TYH – Page 38 – EduBlog.NET v4

November 3, 2014March 28, 2017

sdl, col, and desired outcomes of education

— update 27/3/17 —

– revised DOE webpage URL in footer
– be able to think for and express themselves confidently (revised to include SDL at pri level)

— update 27/7/15 —

revised the headings of the comparison table

— end of update

3-4 years back, our team attempted to rationalise the link between mp3 student goals (self-directed learning “SDL”, and collaborative learning “CoL”) and MOE’s 21st century competencies.

in my professional development work with primary and secondary school teachers, a question that has been lingering at the back of my mind for a very long time but somehow i couldn’t figure out a way to make things more manageable for teachers: “among the many SDL/CoL competencies, what is expected at primary level, and what is expected at secondary level?” to a teacher, it would mean the ‘extent to teach’, and in turn affects the design of teaching and learning activities. in other words, with a ‘baseline’ in mind, a teacher will be able to know the minimum expectation, while working towards stretching his/her students’ potential.

and this morning, i may have found a way: in our context, teachers teach towards the Desired Outcomes of Education, and key stages with related attributes have been defined. i attempt to map keywords in the outcomes at different stages, with SDL and/or CoL, depending on which competency the outcome is closer to. as i argue that an SDLearner is found in the CoL situation, some ticks in the the SDL column could see a tick in the CoL column too if i choose. if. and here is my attempt in Acrobat X PDF:

therefore, if i am a primary school teacher, i am expected to develop an SDLearner who knows his/her strength, is curious, and takes pride in his/her work. in terms of CoL, s/he needs to be able to cooperate (cf. collaborate), share & care for fellow group mates, and be able to express him/herself in a group.

if i am a secondary school teacher, i am expected to develop an SDLearner who is able to adapt to change, creative, and takes on responsibility for his/her own learning. in terms of CoL, s/he is an empathetic team player who appreciates the diverse views in a group; effective communication is a group is but an extension from primary school.

of cos that being said, there’s no stopping for any teacher from stretching and developing their students beyond the above ‘baseline’. an effective teacher is one who is able to 因材施教 (：

November 2, 2014November 13, 2014

reflection on course 12470-00002 facilitation

it’s exactly the 2 weeks’ mark from the first lesson of the 2nd run of ICT for SDL and CoL Clinic course that i am facilitating. this time round, i have 7 participants, 3 less than the first. the make up of this group is very unique: 2 CL master teacher colleagues, 2 ex-NIE students, and 3 other eager pairs of eyes that i met for the first time. it’s always exciting to befriend new fellow CL teachers and catch up with ‘old’ CL teacher friends/colleagues alike (:

so how did the online interactions go so far? to-date, 3 online activities i’ve designed as part of the online interactions were initiated. the 1st introductory post was completed without much difficulties, and the “1+2” interactions too. good job teacher participants!

the 2nd post on SDL streamed in more slowly. there was not a single post past the deadline. i emailed a gentle a reminder and was glad to see one post appearing soon after. and another, and another, and soon the rest came in. all except one, cos the teacher is away in shanghai on a study trip. there was a case of OPAL script causing trouble, and a participant lost all her effort and time in the posting work! need to remember to highlight such possibility to participants in future, and suggest some precautionary measures. my bad for forgetting to do this earlier 🙁 let’s hope the repost will come in soon.

content-wise for the SDL posts, there were some exchange of ideas and a couple of questioning. more than the first round in fact. however, critical questioning that attempts to “dig deeper” into underlying meaning, assumptions, and conceptions are still in lacking. my hypotheses include (1) teachers are more comfortable with being friendly towards fellow teacher/participants; critical questioning steps outside such cultural norm, and (2) teachers are not familiar with the ‘expectation’ to pose questions to further clarify things that may not been spelt out clearly, yet. i’ve tried to post some questions to dig deeper. let’s see if the behaviour gets replicated.

the 3rd activity is the first of a series of weekly reflections. it’s meant to be completed two days ago. but to-date, there’s only 1 piece of “我觉得……” up. it’s posted by Sean, he who asked if “participants need to post reflections, do ‘teacher’ also need to also conduct reflection” during the first f2f session. looks like this could be taking up the 2nd position 😛 i’ve sent out another email reminder. and 3 participants already responded to my instruction to acknowledge receipt.

tmr marks the start of the 4th online activity — threads on CoL. but before that, i hope more weekly reflections will come in (:

reflection photo acknowledgement: Photo by marionberaudias

September 6, 2014September 25, 2014

I hear I forget, I see I remember, I do I understand, origin

I have nothing against the quote “I hear I forget, I see I remember, I do I understand.” It’s very meaningful…

But, please don’t attribute it to Confucius!

The closest that can be found is from Xunzi.

《儒效篇》荀子曰: “不闻不若闻之，闻之不若见之，见之不若知之，知之不若行之；学至于行之而止矣。”
(Not hearing is not as good as hearing, hearing is not as good as seeing, seeing is not as good as knowing, knowing is not as good as acting; only when there is action can learning be considered as accomplished)

— reposted from yh2’s fb status update on Sep 6.

September 4, 2014September 4, 2014

giving an A …

we first came across the idea of “giving an A” from Benjamin Zander‘s Teachers’ Day Conference 2002 (i think) held at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, and i recall we were among 4000-5000 teachers seated in the session.

one day to teachers’ day, or 3 days past teachers’ day, depending on which school of thought you subscribing to. yesterday afternoon, the second/final f2f meeting of 12470 draws a conclusion to the course, and at the same time opens up a new beginning for the 10 CL teachers who have walked the learning journey together for the past 1 month (:

giving an A, is probably hard to achieve in a pseudo-student centric classroom set up cos the assessment system is still largely assessing in an efficiency-driven model based on statistical paradigm. however, giving an A can also be a teacher’s mindset. in retrospect, i may have given all the teacher participants an A right at the beginning, metaphorically. while it’s great that our workshop need not talk about assessment (excluding the SFT of cos), grades as such, i wonder if some teachers may have taken some time to adjust to the state of “i too have a voice, just like everyone else” in a course. there’s no right or wrong, just good, gooder, and how one contributes to the group’s effort to improve these two over time. adopting a constant grade mindset essentially frees up the brain cells worrying about grades (not that grade matters in this course), but allows one to focus his/her energy on contributing to his/herself, and fellow peers’ improvement.

as a teacher educator-cum-co-learner, giving fellow teachers an A (mindset) allows me to join the teachers in becoming better teachers, over time, for all participants and facilitator(s) alike (:

regardless of which day you celebrate teachers’ day (actual or psychological activity), may i wish all of us a Happy Teachers’ Day! 😀

学然后知不足, 教然后知困。《礼记‧学记》