Abstract:

This paper reports on half of the main research, which focuses on answering the questions of educating future intellectual leaders of character at the National Defence University of Malaysia (NDUM). The question in this paper includes the needs to prepare Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR4.0) ready graduates for the Defence University. Given the nature of the teaching and learning environment at the NDUM, the researcher opines that there is an urgency to look into the issues of teaching and learning at the NDUM empirically. These issues include the pedagogy, learning environment as well as students’ engagement in their learning process. The objectives of this paper are to develop, and later pilot test a teaching and learning model to prepare IR4.0 ready graduates; and to identify the reactions of students on the proposed (teaching and) learning model used. This proposed model integrates four domains by Danielson’s Framework for Teaching, and the characteristics of the Thayer System. The researcher argues that these domains and characteristics could contribute to achieving IR4.0 ready graduates. The quantitative approach to research will be used whereby a survey will be first distributed to students on their needs for learning, and then on their whole semester experience of undergoing a learning using the proposed model. The main outcomes of this paper are a new teaching and learning model suitable for preparing IR4.0 ready graduates, and a new understanding on an effective learning environment for facing IR4.0. Students may require different teaching and learning approaches to ensure that they become workforces, who are not only critical of the 21st century challenges but also eloquent leaders.

Keywords:

IR4.0, intellectual leaders of character, pedagogy, learning environment, Danielson’s Framework, Thayer System.