– a Singaporean teacher's storeroom 🖖
“ict lesson”, or “ICT教学”，这样的一个名词, such a conception, is problematic.
if we have “ICT教学”，与之相对的是什么？“非ICT教学”？
如果ICT的使用可以随时”开”或”关”, 这或许就是为什么学校里还存在one-off设计ICT活动的现象了。
“ICT教学”, and “ict lesson”这个名词应该去除。停止使用，不再使用。
理由很简单，21世纪的生活已脱离不开科技。要预备学生在未来的生活中不断自主学习，运用ICT学习的习惯和技能必须养成（这其实连带学生“如何学”的问题 (cf.教师如何教)）。习惯的养成不是一朝一夕的事；技能更是多样，更需要长时间指导磨练。
要达到培养学生习惯、磨练学生技能的学习目的，任何教学都要从TPACK角度去思考。那么学生的学习照顾到了，教师也从此不再陷入one-off、ICT可有可无的问题。
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)
yes, we’ve completed our first round of ICT for SDL and CoL Clinic for primary school teachers (TRAISI code: 12541, or 12541-00001). was reading wj’s facilitator reflection, and it just occurred to me that we have missed an excellent teachable moment!
“我比较不解的是-其实他们之间分享了很多实例了，老师要的是什么实例？……”
some teachers have indeed voiced during the first f2f, that they would like to learn and see 实例。 yes, in the 1-month online discourse, many tried-n-tested examples have indeed been surfaced by fellow course participants. so what are they exactly looking for? wj’s hypothesis is they may be looking for technical hands-on (knowledge). my guess is it stems from their less sophisticated epistemic beliefs. some do not see that ‘learning’ has occurred if ‘learning’ does not take place the way s/he may have 预期ed.
as the self-proclaimed mentor to wj, her performance is a reflection of my hand-holding. there’s much to learn cos i am just more experienced by 2 workshops *hahaha* *oops*. there’s quite a number of things to take note, many of which i have previously noted down. after reading wj’s reflection, one key takeaway for me is the key influence of the facilitator’s paradigm. not mine, but that of whoever i am hand-holding. the “struggle” could be a great one, for s/he will need to manage two sets of paradigm shifts — participants, and oneself.
that’s all for now. perhaps “more later” (Wu, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015) (:
(acknowledgement: ibangfotografi )
a fellow co-learner in the course wrote this as part of weekly reflection activity:
“混成式的学习方式，和一般的面对面的上课学习，在时间上的付出更多。面对面的上课，一下课就是下课，可以不去管它了。但是混成式的学习方式好像不是这样，有帖子A，B，C，有贴1反2，有反思等等。对于“自主学习”和“协作学习”的概念，就一直跟着我，好像每一天都要拿出来在脑子里想一想。虽然每天都在想它们，想得很多很多，一有空就想，无时无刻都在想，但是要把所想的都打写出来，又没有那么多的时间。”
混成式学习的“阴魂不散”，其实所发挥的仅仅是ICT教学所提供的可能性，即每一个人，不受时空限制，只要有想法、有问题，都能够展开或进入学习的“状态”。
这里也深刻带出另一个问题，即ICT绝对和“省时”搭不上关系。或许在基本材料的准备从长远来看是省下了一些时间，但是作回复、为回复而事先搜索查证、阅读、理解，整理内容发帖子分享想法、问题，这些种种的种种都是需要大量精神与时间的付出的。
当学生都积极学习时，教师的“Happy Problem”出现了。试想，当班上40名学生的“学习引擎”若被我们开动了，那种学习所产出的排山倒海的内容不是一个教5班带200个学生的教师所能招架的。怎么办？！？
这或许就是为什么我们要培养学生的SDL和CoL。有了SDL的自我监控（无论是个人学习，或是对小组负责），都能省却教师一些“监控”的时间，转而把精神放在引导学生；有了CoL，小组内出现分工，学习不再是一个人的事，同侪间各有所得、各有长进。最重要的是，学习将是学生主动、教师辅动的意义建构中产生的。
我们目前的挑战或许是，有些华文老师也许觉得有太多的“课文要教”、“技能要教”。要让学生有机会负起SDL、CoL式的学习，或许还得从教师如何看待“学习”这回事着手，才有可能改变教学的设计。是这样吗？
感激老师的这一段反思，推进了我的思考 (: