– a Singaporean teacher's storeroom 🖖
posted this on fb yesterday:
yes, u’ll most likely agree that the mba, mbp, vaio & micro$oft mouse combi makes good paper weight 😉
today, the pile of papers, ring-binded, was handed up.
and the paper weights lost their job, and returned to their usual boring functions 😛
the next round of Studio 12592 is planned to start on 18/1 (Wed). this year, two of our fellow learners/comrades are taking leave from work to go overseas, effectively reducing the active group by 50%. the statistically significant reduction in number creates the possibility of not enough minimum number to get the course running. tried to get new learners on-board whilst fully appreciate the madness in school (esp. Jan and CNY’s round the corner; getting later dismissal times; not getting less CCAs). shall see if we have enough 有缘人 this time round (: #不是没有心学习 #challengeOfTeachers #challengeOfFacilitator
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update 10/1
my course is CANCELLED administratively cos at ‘deadline’ i have but only 1-2 registrations. traisi/ast side’s SOP stops accepting registration 2(?) weeks before a course starts. the school just re-opened for a 4-day week. if teachers have submitted their application, the ROs may not have had the chance to approved the application. and if communications’ needed in-between application and approval, this would have delayed the application process. have feedback to dean/curriculum to ask if the SOP can be reviewed for courses starting in early/mid-january.)
the last downunder road trip that i have blogged was in 2011. 5 years later, we revisited australia on another road trip, this time round around brisbane and tasmania. a brief recap of the itinerary for future reference:
day 1: spent flying. reached brisbane after 8pm. checked in to an apartment booked via Airbnb at The Peninsula @Surfers’ Paradise. the view was marvellous at 28th floor (:
day 2: sea world. the dolphin show was good as ever, and so was the seal detective show. the rays in the pool appeared to have grown quite a bit; din recall so many mega-rays the last time we were there.
day 3: movie world. many of the rides were closed for maintenance. we spent most time on shows, food, and bumper car (:
day 4: Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. yes we went back to visit the wild lorikeets! a lot came during the late afternoon feeding (:
day 5-6: Farmstay @Byron Bay. this is the first time we had our supply of drinking water from rain, and washing water from some dam in the area 😛
day 7: return to south brisbane; stayed in another airbnb studio apartment unit. 有缘 to meet up and dine with 伊婷.
day 8: took a Virgin Australia flight to Hobart; the legroom is surprisingly spacious for economy seats. collected the Frontier from Britz. this is a mega 6-berth campervan. the internal space is very much larger than the 4-berth we had for our past 3 experiences (including the 2011). the reason we booked this instead of the Explorer was the price difference between the two happened to be quite minimal. destination was Port Arthur holiday park for the evening.
day 9: tasman island cruise’ 3 Hour Wilderness Cruise. we had relatively good weather that morning, but the waves were still huge at times. the ride in the speed boat and the view/scenery was an experience. the same evening, we had a Ghost Tour of the historic site; had an entertaining evening of (good) ghost stories.
day 10: wineglass bay. it was a relatively cloudy day, but when we climbed and reached the wineglass bay lookout, the sun was out, and we had a treat to the nice scenery of the bay. there was a wallaby that found a green apple core and was chewing away while we were at the lookout.
day 11: Launceston bay of fires. very fine white sands, orange granite and the blue waters are what attracted visitors to the long stretch (bay). reached cradle mountain for the evening. the camp kitchen had two fireplaces with wood burning away to generate heat. the fussball in the corner was the highlight (:
day 12: cradle mountain. took the dove lake circuit. this is the first time yh3 and yh4 conquered a 6-km near 3 hours walk. drove to Strahan for the evening. stopped by to climb and witness a massive sand dunes created by wind/nature forces.
day 13: it was a rainy day, otherwise we may have revisited the sand dunes. drove back to Hobart, and stayed at the Airport Tourist Park on a powered site.
day 14: this is the day to return the campervan. but before the 3pm deadline, we ventured onto Mount Wellington. it was an adhoc trip so we realised we were ill-dressed for the 2-degrees temperature and strong wind at the summit. we were out of the campervan for less than 10 minutes and we made our descent without even taking any panoramic shots from the top. it’s just too freezing COLD! returned the campervan, and walked back to the tourist park. we stayed in a cabin for the rest of the day.
day 15: time to fly home. as we had a lot of time on our hand (checkout was at 11am; flight at 3:30pm), we had wanted to pull our luggage and walked slowly to the airport along a 1.6km stretch. but, it was in Australia, and a kind-hearted local who was on his way to fetch his wife and also happened to take a less-taken road offered us a ride. and yes, we took the ride, and the 1-hour walk became a 3-mins drive. the flight from hobart to melbourne was delayed, but luckily it didnt affect us from catching the connecting flight to SG. and at 2355hr, we were back in T3.
that’s all folks (:
prior to operationalising some (new) pedagogy, teaching approach, methods, or (fill in the blank), something needs to be addressed. we just so happen to talk abt this over lunch yesterday in our 3-men gathering. and a while ago, this post was surfaced via su fen‘s fb feed “How to Design a Classroom Built on Inquiry, Openness and Trust“. 无巧不成书也。
as the word “How to” in the title suggests, the article primarily addresses the Operational aspects of things. but the experience from my recent work, coupled with past experiences, tells me that something probably needs to be addressed prior to operations — the Psychological aspect. to be specific, the Beliefs (of teachers; note: not students, yet). questions to be addressed would include:
what are your beliefs about Learning? what are your assumptions about how your students learn? what beliefs of learning are the target/new pedagogy/approach/method founded on? how does these match/clash with your current beliefs/assumptions? going a step further, how many or which of these are informed or guided by Learning Sciences?
w/o addressing Psychology/Beliefs, teachers can probably still psuedo-operationalise anything. and the end results would likely be akin to SDL = student completes assigned homework independently; CoL = working in groups. and when the boss doesn’t ‘demand’ it anymore, would the practice still stays, or we go back to square one? as a side note, we discussed abt the practice of ‘lesson study’ in school during lunch yesterday.
while belief(s) cannot be changed overnight, it needs to be addressed right at the beginning, and revisited very often. why? so that it becomes something teachers include in their review/reflection of their practice/operations. in doing so, we’ll likely see more successful shifts and hear more success stories. this is #myHypothesis w/o digging into the literature yet 😛
Photo by el_rogos 
“(contrary to commonly held notions) change in teachers’ attitudes and beliefs is primarily a result, rather than a cause, of change in the learning outcomes of students. In the absence of evidence of positive change in students’ learning, it suggests that significant change in the attitudes and beliefs of teachers is unlikely.” (Guskey, 2002, p.386)
— chanced upon via tandfonline