Education is evolving, and so are teachers. Today, some are no longer just standing at the front of a classroom—they’re also creating bite-sized, engaging lessons on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. The rise of teacher-influencers or ‘edufluencers’ is responding to the way students consume knowledge. But is this an innovative leap forward, or does it blur the lines between education and entertainment? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Tay Tien Sing, Director of Partnerships and Prize Initiatives at PEMIMPIN, which is an education not-for-profit organisation that focuses on strengthening leadership in schools.
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00:00hello and good evening i'm melissa idris welcome to consider this this is the show where we want
00:15you to consider and then reconsider what you know of the news of the day education is evolving and
00:21so are teachers today some are no longer just standing in front of a classroom they're also
00:28creating bite-sized engaging lessons on tick tock and instagram and youtube now the rise of the
00:35teacher influencer or edufluencer is responding to the way students consume knowledge but is this
00:42an innovative step forward or does it blur the lines between education and entertainment joining
00:49me now to discuss this further is taytian singh who is director of partnerships and prize initiatives
00:55at pemimpin which is an education not-for-profit organization that focuses on strengthening
01:01leadership in schools um dancing welcome to the show thank you for joining me here today uh what
01:07is pemimpin's view on the this teacher influencer or edufluencer trend what do you guys make of it
01:15thank you very much melissa for having us uh i think i think this idea of teachers making content or
01:21teachers trying to promote their work is something that is we look quite positively towards the
01:25education landscape i think we we oftentimes uh uh have to understand that uh it it gives uh people
01:34from outside of or people who have been sort of outside of education who have sort of left schools in
01:39a long time having a sense of what is happening what is current within uh what is happening within their
01:44children's classroom for example and what are teachers doing in order to best provide the most effective
01:50learning environment for their students and i think fundamentally uh it is a choice that uh teachers
01:56have uh some teachers have made that they have tapped into this wealth of potential that lies within
02:01social media in tiktok uh uh videos and so on in order to make sure that their students not just learn
02:08in the classroom but also have that avenue outside of the classroom to sort of reinforce what they have
02:14learned within i i've i've known teachers uh from the malaysia teacher prize that have done amazing work
02:20in this i think the one that i i remember the most vividly is uh chiku sharil who he has this thing
02:26where he likes to do short videos for primary school maths where he teaches like how do you do
02:32multiplications you know these kinds of tricks in order to master basics and numeracy and he will often do
02:38it when he's on vacation so that he gets a very interesting setting so he could be like behind
02:44some mountains and then just talking about tips and tricks to do multiplication and and that was his
02:49way to try and ensure that his students would find the videos engaging and be reminded of what they
02:55have learned in the classroom and it just gives that extra push uh for them to really uh reinforce
03:00their learning and i think i think that's a wonderful thing uh for us all to see okay that's that's so
03:06interesting um it it sounds like it's a positive step forward but are there any concerns i mean we've
03:13heard comments from the uh minister of communication fami fazil who said that um you know maybe teachers
03:20should avoid um these types of showcasing and at least students within their videos or having anything
03:26to do with students within the videos what are your thoughts on that i i think i think uh definitely when
03:32there are issues that relate to children students we're talking about minors with obviously things
03:38that would come to our attention would be issues of safety and privacy and i think those are the
03:45central tenets that uh every teacher has to abide by whether or not they are using social media right
03:50even in how you conduct the classroom when you bring them out for trips these are these are things
03:54that we have to protect as as an educator and i think with regards to that the ministry has released a
04:00guideline in terms of what are the ethical procedures that come into play whenever a teacher himself or
04:06herself is doing content and more so when they are involving students and i think fundamentally if
04:12teachers are aware of the protocols that need to be abided by uh in protecting the students privacy
04:19and and safety then that should be that should be okay for teachers to proceed in terms of using social media
04:26that they're saying there are those who argue that teachers shouldn't even be content creators because
04:34that should be left to those who are outside the classroom and on the other hand there are people
04:39who say well actually teachers are the most best positioned to create educational content they understand
