– a Singaporean teacher's storeroom 🖖
#throwback to monday 18/9, it’s the 3rd f2f session of the last round of 12470 for the year. and it could be the last round for good. how fascinating! and here’s the group photo of 12470-00009:
looking forward to more opportunities to shift CL teachers’ epistemology and to co-create knowledge in 2018.
yesterday was the 3rd and last f2f session for this year’s only run of Clinic 12470. of course, we know one reason behind that is the “17 hours” course time. shorten it to attract pple we gonna try, but 经常吃药的人都知道——苦口良药；if u need to take 2 panadol but took only 1 becos a pill is so hard to swallow, are u going to get well? panadol perhaps, other drugs perhaps not.
anyway, yesterday the following 有缘人 came, 燕玲、常征、兴汉 being course participants; 保勝 who came, chose to audit, but after tea-break came in to join the conversation. and we have 雁妮 and 温韫 auditing the session too. i wonder what are the observers’ thought on the session yesterday. 美琪 was called up to be oral examiner last minute so couldn’t join us; but we have voice-recorded the dialogues for her review (:
comparing the way i go about facilitating the last f2f sessions (this is the 5th time), yesterday’s session was so far the most 淡定。i think i have reached a new level of awareness – 课题在有限的时间是聊不完的。与其求多而点到为止（虽然还是很多点到为止），倒不如更深究一两点（虽然还是有限的深入）。 and so, we basically only focused on the topic of Jigsaw method just before tea at 1550hr. one whole hour deliberating the method and its considerations. how inefficient!!! yes perhaps so, if one were to treat learning in production mode; this type of production line seriously tan-bo-jia (赚没吃)。but there again, education/learning is not a profit/loss business to me. in learning, there’s only gain albeit at slow pace. 只有好和更好 (:
just wanted to take a personal note that it take time to “let go” of the efficiency mode towards teaching — fill up the vessels in participants with as much contents in as little time as possible. the current state of “letting go” took me 2 yrs to reach. 今天讲不完或没聊到，来日方长嘛。迟早会有机会碰到遇到聊起的。
a key enabler of this mindset is perhaps the effect of the course design — the clinic-studio pair. thanks Victor once again for co-creating this design. i have so far treated clinic’s primary purpose as a culture-building-setting-altering time. i take a slow 1.5 mths to get participants to reflect on learning – how they are learning; and how they are getting students to learn. and a safe environment to discuss, think, voice and exchange opinions. a culture of “no right or wrong”. the topic and objectives on paper are always covered during this time, but it’s a secondary concern from my facilitator’s perspective.
the last thing that i want to note down is the Course Feedback form that is in a way not designed with knowledge creation in mind, but more from the perspective of vessel-filling.
for e.g., “I can apply the ideas/knowledge/skills learnt from the course.”
– “CAN APPLY” oversimplifies teaching as a complex entity. this is as if describing downloading an app on an iPad, install, tap and it will execute. are teachers iPads or robots that can be flashed firmware, and begin production straight away? not to mention our course is not designed to “hand out” knowledge (if it can be handed out), nor to prepare knowledge to fill the vessels that come (if knowledge can be poured to fill). it’s about co-creation of knowledge. and we are talking abt 21st century competencies, advancing 21st century teaching and learning. it’s time to revisit the assumption of mass-production mode of learning in this qn.
another e.g., “The presentation was clear.”
– a knowledge creation-backed question should be “the FACILITATION was effective.” Presentation suggests a vessel-filling, sit-copy-receive-and-learn metaphor. it’s again the mass-production assumption of learning behind this qn.
enough said for now. until next time (:
语言是人的思维的外现、载体。语言反映了一个人的理解与思考。这里的语言专指遣词用字。这几年，可能是读书的后遗症，我对于个人的遣词用字，尤其是在其他华文老师面前，更是非常谨慎。不仅如此，只要有机会，我也会尝试唤起其他华文老师对他们个人的遣词用字的意识。
过去三天一共开了四门课（三门玩转科技、一门Clinic）。昨天的Clinic来了四位有缘人（少了一位临时被校方指派带学生出国）。课上当然少不了上述的动作。从几位新朋友的反馈中，看得出他们对于科技在华文教学中的定位开始有了新的思考，即由ICT是辅助教学，过渡到ICT是促成教学的那么一个定位。
“辅助”在我们一般非学术性的理解，即可有可无（cf. 辅助读本、读物、刊物）。
“促成”即若不存在了，则无戏可唱也。当然，ICT的定位若是促成教学，则必得从ICT的affordance出发作思考。
今天打开早报网，就看到了《为激发学生对华文兴趣费尽心思 ，十一教师获颁全国模范华文教师奖》。非常恭喜这11位教师，以及许多没有获奖的教师朋友们辛苦了。
当然，熟悉我的朋友都知道我看了这一组标题会有什么”反应”。
这一组标题中有一个令我非常反应大的词，即“兴趣”。而且还出现了7次。“反应”之大大至我的论文研究所做就是拜其所赐（下载后看一看第5页的中文摘要）。
一个人学习的原因种种，“兴趣”只是百般原因之一。一个人之所以学（或不学），应该归咎于“动机 motivation”。学生学任何学科学得如何，是动机所致。简单地把学习和“兴趣”挂钩，第一、我会反问“没有兴趣就不能学了吗？”；第二、这或许无意识地泄漏了个人认知的有限。语言反映思维，如果认知中有上述的理解，为什么舍“动机”而用“兴趣”呢？第三、这反映了华文老师的不够专业。“兴趣”一词，大多数非教育工作者都说得出。“动机motivation”却是一个相对专业的名词。要提升华文老师的专业身份，反映我们对于教学的认识与思考，我们得在用语上求专业化。
语言反映思维，思维则影响教学设计。从专业的思考出发，一套引起“兴趣”的教学设计 vs. 一套引起“学习动机”的教学设计，你认为会有不同吗？为什么？ (:
再说回上面ICT的话题，一个ICT作辅助的教学设计 vs. 一个ICT促成学习的教学设计，你认为会有不同吗？为什么？ (:
this week marks the 6th week into our course. next Wed (15/7), we’re meeting up for our last f2f discourse. 好事多磨, the final lesson originally planned for 14/7 crashes with at least 4 participants who are also oral examiners performing their last day of duty for the GCE O-level exams. as such we’ve agreed to shift the date to 15/7, and hopefully more teachers can turn up.
taking a glance at the discussion forum, we are seeing record-low number of participation in the online discussion in the 帖子B posting. only 3 out of 6 expected posts came in. why did this happen? perhaps i wasn’t clear enough in the explanations of the requirements, as such teachers do not know what to do? possible, but i did not receive any clarification email/fb pm/sms/whatsapp, which i should if any of the SDLearner needs help. or, perhaps the course ‘cut across’ june holidays, and other plans take priority? or, any other reason(s)? perhaps my participant friends could let me know 😉
after our 2nd f2f, to date, only 1 帖子C posting came in before school reopens. this morning we see another posting sharing some good work carried out since school reopens for term 3 🙂 so once again, why is the qty so low? it will be interesting to hear the reason(s) too.
a tally of weekly reflection pieces, 4 contributions by 2 participants (out of max. 6 pax). yes, it’s definitely on the low side too. perhaps like what Sean twice mentioned “you made a great assumption that your learners are all highly motivated.” 🙂 yes, i do take that as a basic assumption as i believe that a teacher is a daily role model to our students. if we want our students to love learning, we have to embrace learning ourselves. students don’t just learn the ‘contents’ that we gonna push to them (assuming pushing = learning). there’s more to learning a subject per se 🙂
while planning next week’s meet up, i am toying with an idea of setting aside 15 mins for some personal quiet moment to do a consolidation of the past 6-7 weeks’ experience. will not reveal the title, if there’s one, for now (:
it’s been 3 weeks since the course started on 2/6. this is the first time Clinic is conducted with 3x face-to-face. an additional f2f session’s added in between based on our own reflection of the past runs, and participants’ feedback.
this time round, we have 7 participants who came. 1 MIA-ed, while 1, prior to the first f2f, was advised to sign up for the next run as the teacher couldn’t make it for this afternoon’s f2f, and the final f2f. during the first f2f, i learnt that another of the 7 belongs to this case. would have advised the teacher similarly if we were to know that in advance.
in the past 3 weeks, i observed 3-4 active participants. there were only 4 帖子B, and 3 weekly reflection piece from 2 participants. 2 reminder emails were sent, and only 2 echoes returned. not sure what happened to the rest. my guess is that our friends could have returned to PRC during this sch hols, and they faced difficulties accessing OPAL, ICON and/or fb due to the Great Firewall. will need to learn the real reasons behind if they were to turn up.
based on the 4 帖子B, i observed 3 of the participants were actively integrating ICT into their teaching and learning activities. except one, the awareness of conceptions of SDL appeared to include only incidental SDL along the SDL spectrum. consequently, the use of ICT to facilitate SDL reflects that understanding.
in the session later, my plan is to facilitate discussions to deepen the conceptions of SDL of participants. along with this, the affordance of ICT to facilitate SDL. would need to see how i could tie in what i have planned with their individual 5-10 minutes sharing.
looking forward to a fruitful session later. if time allows, we could even explore the design and use of rubrics as self-monitoring and self-management of learning cannot do without this important scaffold/tool.
(acknowledgement: jinsngjung)