GASEMSIN 271

Yanin Namtip Gasemsin

Mr. Abel Cadias

English 10 / 1004

June 4, 2018

Improving MUIDS Period 7 Activities

Almost every high school around the world provides after-class or extracurricular

activities that students participate after school; they include tutoring, sports activities, and

clubs. These extracurricular activities can help students to find their goals and their

pathways in the future, improve the students' skills outside the classroom, provide social

opportunities, and the activities also are productive free time for the students. From these

advantages, it would be more beneficial if schools have varieties of extracurricular

activities. In most Thai schools, there are also a lot of extracurricular activities provided

for the students to do after school and in their free time. At MUIDS, the school also

provides extracurricular activities in period 7 for the students, such as peer tutoring,

volleyball training, and the Model United Nations (MUN) club. However, there is not

much variety of period 7 activities, so the author believes that there are ways to improve

afterschool activities in Mahidol University International Demonstration school. The

purpose of this research report is to identify the problems of Mahidol University

International Demonstration school 7th-period activities and suggest ways to improve

them in order to provide the solution and persuade Mahidol University International

Demonstration school’s director the suggestions to the problems of period 7 activities.

The author uses eight academic articles from different sources and an interview to gather

the data and opinions. In order to improve period 7 activities at Mahidol University

International Demonstration school, the school should provide more variety of activities

and give more opportunity for the clubs to show their work.
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Importance of Period 7 Activities and Extracurricular Activities

At MUIDS, there are many factors that decrease the effectiveness of 7th-period

activities, therefore, the activities should be improved because these extracurricular

activities are important for the students’ future. Firstly, participating in the period 7

activities will allow the students to gain many necessary skills including many life skills,

specific skills, social intelligence from the activities and time management. According to

Crimson (n.d.), one of the greatest benefits that the students gain from the activities are

the real life skills. The real life skills contain goals setting: the students need to set their

aim in the clubs’ activities, for example, in sports activities, most of the athletes aim for

winning and the improvement of their skills. In the future, the graduated students will

also need to set their ambition in their future careers. Leadership and public speaking are

one of the life skills the students will gain: many activities require the students to lead the

teams activities and also require the participators to share their opinions, such as MUN at

MUIDS or debate club. These extracurricular activities also improve the students’ social

skills. “Students should be encouraged to pursue extracurricular activities as they meet

and spend time with new people, hence forming new friendships,” mentioned Nicole

Jackson, 2017. The students also get the opportunity to actively work with other people

which also improve their socializing skill and cooperativeness. Many extracurricular

activities take the students to visit many new places, so the students get more social

opportunity (Crimson, 2017). According to Mountains Height Academy (n.d), it is

mentioned that many students improved their time management when they add

extracurricular activities to coursework-filled schedules has the effect of improving time

management. Moreover, the time they spent with extracurricular activities is also

productively used. Many activities developed students’ specific skills based on the

activities, for example, MUN club at MUIDS; this club trained the students for debating
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which the students will gain a professional public speaking skill. Most importantly for

most of the students, the students will be able to explore their interest. As mentioned

above, many extracurricular activities are career based activities, so the students who

participate will get the opportunity to find out their career paths (Crimson, 2017).

The Causes and Problems

In order to find solutions to the problems of MUIDS period 7 activities, the causes,

and specific problems are needed to be identified. As the author interviewed the students

about MUIDS period 7 activities, there is one main problem which is the students do not

join period 7 activities, but this problem is composed of many small factors. According

to the survey, most of the students mentioned that the biggest problem that causes them

not to join the extracurricular activities is that the schedule of the clubs overlaps each

other. In a week, there are four hours of period 7 activities, excluding Tuesday which has

no club or period 7 activities, and some clubs occupy already two to three days, so the

students cannot participate in every activity they want because they need to go to other

clubs first. Moreover, it is mentioned that the school sometimes have academic activities

that overlap period 7, so they need to participate in the school’s activities before they

participate in their clubs. In addition, many students also mentioned that they did not

know about period 7 activities in MUIDS well; they did not know what clubs were

provided the school and also there’s not enough advertisement or presentations that can

make the students know more about the clubs. Another important factor for MUIDS

period 7 activities to be improved is that there are not enough variety of activities, for

example, sports activities, MUIDS provides afterschool training with professional

teachers for only Basketball, Volleyball, and Soccer. There are other sports that the

students want to have after-school training including Table Tennis, Badminton, Rugby,

etc. Specifically, about sports activities, a lot of sports leagues that MUIDS join require
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the students to go out of the school in school time and they missed class, so the students

do not have much encouragement to join sports activities in period 7 and after school.

Some problems also come from the students, which is the students are not free in period

7; many students take extracurricular courses outside the school, so they do not have time

to participate in period 7 activities at MUIDS. As mentioned above, although MUIDS

have some variety of activities, the activities and clubs provided by school do not catch

students’ interest and do not suit students’ need; some students want to participate in

activities that are related to their interests their future careers, for example, photographer

club. All the small factors decrease the students’ participation in MUIDS period 7

activities, so we need to find the solutions to these problems in order to improve MUIDS

period 7 activities.

Solutions to the Problems

From the problems about MUIDS period 7 activities mentioned above, various

solutions are needed to be made in order to improve 7th-period activities at MUIDS.

MUIDS needed to add more various types of clubs and period 7 activities. Some of the

activities include Academics teams and clubs, for example, Science club, more culture

clubs and variety of sports activities. About the schedule alignment, the school can add

clubs and activities on Tuesday which currently has no extracurricular activities.

Organizing clubs to fit appropriate time is also required, for instance, many of the students

attend only one culture club, so the school can Spanish club and Japanese club at the same

day on period 7. Moreover, many sports activities’ leagues require the students to miss

some classes during the school time to compete in the league. The school needs to

organize those activities not to overlap the school time. These particular solutions will

enable the students to participate their preferred activities more easily because they will

have clear schedules and also clear timelines of their activities. Some problems were
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created by the activities organizing process. The school needs to be more strict about the

clubs activities by having clearer schedules and proper activities. Many activities don't

have their particular time, for example, some clubs change their activity time according

to the head of the clubs, and some clubs also needed confirmations to start the club in

each day. There should be students doing the role of the activities’ or clubs’

representatives so that the activities will not always need the teacher to control or take

care of the clubs every time, and the students will also be able to participate in their

activities more strictly. In addition, the students will also have more motivation in

participating their extracurricular activities. One of the solution that the school can make

after having the students to join the activities is that MUIDS could give more development

hours for the activities, for example, some extracurricular sports activities do not give

development hours to the participators, so there are fewer students joining sports activities

in the evening.

Conclusion

This research report aimed to suggest improvements and solutions to the problems

of period 7 activities at MUIDS. This research report concludes that there are many

problems that caused the students not to participate 7th-period activities at MUIDS, and

they can be solved by adding more variety of activities, improving schedule alignment

and giving more development hours. The students will participate more extracurricular

activities, and they will gain more skills and social opportunity for their future. This

research report recommends further studies on each activity’s advantages and ways to

make the students participate in each particular 7th-period activities.

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References

Jackson N. (2017). The role of extracurricular activities in a student's development.

Retrieved May 21, 2018 from https://www.theeducator.com/blog/role-
extracurricular-activities- students-development/

Waterloo Region Record. Extracurricular activities allow students to develop critical

life-skills. (2013). Retrieved May 21, 2018 fromhttps://www.therecord.com/
opinion-story/3242643-extracurricular-activitie s-allow-student s-to-develop-
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Landau N. (n.d.). Top 7 Benefits of Extracurricular Activities For High School

Students. Retrieved May 21, 2018 from https://blog.crimsoneducation.org/blog/
benefits-extracurricular-activities

Ramby K. (2017). Why Extracurricular Activities are Important to Your Education

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Mountain Heights Academy. (n.d.). Extracurricular Activities Are So Important.

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extracurricular- activities-are-so-important/

Gordon Surry School. (n.d.). Period 7 Activities. Retrieved May 21, 2018 from
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Varsity Tutors. (2014). 7 extracurricular activities that can enhance your college
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Testive. (n.d.). Ultimate List of Extracurricular Activities to Spark Inspiration.

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