04:45pedagogy they understand students needs um but what do you think is this is this should teachers be
04:52producing content on top of what they're already doing at in the within the schools i think i think fundamentally
05:00it is a personal choice i think i would like to draw a comparison with uh using social media or using
05:08these kinds of platforms to advocate or to create that space for learning as a choice for teachers to be
05:14able to identify what is the best way that they want to teach their students uh you know times uh you know
05:21technology progresses i think we wouldn't have known in 10 years back in 10 years ago that ai would be a
05:28significant way for us to model things or for us to craft lesson plans and so on and i think in in in
05:34that kind of spirit of teachers continuously learning teachers continuously finding the best ways to
05:40teach their students social media and and content creation becomes a choice for them to decide whether or
05:48not that's the best way they want to move forward similar to back then did they want to use a
05:52projector versus writing on the blackboard right and i think uh we we need to provide teachers with
05:58the autonomy and the space for them to determine what works for their group of students if they find
06:04that for example the group of students that they are working with are much more receptive or develop more
06:11interests in in in terms of learning what they are supposed to learn based on the curriculum through
06:16social media then i think that is something that they have the professional knowledge to make that
06:22choice an example i would love to cite would be i think sir asai is one of the biggest edufuences that
06:28one can think of everybody sort of knows the whole goddard frame i and and i think and i think when when
06:35sir asai started his entire education platform on tiktok and so on his goal was to get his students
06:44to be interested in learning english that's the fundamental goal right to want to learn english
06:50and he needed that entertaining medium in order to pick their interest so that they would then focus
06:55in class and i think to that end he was more successful than he could have possibly imagined in
07:00getting the you know people around the world or people around malaysia that at least to to know
07:06how to spell interesting words and and be interested in the subject so so i think back to the point of
07:13coming back to the question of whether this is going to be on top of what they are doing i think
07:18it's an option that is exists and if the teacher would want to pursue it because they think it's best
07:23for their kids then who are we to say right well but not all teachers have the skills to create um
07:32high quality education i'm thinking about how we can support teachers because if this is essentially
07:38another way to engage students in the it's another it's an evolution of the pedagogy maybe we can help
07:45support and equip teachers with the the skills needed for content creation do you think that content
07:51creation skills should be made part of teacher training should they be uh should we be able to
07:57give them the skills to help them excel and succeed in this actually we have seen a rising surge in
08:05teachers picking up content creation skills and i i want to step a little back in in defining content
08:11creation besides i think we've been talking about real social media posts and so on but i think a lot of
08:16it also comes in terms of designing posters with canva right generating images through ai for example
08:22that kind of content creation skills have seeped into classrooms in the sense that there are teachers
08:28who identify this as a good way to either make their classrooms more interactive or it has also come
08:33into play in terms of how they design student assessment we see that there are teachers who you
08:38know regardless if you teach english or maths maybe an assignment for english would be like oh design a
08:44poster uh talking about a debate competition and then from that uh write an essay based on that for
08:50example and and that's something that teachers who have found the skills to learn canva either through
08:57themselves through online platforms or through professional learning communities amongst teachers
09:03who have been identified to be more master trainers in these kinds of areas we see that kind of network of
09:09teachers supporting each other in order to learn these new skills that they need they feel that they need
09:14to enrich their classrooms uh and of course i think i think in in pemimpin we strongly believe in the
09:21fact that you know if you look at the career span of a teacher for over 30 years these kinds of skills
09:26will the need for new skills will constantly in evolve and that's why in-service teacher development is
09:32is central to making sure that whatever wherever we are in whatever technological period or whatever
09:39advancement has been made teachers have the most up-to-date skills to to transform their classrooms
09:45and make it better for the students okay i mean this is all very positive and i'm glad to hear that
09:50it's a it's a way a way forward um the way you know students are learning the way teachers are teaching
09:57but every new teaching method i think brings benefits and drawbacks and i was hoping we can think about
10:02what we're trading off when um education moves online when education moves to social media platforms
