Developing innovative human capital in Malaysian polytechnic students through changing lecturers' beliefs

Malaysia aspires to become a developed nation by 2020. Thus, polytechnics are entrusted to develop the skills that will feed into that development through innovative and up-to-date curricula. Regrettably, ESL lecturers hold solely to traditional methods that do not help 21st century learners grow in the ways they should enable them to make a significant contribution in society. The question of why this is the case is one that I am motivated to understand as a researcher. Namely I seek to understand the following: ‘What prevents lecturers from changing their practice?’, ‘Can lecturers’ practice be changed and how?’ and ‘What does this change mean to my institution and country? ’. My research to date suggests that the issue lies in ‘teachers’ cognition’ (Borg, 1997) and the need to ‘reshape’ those cognitive paradigms. Here, I argue that blended learning (Sharma & Barret, 2007) has the power, if carefully instituted, to bring about that shift. I explore why this is the case.