrates an ability to adapt evaluation methods to different contexts and diverse student needs and styles. As the quality assurer and subject coordinator of COMM101 at Wollongong, this is the first time I have observed such a wonderful initiative from a COMM101 offshore campus subject coordinator."
- Associate Professor Mario Fernando, Head of Postgraduate Studies, School of Management, Operations and Marketing, Faculty of Business, UOW (ALTC and OCTAL winner)
ReBitVlogs was launched in 2017, has received the Council for Australia-Arab Relations Funding to bring students from UOW to Dubai and to now conduct a virtual conference for UOWD students in partnership with UOW students. During the emergency distance learning, the program continued with online storytelling and poster competitions. Students were encouraged to find creative ways to present their “stories” electronically using simple Word, Power Point, Adobe Illustrator, and other online tools such as PiktoCharts and Canva.com. Going virtual helped make the panel discussion (Majlis) more international with experts from Australia, Turkey, USA, UK and Sweden attending the discussions and engaging with my students. This was a reflective opportunity for students to engage and create authentic assessments thus minimizing likelihood of misconduct
As subject coordinator for the Graduation Project subject, I realised some students began their graduation project without the necessary pre-planning; not knowing how the industry works or what impact their graduation project can have on their career. On the other hand, having taught the first year subject System Analysis and Design, I realised these students were too far away from project to know how important a role these basic subjects played in their education career. To create a bridge, I conceptualized WISP - a program with 33 alumni and industry experts who joined “Human Library” as mentors to help first year students understand the mechanisms of the real world, of the solutions that are expected and the importance of the skills that are taught so early in their degree. This “library” of human experts and mentors were accessible to the teams for the duration of the program. Teams were then able to “book” experts from the library on “loan”, much like a book from a physical library, for a small period of time based on level of expertise and time the human experts were able to dedicate. The assessment was broken into smaller modules for which students received feedback from the mentors and ultimately participated in a pitch presentation competition. Three winning teams received instant offers of internship from the industry judges who attended competition. This helped ensure work was authentic, and of good quality, thus eliminating opportunity of misconduct
"I like the fact that Zeenath makes the atmosphere encouraging to students’ learning, to express our ideas and debate…I admire how attached she is to the student body in comparison to her colleagues...”
- Wahid AlBalooshi, Top Graduate, 2016
“Dr Zeenath is one of the role models in innovative teaching specially in online teaching since we had to move to online mode because of COVID19. Because of her innovative and interactive style of teaching, she has been appointed to the Distance Learning Committee to help and support faculty members in transition to distance learning. In that capacity, she has helped in devising faculties transitional plan for moving from Face-to-Face to Distance Learning. She has also created a set of videos and conducted many workshops on Best Practices, Methodologies and Tools for colleagues to help smooth their transition. I must add, because of her dedication and guidance we had very smooth transition from total Face-to-Face to Distance learning when we were required by Ministry. Dr Zeenath has consistently delivered her best and contributed to university by acting as a role model and volunteering and mentoring colleagues and students. She normally volunteers to conduct workshop for staff on best practices of teaching, academic integrity and educational tools. She conducts workshops for students on best practices on learning and academic integrity. She has served as Academic Integrity Office in the Faculty and now is a member of University level Academic Misconduct Committee. Dr Zeenath has been nominated or been awarded many times at university for her contribution and performance.
Dr Zeenath has many innovative initiatives in teaching and learning such as REBITVLOGS, WISP, and many others. For example, she lunched WISP (Real World Innovative Solutions to Real World Problems) with the help of Alumni Relations and Marketing team for the first-year students enrolled in the subject CSIT114 System Analysis and Design. This initiative for the first-year students has left very good impression on students and strengthen our relations with our alumni. The program enabled first-year students to engage with industry experts and propose solutions for real world problems. This is an amazing experience for a first-year student!
- Professor Farhad Oroumchian, Associate Dean (Education), Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences, University of Wollongong in Dubai
"Zeenath makes terrific use of teaching mediums...is engaging in face-to-face lectures, uses e-teaching tech effectively...from review of her teaching material, her tutorial classes are designed to be student-centrered... staff at Wollongong have incorporated her Dueling Dilemmas ...a great endorsement of Zeenath's passion and dedication to teaching"
-Dr. Mark Freeman, Senior Lecturer, EIS Academic Program Director, Chair of Outreach and Industry Engagement