A FRAMEWORK FOR DESIGNING CLASSROOM INSTRUCTION AND ACTIVITIES FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING SUPPORTING ENHANCED ISLAMIC AWARENESS

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1 A FRAMEWORK FOR DESIGNING CLASSROOM INSTRUCTION AND ACTIVITIES FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING SUPPORTING ENHANCED ISLAMIC AWARENESS Roselainy Abdul Rahman 1, Nor Azizi Mohammad 1, Sabariah Baharun 2, Norzakiah Ismail 3 and Nor Asikin Mohamad Nordin 3 1 UTM Razak School of Engineering & Advanced Technology 2 Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology 3 Diploma Studies Programme, UTM SPACE Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur roselainy.kl@utm.my ABSTRACT Islam has always valued the importance of education and an integral concept in the education of man is the need for mankind to harness their human potential and then to utilize all means in subservience to the values in the Qur an for the benefit of all. However, the existing educational conditions in many Muslim countries do not truly reflect the Islamic ideal, and thus education has not been able to play its rightful role in strengthening the faith, thought and conduct of the younger generation, promote the advancement and application of knowledge for the nations development. There still exists a dichotomy in the educational system in most of the Muslim world whereby religious education is taught separately and usually without any connection to secular education. Such compartmentalization is contrary to the true Islamic concept of education and ade it impossible for the products of either system to represent Islam as a comprehensive and integrated vision of life. The aims of education in Islam are to support the balanced growth of the total personality of man in all its aspects: spiritual, intellectual, imaginative, physical, scientific, linguistic, both individually and collectively and motivate all aspects towards goodness and the attainment of perfection. The ultimate aim of Muslim education lies in the realization of complete submission to Allah on the level of the individual, the community and humanity at large. Keywords: classroom instruction, enhanced islamic awareness, teaching and learning,

2 1.0 INTRODUCTION Islam has always valued the importance of education and an integral concept in the education of man is the need for mankind to harness their human potential and then to utilize all means in subservience to the values in the Qur an for the benefit of all. However, the existing educational conditions in many Muslim countries do not truly reflect the Islamic ideal, and thus education has not been able to play its rightful role in strengthening the faith, thought and conduct of the younger generation, promote the advancement and application of knowledge for the nations development. There still exists a dichotomy in the educational system in most of the Muslim world whereby religious education is taught separately and usually without any connection to secular education. Such compartmentalization is contrary to the true Islamic concept of education and ade it impossible for the products of either system to represent Islam as a comprehensive and integrated vision of life (Adebayo, 2007). The aims of education in Islam are to support the balanced growth of the total personality of man in all its aspects: spiritual, intellectual, imaginative, physical, scientific, linguistic, both individually and collectively and motivate all aspects towards goodness and the attainment of perfection. The ultimate aim of Muslim education lies in the realization of complete submission to Allah on the level of the individual, the community and humanity at large (Ashraf, 1985). In terms of reformation, there has been a series of World Conference on Muslim Education which started in 1977 and provoke a considerable efforts among Muslim intellectuals and academia to carry out the process of the Islamization of Knowledge, and continuously seek its improvement. Islamization of knowledge is an on-going process so as to ensure, methodological schemes that may enable Muslims to see through, and practically overcome, long standing confusion, without losing their religious and cultural authenticity, nor depriving themselves of whatever is good and useful from other intellectual and cultural sources (Wan Mohd Nor, 1998). In this paper, we want to share a framework of designing classroom instruction and activities that educators can use to enrich lessons and making connections to enhancing students awareness of Islamic values and practice. We used various frameworks and theories that were put together to guide the design of our teaching materials, class activities and tasks. Firstly, we introduce a framework, named the Three Onlys (Mason & Johnston-Wilder, 2004; see Figure 1; see also Gattegno (1977)), which connected three components of the psyche of human beings; the behavioral (enactive), emotional (affective) and awareness (cognitive or intellectual) components as three interwoven strands. Behavior is how people manifest their awareness and their intellect in the material world; intellect and awareness is what guides and directs that behavior; behavior is fuelled by the energy coming from and feeding emotions. Only Behaviour Is Educable Only Emotion Is Harnessable Only Awareness Is Trainable Figure 1 Behavior Emotion Awareness Framework (Three Onlys)

3 The Three Onlys allow us to consider the students as a whole person and view their personal growth as integrated within their pursuit of knowledge. Paying attention to behavior meant that we had to focus on the outcomes that will support the healthy Islamic development of a student as well as particular outcomes of each academic topic being taught as well as addressed possible difficulties that students might face in both areas. Our prognosis was based on our own experience and concerns in supporting students to be better Muslims as well as documented findings on students difficulties in the topics that we taught. Paying attention to emotions meant that we needed to gauge our students motivation and emotional situations during our lessons. It is important to strengthen students awareness and widen their knowledge on their heritage of Islamic contributions to the development of the Sciences and how to use this knowledge to increase their relationship with, and worship of Allah. Lastly, paying attention to awareness led us to asking what associations come to mind when we studied the topic and consequently what would be useful for students to have come to mind. Thus, by using this framework, a more holistic deliberation was required in preparing to teach in the classroom, i.e., taking into account students behavioral outcomes, their emotional development as well as how to increase their awareness of their own abilities. Answers to such questions will constitute our version of the topic and how it connects to Islam by choosing such components from Framework 3. Every time a topic is taught, we can look out for unusual responses from learners and takes note of these. They might arise in relation to students responses in terms of their understanding of the concepts; the terminologies used and other aspects of the language they need to develop in learning the topics; the associations and connections to Islam and how their knowledge would guide their intended behavior; things said or done that show a student to be in the midst of sorting things out but not yet having a clear understanding; phrases or mnemonics that we or the learners use to guide the application of a technique; unusual contexts in which the techniques are applicable or the ideas are useful or new situations that might give rise to a need to learn about the topic. When we prepare to teach the topic again, a collection of such notes is more likely to be helpful in alerting us to important issues that could help in making up a lesson plan specific to a particular class. A succinct way to display the three categories of questions outlined above is as three interwoven axes, which make up the framework that was called the structure of a topic (Mason & Jonston-Wilder, 2004; see Figure 2). The horizontal axis relates to emotional factors, the behaviour axis runs from top left to bottom right, the awareness axis runs from bottom left to top right.

4 Language Images, associations, connections Contexts in which it arises Original source of problems Classis errors and confusions Techniques Methods Procedures Figure 2 Framework of the Structure of a Topic The third framework, Connecting to Islam (see Figure 3) identifies which Islamic components can be integrated into the lessons so as to support instruction and students learning; these can help educators decide how to make connections to Islamic teachings and values. Here, we have identified some components that could be infused into the various topics. Additional connections can be included as appropriate. Ahklaq Attitude: caring, responsible, etc Values: honesty, amanah, fulfill promises, etc Lifeskills: critical thinking, lifelong learning; social responsibility; care for the environment; sustainability; etc Tadabbur alam - wonders of creation; science History Prophets; Sahabah; scholars Connections to Islam Concept of tauhid Quranic verses Hadith & Sunnah Ar- Rasul saw Figure 3 Framework of the Connecting to Islam However, in order to put the different component together so as to design the instruction and activities, we use the following Table 1 that shows the relationship between each strands of

5 the Three Onlys, Structure of a Topic and Connecting to Islam. Several questions are used to guide the preparation of instruction and activities. Answers to these questions may be partly based on personal experiences and the usefulness of an individual question will vary from concept to concept. However, discussions with other educators can help in the development of answers for the various questions. Table 1: Preparing for lessons Topics to be taught Topic A Framework Three Onlys Emotion Context and origins Motivation, affect, feelings; Guiding questions Structure of a Topic In what context does this topic arise; why is it useful? What problems do they help resolve? Components chosen Connecting to Islam Which components can enhance motivation? Engage students feelings? Awareness Associations & Connections; Images; Mistakes Behavior Language; Techniques; What images come to mind? What pictures? What are the classic mistakes students make? What special vocabulary is involved? What are the techniques? What aspects am I uncertain about? Which component enhances students awareness of Allah s bounty and mercy? Brings them closer to Allah? Which aspects of obedience, ibadah and akhlaq should students try to practice? Thus, for a particular topic, we have to identify the images associated with the topic and its connections with other topics in the syllabus. We also have to identify what awareness were already possessed by our students and how to encourage them to display or share these thoughts, and how we can make use of in the teaching of the topic. In addition, we have to know some of the standard difficulties students have with the topic which were based on our own experience as well as documented findings in research on students learning at tertiary levels. 2. CONCLUSION Using Framework 1 and 2 in working out how to teach using an awareness of the different structures in a topic gave us the freedom to choose where to start, how to develop a topic, and what kinds of tasks to set. More importantly, we should share with students how to determine the structure of a topic and how to make connections to Islam, we will be encouraging students to develop their own independent learning behavior and support contemplation about what it means to be a Muslim, the wonders of Allah s creations as well as how to explore and study the Quran, Hadith and history of our Islamic heritage whether in the lives of the prophets, the sahabah, tab iin, past and contemporary scholars. However, in order for

6 educators to do this requires that we have the facility and familiarity with all the different aspects. REFERENCES Adebayo, R. I. (2007), The Influence of the world conferences on Muslim education on Islamic education in Nigeria, Islamic Studies in Contemporary Nigeria, Problems & Prospects retrieved on Sept 28, 2014 from Influence%20of%20wolrd%20conference.htm Ashraf, S.A. (1985), New horizons in Muslim education. Cambridge: Hodder and Stoughton Gattegno, C. (1977). The Science of Education. New York: Educational Solutions. Mason, J. H. & Johnston-Wilder, S. (2004). Fundamental Constructs in Mathematics Education, Routledge Falmer, London. Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud (1998), Educational Philosophy and Practice of Syed Muhammad Naquib al-attas: An Exposition of the Original Concept of Islamisation, Kuala Lumpur, ISTAC