记iMTL 进阶课 in-progress

yesterday was the second f2f lesson of our iMTL 进阶课 (wondering why the english course title uses ‘intermediate’?). the first f2f was exactly 1 month ago. in this course, the (old) title (which 露丝 and I din bother to change) included keywords ‘SDL’ and ‘CoL’. so, i had used the first hour of yesterday’s session to conduct a co-generative dialogue on 自主学习 (self-directed learning). and the following is the reification of our discourse:

14/8 discourse artefact – 自主学习 SDL;participants: 馨云、一凤、伟如、美娴、崇蕾、侯琳、玉侠、春容

towards the end of the conversation, i was pleasantly surprised that most, if not all, of the key ideas of SDL were surfaced without me needing to introduce them. sounds like a phenomenographic dialogue (if such thing exists; if not can cite Tan, 2019). realised this when i ran through the deck of slides adapted from a 12470 Clinic conducted some three years ago. was interested to see what the individually meaningful ideas that the teachers (馨云、一凤、伟如、美娴、崇蕾、侯琳、玉侠、春容) had created, i allowed them to complete a 2-qn survey via google form:

reflecting away, with qr code on the left, and the discourse artefact on the right in front

and here’s what they wrote:

q1. 我原来以为 … …q2. 我现在认识到 … …
让学生自己完成作业就能算是自主学习。自主学习包含了教师充足的设计与准备,让学生能够明白自己需要学什么、提供选择并给予学生自我评估的机会。
促进小学生完全自主学习是可能的,现在明白这个能力需要时间的发展。在小学阶段培养学生自主学习的能力是十分重要的。
Self directed learning 很容易达成学生需要确定学习目标和监督学习进展等
SDL就是E learning SDL 可以和很多东西有关。比如:老师的角色是什么、学生的学习效率如何
学生只要是能独立完成学习任务就是自主学习(如ezhishi)自主学习也有分几个等级,可以让学生主动找出自己需要学习什么,并自主地去提问,找答案。
自主学习是让学生单独、独立地学习在小学阶段,老师还是得先设计出学习活动让学生参与。适当地使用ICT能提高教学效应。
自主学习是学生有不同学习方式的选择。我们现在正处于学生是被动状态,要想让学生养成自主学习的习惯需要长时间的培养。
自主学习就是要让学生学习时有自主权,依据学生所需要或缺乏的那一块,提供更多的学习活动,辅助他们,让他们能够成功学习。的确如此。接触了一个新的概念solo taxonomy
自主学习只是做活动对主动学习有更深一层的理解,例如:学习动机、让学生能有想要学习的动机以及引学练用评和自主学习有密切的关系。

looks like 满满的学习 to you? and it’s not through transmission (of knowledge).

looking forward to the next session on 14 Sep for more knowledge creation (:

写在 lesson co-design之后

上回随玉云和静骅、许薇、海晶和涓涓聊教学转眼已是5个月前的事了。今天下午我们在南洋女中的聊话主要环绕阅读教学的设计——借流行歌曲、通过学生个人及小组协作学习去巩固和提升他们的赏析能力(分别作书面文字的理解+文字的隐含义;后者尤其是关键学习目标)。以下记录的是我们的知识共创:

这是今天有缘人的合照:

(左-右:(前)海晶、涓涓、玉云;(后)静骅、许薇)

除了我们的共创内容之外,有两句话我想记下来:
一、开始讨论前许薇说道:“上回我们提起的Affordances,最近学校里在谈SLS的使用时,我觉得我能够从这个角度去思考。”;
二、我们的讨论至尾声的时候,海晶说道:“我们上回谈的内容,我不时还打开照片来复习。”

这两句话对于说话的朋友或许是不经意的,但从教学的角度无疑是另一次evidence of learning,同时也肯定了我和老师们一起学习时所投入的精神是值得的。当然,这一切也不能忘记最关键性的一个人 —— 谢谢玉云无私地带着我让我有机会和老师朋友们一起学习成长 (:

聊一聊 bearing fruit

was asked by 林振南老师 to join in the first iMTL NLC meeting of the year on 11/4 (wed) held at 老家SCCL. during the sharing of experience by an invited CL teacher on-stage, something on screen caught me eyes. take a look and see if you see what i see:

hint: it’s the ‘a’ word (:
i cannot fully describe the excitement of seeing the word on screen; not just once, but it appeared a second time in another slide later. what’s the significance of the sightings?

going back in time, 2 months ago on 20/2 (tue), i was at yio chu kang primary, and had two rounds of conversation with two groups of CL teachers on the topic of 《华文、学习、科技》. and 慧芬 who’s on stage was among the YCKPS teachers. i recalled it was the first time for some CL teachers to hear the term affordance (能供性); for a rare few, it’s probably the first time they were hearing technological affordance in the way i described it. the sessions were but a short 1-hour. and how do we know if teachers’ were impacted? what evidence(s) of learning do we have? it may not be easy to answer these qns, for many at times, learning is not fast, and it’s hardly evident in short term courses/workshops many at times.

and i am very thankful for 林振南老师 for asking me to be there, and of course PMTT林季华老师 and Dr. Sim SH for allowing me to be there. as a result, i had the chance to catch glimpse of the evidence of learning! not sure if the other close to 70 CL teachers (ST, LT & (P)MTTs) saw the significance. but it definitely tells me that what i’m doing is worthwhile doing, and i shall continue to pursue opportunities to influence CL teachers’ ideas and practice of CL, learning, and ICT. lastly not to forget, i am also grateful to 玉云 for allowing me to learn from & with her at YCKPS (:

another聊一聊

yesterday afternoon was invited by 玉云 to engage 6 CL teachers from 4 schools in conversation. the original proposal was to discuss learning design around iMTL 2.0 (official name: 增强版乐学善用平台). however, i counter-proposed to conduct a conversation on 《华文、学习、科技》 first, much like the sessions i did with YCKPS CL teachers. 理由很简单,动作是建立在理解之上;尤其是在协作的环境内,对于事物的共同理解和认识更是重要。 otherwise, who knows your apple is my orange? we may be using the same term but we actually meant different things. sounds familiar? all too familiar.

here’s our group of 有缘人 who have gathered at Fuhua Sec 辅华中学 (:


(TBC左到右:许静骅、李涓涓、王海晶、玉云、黄海英、何天婵、许薇)

and here’s the reification of our discourse:

had a quick dipstick of their conceptions of CL、Learning、ICT prior to our conversation. thank you google forms (:
will look at the ‘post-test’ to compare the shift in conceptions, if any, later.

a quick remark at the end of the session by 许薇 is going to stay with me for a long time to come “今天聊完之后,我终于弄清楚一些概念。之前总是捉摸不清。” it was too quick, and time was short; we’ll need to see if there’s opportunities to dig deeper to hear the richness and significance of those few words (: