Recently we have been contacted by a representative from Ministry of Education and asked if we could conduct a seminar to teach Vocational teachers on basic model making. We are required to prepare teaching module which includes theory and practical. The challenge is we only have 1 week to do the preparations and we need to ensure all the teachers knows the basic model making in that 3 days seminar so they be able to teach their students the same.
It is almost a mission impossible.
Hurdle
It was a government initiative. Therefore there are budget constrain. With given budget we need to find place to stay (for teachers coming from the other states) that comes with a seminar hall. Not to fancy but comfortable. Luckily Post Covid-19 MCO, there are some place offering good rates. We managed to get Shaftbury Serviced Residences as the venue for the 11th to 13th August 2020 seminar.
Post MCO, we have to comply with the safety SOP and social distancing. We have set up the 8 seater round table into 2 seater and divide the 16 participants into 8 groups of 2.
Express Learning
It was not an easy task to compress everything in 3 days, therefore we have made a module simple enough with less theory and more practical.
We have explained the basic theory in a half day session. After that we teach them in practical on the basic technique to read the drawing and turn it into a specific scale, to cut, assemble and glue. After they master the basic, we give them a task to design a kitchen interior and to build a scale model based on it. We create competition and evaluate based on mastering the basic technique and creativity
To our surprise, all of the participants did really well. They have created models beyond our imagination that they could do in 3 days learning. The winners are given prizes in a form of a miniatures and the rest came back home with their masterpiece and a participation certificate. We can see the satisfaction from all of them, which translates to our own satisfaction. At the end of the day even-though it was not a profitable event, but we have contributed something for the nation.
