MINOR PROJECT - TEACH FOR MALAYSIA

27.08.20 – 08.12.20 (Week 1 – Week 16)

Helen Angelia (0336203)

Minor Project

Teach for Malaysia

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INSTRUCTIONS

Module Information Booklet (MIB)

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Week 1

In the first week of Minor Project, the class is separated into 5 groups which each group has 6 people in it and had to work on 5 projects. The first three projects were for collaboration between Business School and IT School, while the other two projects were selected from the students' ideas and preference.

The group that I chose is the 4th Project which is Teach for Malaysia, a non-profit organization that is on a mission to give each child in Malaysia a chance to attain an excellent education. You can find out more information on their website: Teach for Malaysia.

TFM project group members are Helen Angelia, Arissa Alyna, Catherine Starlie, Farah Syahirah, Kim Chan Hee, and Lee Gahyeong (Amber). The six of us work together in a group to create a solution for the problems Teach for Malaysia was facing.

Week 2

In the second week, the students are given a Google Docs document prepared by Mr. Mike and things we needed to fill out. In this document, all of the Teach for Malaysia project's progress and consultation reports were written in detail.

Besides the Google Docs, Mr. Mike also gave us lectures by letting us watch videos and discuss together in the class about design thinking to have a better image of what to do for the Minor Project.

Week 3

For this week, the lecturer introduced us to Miro Board where the students could collaborate together and made it easier for us to work in the Covid-19 Pandemic. This is especially useful for my group as most of us are international students and not all of us could go to university.

Fig 1 | Miro Board

Mr. Mike told us to make one for our group and not to forget to share it with him, so he could edit or make comments on our progress.

Week 4 – Week 5

The group made 1st attempt on Miro Board. As we did not know where to start, I suggested to everyone to fill out the Google Docs in the Miro Board. This is so we could brainstorm there and only put our final answers in the Docs. However, there are many parts that need to be revised.

Fig 2 | Challenge Identification and Analysis, Project Plan, Project Brief, Target Audience, and Empathy Final Outcome

After we fixed it, we also made interview questions and arrange an online interview meeting with our Minor Project's client, Mr. Kevin Tham.

Fig 3 | Interview Questions and Observations

After we did the interview, we needed to find out more information on a few numbers and Mr. Mike suggested us to do follow-up interview questions which are through email. Besides preparing the questions, the group also did observation on Teach for Malaysia's official YouTube videos.

Week 6

This week, all of us moved on to the ideation part. As one of the keys to the problem's solution is to recruit fresh graduates and working professionals, the people need to have enough understanding of the requirements needed from TFM. However, not all of them read thoroughly from the information given on the website and this leads TFM to cut 10,000 registration in 2017 to only 100 people and 59 accepted to join the Fellowship Programme.

Once all information was gathered, we made the problem statement.

Fig 4 | Ideation and Problem Statement

Week 7 – Week 10

Here is the proposal presentation the group has created and presented it to Mr. Kevin:

Week 11
The presentation with Mr. Kevin did not go well. Most of our ideations are already implied by Teach for Malaysia themselves and the client requested another fresh and out-of-the-box ideas from the students. 
Based on the information given by Mr. Kevin himself on both online meeting and email interview, the new solution that has arisen is the newly created online learning programme TFM uses that is brought by YTL Foundation. As it has just come out in November 2020, there was still no animation marketing strategy made to promote it. Therefore, the group decided to go with making infographic video for our final outcome. 

Fig 5 | Customer Journey Map

We consulted with Mr. Mike about this as well and he told us to email Mr. Kevin about our next plan, which is making an infographic video and to ask for his feedback.

Fig 6 | Other Sources of Information

Week 12 – Week 16
In one week, we received approval from Mr. Kevin, plus extra information from trusted sources. As we have also decided the final outcome of the project and gained approval from Mr. Mike, we all then began to make final preparations for the Minor Project.
Below is the final compilation and reflection of the whole Minor Project:

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REFLECTIONS

EXPERIENCES

During my study in Minor Project, I have learned and experienced a lot of things, starting from teamwork, time management skills, leadership quality, problem analysis, critical thinking, project planning, etc. However, there were problems I had to deal with as well. I was always nervous whenever the Minor Project class started, afraid if I had made mistake, and directed my team on the wrong path as their leader. 

But what I like about this class was that the fact Mr. Mike had always helped the students in our work even in his busy times. I'm aware of this when he couldn't give an immediate reply and couldn't help directly to solve the student's problems. However, he always gives detailed explanations and answered all the students' questions if any one of us still did not understand what to do.

The Minor Project is very challenging, but it was good learning for me to help make myself a good designer. Besides Minor Project, I had actually applied my studies and knowledge from this module to other projects and it works really well. It was a really good experience for me as I have experienced the failure that I need to reflect on.

OBSERVATIONS

I have seen and gathered a lot of information with my groupmates. Observations in doing projects are crucial for designers to execute design thinking. However, I always have this feeling where there are no endings in information gathering. The TFM group did our best in this project, but I feel that I have to observe more from now on and reflect on the mistakes or achievements I will make in the future.

FINDINGS

From my experiences, I found a lot of learnings and experiences throughout the semester. I found out how to analyze the challenge, make the project brief, doing the empathy part, defining insights and ideas, making the problem statement, and made the final outcome of the project which is making 3 infographic videos. Not only that, but I also learned what I couldn't learn in just my animation and visual effects specialization. I knew more about graphic design and creative design thinking.