Lesson 4: From fluff to substance

My eureka moment: the lesson plans that I churned out as a contract teacher are nothing but fluff.

Today we learnt how to write a lesson plan. First, Prof Tan told us that lesson objectives should be observable and measurable. Now that I'm thinking about it, it seems so common-sense; yet, before my eureka moment, I am sure I peppered my lesson plans with lofty but vague words such as "understand", or even words such as "master" and "learn". How do we quantify learning? With Bloom's Taxonomy of action verbs. (See list below.)



What a useful list! It is even categorised into lower and higher mental functions. (According to Vygotsky, higher mental functions arise from social interaction. But Vygotsky's definition of higher mental functions seems less cerebral than Bloom's.) I read though the list and highlighted those that I thought may be more frequently used while teaching English and Literature.



We also learnt today that objectives must specify four aspects: audience, behaviour, condition, and degree. This is known as the ABCD model. The difficulty with such a model is that it seems tailored for the sciences. How do you quantify the extent to which a student has formulated his or her own personal response to a piece of text without having to constantly get the students to reflect on paper (or on a blog, as in the case of this class)? I will have to think about that one some more.

On the whole, an interesting and helpful lesson, as always. :) I'm getting somewhat saturated with all the methods and theories we are learning in the various classes: the science of teaching, so to speak. If I write a lesson objective with four observable aspects, that uses three student-centred learning approaches, and employs three ICT tools, does that make me a good teacher? Will I get to learn the art of teaching?

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Postscript:

i. I like the demos.

ii. There is a free public talk by Denise Atchley coming up on 27 Aug titled "Defining Digital Storytelling".

Lesson 3: Student-Centred Learning (SCL) Approaches

Today, our class had the mind-boggling experience of learning about student-centred learning in a student-centred learning classroom. We were our own guinea pigs, so to speak. So while we were frantically looking online for information on the various types of ICT-based SCL (problem-based, case-based, inquiry-based, project-based, game-based, and resource-based) and brainstorming in our groups about a SCL lesson plan, we were at the same time supposed to be observing ourselves and the way we learn and interact in a SCL environment.

Content-wise, I learnt a bunch. For one, I learnt that there is quite a bit of overlap between the six SCL approaches. Prof Tan illustrated the relationship between the six approaches as six intersecting circles in a Venn diagram, but it wasn't until our group was trying to figure out what exactly was the difference between problem-based and project-based; project-based and inquiry-based, that we appreciated the truth of that Venn diagram. (Ah! Is that SCL at work? Did discovering it on our own by doing research online and discussing it with my group members make the content "stick in my brain" better?)

I also noticed that the overlap isn't only confined to the six SCL approaches, but that student-centred learning is stretching across practically all my classes. I find myself reading about the value of using authentic sources in my Oral communication class, about problem-based learning in my Educational Psychology class (Dr Tan Oon-Seng's book), about the negative effects of a teacher focused on "testing" rather than "teaching" in an article titled "The Backwash Effect", and many others. This student-centred learning thing is pretty pervasive.

Through today's experience of being a student in a SCL environment, I realised that the hurdle to successful implementation of SCL may not be the theory, planning, or even implementation of SCL approaches in the classroom, but rather the need for mindsets to change. Teachers need to get used to not giving all the information, and students need to get used to not being given all the answers. At some point in the lesson, I wanted Prof Tan to just tell me the answers already!, despite knowing that he wasn't going to do it. If I, a teacher-to-be learning about SCL can feel this way, what more a student who has a content-heavy exam to pass before he can graduate? How do I persuade him to change his mindset that the process is just as important as the end-point?

Reflection on Student-Centred Learning Environments & Activities

What I already know
From my reading of Connecting Student Learning and Technology, I know that a good implementation of ICT in the classroom supports both independent learning and collaboration. I also know that ICT can play the role of a resource tool, a workstation, or a communication channel. When implemented well, it encourages both active and reflective experiences, empowering traditionally under-served populations with the use of braille and speech software.

What I want to learn
What I want to learn is how to create a learning environment so that ICT can be used effectively and productively to foster student learning.

What I learned this week
I learnt that creating a conducive environment for student learning with the use of ICT is not necessarily rocket science. Sometimes it is as simple as giving clear instructions, assigning roles to students when they are doing group work, electing an IT representative to help with technical problems, telling students where to sit, and modeling appropriate behaviour.

I also learnt that it is better when teachers plan lessons with the assumption that the students are creative, intelligent people with a reservoir of prior knowledge, rather than be frightened that the students will learn nothing if they were not spoon-fed with content.

Through watching the four videos, I observed that the lack of computers is not an obstacle to having a good ICT lesson. It is possible to craft a good lesson even if there is only one computer in the classroom. This is encouraging especially when the schools are not always as well-equipped as we would like them to be.

What questions I still have
How can ICT be used to create an environment where students of different levels of ability can learn at their own pace? What research has been done on the disadvantages of ICT?

Visit to the Classroom of the Future (COTF)

The Classroom of the Future at NIE was very impressive. There was so much high-tech gadgetry in there that I kept wanting to stop listening to our guide so that I could gawk at and play with all the gadgets. But I didn't, because I'm an adult, you see.

On the surface, the COTF looked nothing like a regular classroom today.

Instead of a white board, the teacher wrote in his tablet PC which was then transmitted live to the screen. Instead of paper notebooks, each student had a Samsung Q1 UMPC where they could do their assignments. Instead of rolling balls down planks to learn about velocity, they bombed their friend's tanks in an interactive game projected on the wall. (And instead of chatting to their friend sitting beside them, they could chat and play tic-tac-toe with anyone in the classroom via instant messaging.)

It was an impressive set-up, but I suspect that the COTF and our current classrooms aren't as different as they look. They just use different tools to achieve the same goals — ultimately, teachers are still facilitating learning through interaction with peers, research, scaffolding, homework and games — although, it may be said that in some instances, high-tech tools do the work better than low-tech ones.

For example, high-tech tools work better than low-tech tools because they tend to be more interactive. Click something and you get a response straight away. You can talk to a professor in London in real time, do online research, and drive a tank even. It is hard to get bored with so much interactivity, but who knows, students have a remarkable capacity to be bored...

Another way high-tech tools encourage student learning is by its ability to simulate real life. In current learning environments, students read about problems and think about solutions. In the COTF, students observe problems and work at solutions. Students get an email from a student in France with a question and they can immediately analyse skin samples, talk to real-life experts, and create graphs. It is a more productive and relevant way to learn.

A lot of the learning in the COTF was student-driven. The teacher never came right out to give the formula for velocity and speed, preferring to let the student discover it on his own through the interactive game. I think it would be a bit uncomfortable for me to leave so much learning to the initiative of the students, but that is one of the things that teachers must learn in the classroom of the future: to let go.

Is such a classroom of the future viable? Why not? But we mustn't get so caught up with our new-fangled tools that we forget the purpose of the tools. I still like paper and pen, whiteboard and marker, real faces and real smiles, and I wouldn't give any of that up for all the high-tech gadgets in the world.

Lesson 1: Meeting the Prof for the very first time

It was an interesting and fast-paced lesson. We had to do like 20 things in 20 minutes — watch two videos, answer four questions, write five things about ourselves, post a photo, start a blog, etc. — but it was through these tasks that we got a feel of what the following twelve weeks would be like.

It looks promising. :)

For one, Prof Tan orientated us to the focus of the course: student-centred learning. The title of our course is "ICT for engaged learning", which seems to put the focus on ICT (Information and Communications Technologies). However, the focus of the course is actually on the tail end of the title ("engaged learning"), and how teachers can foster student-centred learning in a classroom with the use of ICT. It's a subtle difference, but an important one I think, considering that you can have all the ICT in the world and all you achieve is a very high-tech classroom with many attention-deficient and screen-obsessed teenagers.

I'm looking forward to this class. At this point, I've no idea how to encourage student-centred learning, so I've lots to learn. Along the way, I also hope someone can help me with turning the Moodle on my mac to something usable in a classroom. Personal agenda. Heh. :)