Prepared by: AP. Dr. Rossilah Jamil

Azman Hashim International Business School (AHIBS), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) recently concluded its Future Ready Educator (FREE) Month (ahibsFREE21) hitting commendable figures of learning and sharing.

The program was aimed to upskill faculty members with teaching and learning strategies in business education to suit new technology and the changing demography of learners. ahibsFREE21 took place from 15 September till 14 October 2021. Continuing from last year’s theme, virtual learning remained as the central stage in this year’s program.

In one month, ahibsFREE21 conducted 45 webinars involving 55 speakers and 700 participants clocked in around 60 learning hours. Some of the featured topics were service-based learning, virtual case teaching, scenario-based learning, and project-based learning. AHIBS home-grown speakers shared techniques to use virtual collaboration tools such as Evernote, Microsoft Teams, Trello, personal websites, and Kahoot.

The Program Director, Dr. Grace Thoo, believes that the program has created a knowledge-sharing culture and motivated lecturers to acquire new teaching skills to make their classes more interactive.

A closing ceremony for the program was held with a speech from UTM Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic and International), Prof. Sr. Dr. Hishamuddin bin Mohd Ali. Congratulations to all the committee members for successfully organising the program.