November 2022 – Nuur Alifah Roslan

Time management is a crucial as a student to master it. The time goes by as a blink of eyes, the assignment, project and exercises keep in coming in the to do list- where none of it being strike off yet. The due date make you more pressure. Besides, you also have to jingling the studies with the curricular activities where also will affect the portion of your time. Things become worst when you intend to procrastinate or distract with social media or games while handling a lot of things in your plate. In the end, you became less focus.

A strory to share, when I was pursuing my doctorate studies a few years ago, I struggled with time management issues. It’s difficult to balance work and study. It’s different from my life on campus as a student; even though I’m involved in many programs as a top committee member, I can still manage my time well. When I reflect, it is because during my studies on campus, we did not get too distracted by gadgets and social media. During my bachelor when it is early year 2000, the social media not yet hype as now. The most distract is a computer game and Movie marathon CD’s.

I confess, the social media did effect my productivity and focus. They unintentionally stole my time. Trying to help myself, I start to searching for the solution in how to become more productive and manage my 24 hours a day effectively and keep the motivation and focus. Surprisingly, the solution to my procrastination problem and completing my work on time and happily involves a tomato and taking more.

Start your task, and then set the timer for 25 minutes. I use my phone instead of a tomato timer. breaks. In an effort to control my distractions and prevent both procrastination with a goldfish attention span and all-night study burnout, I discovered The Pomodoro Technique. This time management method, created in the 1980s by Francesco Cirillo, takes its name from the typical tomato-shaped kitchen timer.

The theory behind the system is that by breaking up your work and breaks into regular, brief intervals, you can prevent feeling overburdened by an impending task and also prevent burnout. Basics are as follows:

Start your task, and then set the timer for 25 minutes. I use my phone instead of a tomato timer.
If a diversion occurs, note it down on paper before getting back to your task.
Put a check mark on your paper when the buzzer goes off. You have finished one increment (also known as a pomodoro).
Allow yourself a five-minute break. You can check your thoughts for distractions, stretch, grab a cup of tea, and so on.
Take a thirty-minute break after four pomodoros.
Repeat!

Try it if you want to learn more about time management and how long a task will take to complete, as well as breaking down your workday into manageable tomato-sized bites. All the best!

I inspired by this sharing. In pandemic Covid, I usually search for “study with me” in Youtube. From the searching, I found this sharing. Have a look! ^^

When I brief my colleagues on POMI in a simple word, most of them will take it as a very “common” approach. Some of them claimed, “Yeah, we implement it in our class.”

“Stop a while and asking and answering question, we did it in our class”

“Ahaaa.. we did it, but we did not ‘brand it’ as like this approach “

I just smiled and nodded. Okay, it’s good because it is not something new, and hopefully we keep it that way so that our students do not “sleep,” burn out, or feel bored through our lectures.

What the difference my POMI with the common approach that they are mentioned?

It is well planned and structured for each lecture week
No lengthy-lectures – It is packed and solid deliverable

Creative Class Activities

Student are encourage to answer questions (I am using the Wheel of Names website to pick specific student)

A LOTs of questions and exercises

Before we go any further, let us have a brief introduction to POMI.

POM + I = = Pomodoro + Interactive

As I mentioned in my previous posting, POMI is inspired by a task management. The Pomodoro Technique chunks the time into 25 minutes of doing a task and a 5-minute break. Therefore, I am implementing this approach in my teaching and planning my lecture.

As students, we used to experience a lengthy, nonstop lecture for two hours. There is a time break; however, non-participating students make the class too boring, and the lack of class activity makes us feel like it is too much to absorb. Furthermore, particularly when the lecture notes are uninteresting and the lecturer simply reads the slides until the end of the class. Some lectures have a class activity, but only in the early weeks; from the middle of lecture week until the end, most of the class starts getting bored.

When I am a lecturer, I am experiencing the moment of the lecture where I intend to rush-finish the slides and skip activities and questions because they will consume time. When we conduct a lecture, we call out students to volunteer to answer questions, but there is no response. At the end, we give the answer. The interaction totally failed because we ran out of time to finish the slides for the week.

Reflecting from both points of view, I believe that a well structured teaching approach is needed. The learning outcomes have to be achieved through the topic outcomes, not just by finishing the slides. Besides, a lot of exercises and discussion through the answer help a lot with student understanding.

The e-learning tools help much in designing a fun learning class activity, and they are freely accessible in our LMS (Learning Management System), Putra Blast. A creative class activity makes the POMI learning environment more fun and interactive. Students are more engaged and actively participate, sharing their thoughts.

Therefore, POMI is not as simple as taking a break and lecturing. It is a well-structured framework, a well-planned activity and a well-designed teaching approach that can be customized to any learning outcome and course.

The following is a short presentation details out POMI approach:


  
  

Copy of POMI: A Time blocking & Interactive teaching approach by Nuur Alifah Roslan