Category: 17. Teachers’ PD

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only good and good-er

realised i have not posted to elaborate on the philosophy of ‘good-er’ although i have used the term in a few posts in the past. so shall do it now.

yes, it’s non-existent in English and a grammatically wrong word.
but guess that made the word stands out even more, cos in the ‘good-er’ worldview, there’s no right or wrong; only good, and good-er exist. the philosophy can be interpreted as an extension of the core of the 12 principles of knowledge building (Scardamalia, 2002; Scardamalia and Bereiter, 2006), i.e., improvable ideas.

often, in the ‘right vs. wrong’ world, it’s not uncommon that we hear: ‘this idea is stupid, it is wrong, it’s unacceptable’… and pple began to dismiss their own and others’ ideas and not to mention the emotional side of things, bad, sad, angry …
contrastingly, in the ‘only good and good-er’ world: ‘all ideas are good ideas!”. marrying it with kb’s principle of improvable ideas, all ideas become improvable. end result: all good ideas can and will only become good-er ideas over time.

the good-er philosophy was first instituted as part of my design/model for blended learning for CL teachers’ professional development. it was my research project between 2015-2016 when i was with the SCCL. it’s the first ‘rule’ (among three) that my community of teachers adopt: “只有好，和更好”。 so if u ever need to cite a source for the good-er theory/philosophy, you could either use this blog post (Tan, Y. H. (2024, November 9). Only good and good-er. Edublog.net. https://edublog.net/wp/2024/11/09/only-good-and-good-er/ ), or my handbook if you prefer an earlier source:

Tan, Y. H., Tan, Y. N., & Chow, F. Y. (2019). Blended learning for in-service teachers’ professional development: Handbook for new instructors. Singapore: NTU-SCCL Press.
OR
陈育焕、陈雁妮、周凤儿 (2019). 混成式在职教师培训：新手指导员手册 [Blended learning for in-service teachers’ professional development: Handbook for new instructors]。新加坡：南大-新加坡华文教研中心出版社。

Nov 7, 2024, Co-generative dialogue on educational research @RGS

towards only good and gooder!

Tan, Y. H. (2024, November 9). Only good and good-er. Edublog.net. https://edublog.net/wp/2024/11/09/only-good-and-good-er/

p.s. scan QR code for a draft of the handbook — Tan, Tan, & Chow (2019) — that documented the 2015-2016 research
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blended learning handbook

4.5 years ago, our 3 years’ worth of design, teaching, and research was crystallised into the Blended Learning for In-service Teachers’ Professional Development: Handbook for New Instructors published by NTU-SCCL Press. while the book is still listed on SCCL’s website, the《混成式在职教师培训——新手指导员手册》 appears to be out-of-print. so sharing here a proof copy (not the final imprint) so that readers who are interested can still access the our experiences and knowledge within (:

在线下载 authors’ proof

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on leadership

was reading two books in preparation for an opportunity to extend the lifelong learning experiences, and here are a few quotes (with emphasis added) that appeared in the first book which i found personally meaningful:

“You’re recently promoted. You’re now a vice-president or a provost or a department supervisor. Now the work begins. You haven’t arrived, and you’ve only begun to travel. In the same way, having children means only that the work of becoming a parent has begun. The biological event is very different from the love and commitment, the skinned knees and dirty diapers …… the sacrifices for tuition and music lessons, the laughter and the tears — these kinds of things add up to earning the title ‘Mom’ or ‘Dad’. One becomes a leader, I believe, through doing the work of a leader. It’s often difficult and painful and sometimes even unrewarding, and it’s work …… I hope that you, too, will discover that so much of leadership is music from the heart.”

(De Pree, 2008, p.9-10)

“The promises we make as leaders must resonate with our beliefs and values. Otherwise they ring false, and people know it. In our lives as leaders, we frequently find ourselves in situations where skill and technique fail us. At times, professional qualifications simply aren’t enough. We need to resort to deeper resources, resources beyond technique and the jargon of seminars, resources rooted in our beliefs and values. It behooves us, then, to find our voices.”

(De Pree, 2008, p.28)

“Vision is the basis for the best kind of leadership. A vision exists somewhere when teams succeed. Instinctively, we most of us follow a leader who has real vision and who can transform that vision into a meaningful and hopeful strategy. I’m not talking here about next quarter’s sales targets — that is no vision. But the tenders of visions are often lonely, usually unpopular, and frequently demand that others change. People with a vision injects ambiguity and risk and uncertainty into our lives. They embark on voyages to new worlds.”

(De Pree, 2008, p.31-32)

“Moving up the hierarchy does not confer competence. This is hard to keep in mind …… A promotion likely to pan out produces temporary incompetence, the kind of awkwardness that always comes before deeper understanding. The only appropriate response to a promotion is ‘Good grief, have I got a lot to learn now!‘”

(De Pree, 2008, p.34)

“In a way, leadership is as delicate as Mozart’s melodies. The music exists and it doesn’t. It is written on the page, but it means nothing until performed and heard. Much of its effect depends on the performer and the listener. The best leaders, like the best music, inspire us to new possibilities.“

(De Pree, 2008, p.38)

Reference:
De Pree, M. (2008). Leadership jazz: The essential elements of a great leader. New York: Crown Business.

  • a view of yesterday’s dawn
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class size, learning, and teaching

was at a chat the other day and was prompted the question “people says class size matters. what do you think?” and my response created on-the-fly goes somewhat like this:

the term of ‘class size’ concerns two main ideas: 1. classroom management, and 2. learning. the two ideas are inter-related, but often the first idea may become the focus, especially in a classroom where lessons are transmissionist (i.e., the teacher talks and ‘download’ knowledge to students who are (assumed to be) listening, and learning (is assumed) to take place by (passive) listening with the occasional IRE discourse). in such a case, class size matters if there are many ‘disruptive’ students; but it probably doesnt matter if the students are all students who are non-disruptive to the lesson delivery, and of course, the IRE discourse.

what if learning is a participatory, interactive, and social phenomenon? such learning would often be carried out in group settings. given a class of 40, how many groups should a teacher allow students to form? from a classroom management perspective, the fewer the groups may appear to be easier for managing and control. 40 divided by 8 gives 5 groups, and a teacher needs to only manage 5 groups. however, literature on collaborative learning would advise groups of 3-4 for more effective learning in groups. that would mean 10 groups, doubling the 5 earlier. assuming a teacher has designed and put in place processes and scaffolds to guide effective group work, the teacher’s work does not end here. the teacher now becomes the facilitator of learning. facilitation, a word often used, is difficult in practice as it may require a teacher to analyse the current state of learning, prompt questions, probe students’ thinking, provide alternate perspectives, all actions on-the-fly to effectively customised what s/he is going to say when s/he appears at each group. would class size matter? given that curriculum time is fixed, the amount of meaningful facilitation for deeper learning a teacher can provide to students would be divided by the number of groups. smaller number of groups means more quality time for each group of students. this applies to facilitation of online discourse for learning too. so, does class size matter?

transmissionist or participatory, a teacher will provide assignments for students to complete. given a class of 40, let’s start with transmissionist way of learning – each student is required to submit a 3-min oral performance recorded and uploaded to the LMS, a teacher would need to spend at least 120 mins just to listen to each audio clip, without considering the amount of time needed to assess, think, and provide meaningful feedback to each student/recording. if the class is made up of 30 students, the difference would be 30 mins of listening time. the same computation can apply to written assignments too. if learning is participatory – each student is required to write an online post, and thereafter reply to at least 2 peers’ posts to learn through interaction. the number of posts a class of 30 students, versus a class of 40 students, could be significantly different. so, does class size matter?

classroom students photo

so in conclusion, does class size matter? your perspective (and conception) of learning would determine the answer.

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