10:09what's gain what's lost in this shift to maybe social media based education i mean what do schools
10:16gain when teachers use more social media as an educational tool but more importantly what do we lose
10:22um and i think so so building on this question and on as we move to social media of course i think
10:31engagement is the main thing that normally drives people to move towards social media and things
10:36became bite-sized you know not longer than 60 seconds uh trying to really fine-tune content that uh that
10:46is fit for purpose for i guess what is a normal attention span of people on social media for example right
10:51and i think i think teachers understand and and and so do we that we cannot substitute
10:59completely a classroom with social media right uh it's one thing building on the example i gave
11:05is one thing to tell you to remind you of a tip on how to do multiplication through a 60 second video
11:12it's a completely different thing to teach you oculus on social media in a 60 second video right
11:17so i think we have to be strategic so that we don't sort of over rely on social media and i think
11:25i think teachers uh have that have that sense of knowledge and autonomy to decide okay this is a
11:31tool that can aid but how does that supplement of feedback to what we are doing in the classroom that
11:36quality time that you have physically or online within the space of that classroom
11:42and so that that that is still where the majority of learning is happening and then social media and
11:48all these other stuff can play as a supplementary role to drive interest to reinforce the learning
11:54uh and make sure that that what we want to achieve with the students uh being prepared for exams being
12:02prepared for what the the knowledge and skills they need to advance in life is acquired right so um are you
12:08seeing more uh teachers using social media as an educational tool in your search for the next
12:17malaysia's teacher prize is that is that what you're seeing is that a trend that you're seeing
12:21actually actually i think i think it's actually not a significant proportion and i think it's i think for
12:30the malaysia teacher prize uh we've been quite fortunate to receive various uh kinds of pedagogical methods
12:37or strategies that teachers like to avoid of course there are teachers who excel in content creation
12:44and they are wonderful for doing that but i think to counteract or to to to balance the entire ecosystem
12:50they are still teachers who are very in in some ways are the fundamentals in terms of how do you create
12:59teaching materials from uh reusable materials recycling you know having that kind of much more tangible
13:06physical kind of physical kind of elements in order to enrich their classrooms uh teachers who who
13:13who still very much value that or doing extracurricular activities outside of building a farm in
13:18their classroom in their schools for example those kinds of experiences and and i think that's that's
13:24the beauty of how teachers are able to adapt and integrate things uh as much as there's a push to
13:31digitalize as a push towards uh using technologies to support whatever teachers can do uh teachers have
13:38managed to both learn new skills and managed to balance that with finding what what fundamentally
13:44is the best way that students can learn uh and and that's and that's that's a beauty to see in in
13:49teachers who apply and in the teachers that we have worked with through workshops and all of that
13:53and and i think that's that's the ecosystem that that we want to build having that network of teachers
13:59they can support each other in regardless of what facet or what domain that they want to they want to
14:06specialize in uh i would say uh uh one one interesting thing was also that uh teachers who
14:14one thing about social media besides i think a lot of the conversation we have been having is about how
14:18the teachers can support student learning i think the the other uncapped potential is social media being this
14:26uh positive space in which teachers support each other we've been seeing growth of teachers uh i not
14:35i think making videos is one thing because i think as you mentioned maybe not all teachers are skilled
14:39content creators or making videos editing and all that sort of stuff right but teachers a lot of teachers
14:46are starting to pour their heart out in terms of how has their journey in being a teacher is what is the
14:52recent strategy that they've been and these are like paragraphs of paragraphs of descriptions how they
14:58feel and everything and and i think that potential for an individual teachers sharing to other teachers
15:07to reinvigorate everybody within profession to inform the public and also to share best practices to learn
15:15from each other having that sense of that communal sense of they're all in this together we're all
15:21trying our you know our best way or putting in our best efforts i think that's a very impactful thing
15:29that i i loved uh through my own social media feed and seeing how teachers tap into that that's wonderful
15:35that's a little community that's been created then say thank you so much for being on the show with me
15:40today i appreciate you and your time uh tay tian singh from pamimbin there we're going to take a
15:45quick break here on consider this we'll be back with more stay tuned