Saturday, February 16, 2008

2008_Term 1 Reflection

Hi everyone,

Pls provide your reflection for this term here ok. Do remember to sign off your name at the end of your reflection. Let us get the ball rolling now.........

11 comments:

Teacher said...

The Power of Peer Influence
Peer influence can be much more powerful than what most people normally perceived. Therefore, who your friends are, really make a BIG difference in what kind of person you turn out to be.

I believe many of us are concerned when we witnessed the “sudden change” in our generally well-behaved students. These students slowly evolved to become distracted in their studies, rebellious in their behaviour and hanging out late after school because of the peers they mixed with. The group obviously have their own set of agenda that it is COOL to be different, rebellious and violent.

The teachers would play a strong role in influencing the type of peer culture that emerges in their classroom. While the teachers cannot stamp out entirely what is emerging, we can try to steer our students towards a more positive direction, so that peer influence becomes more positive too.

It is always good if teachers can keep regular and close check of their students’ behaviour and values development other than their academic performances. Students have their blind spots and it is hard for them to see their faults/problems clearly. Therefore, it will be better if the teachers can help them to spot and rectify the faults/problems in time. This is also applicable to adults too.

Pearl Saw :-)

mrmalek said...

Dear Pearl,

It would be interesting to observe at what age peer influence is the most powerful for our students. Study the students from the different streams.....this will give you better insights on how to manage students.

abdul malek

Anonymous said...

Being a teacher for almost 1 year, there are many more new things to learn and pick up along the way. Able to manage my own time and prioritize my work is very important in order to survive and get on in my teaching career. But I guess it’s always the case in other work lives.

In terms of classroom management, over the time, students got used to my teaching methods and classroom rules. So I felt it was not too much of a problem now as compared to, when I initially started teaching them.

When talking about teaching contents, I felt quite unsure of what kind of methods and explanation can make students understand better. Teaching 202 and 211 Express Maths, my explanation got better when I teach the same topic for the second time. Then I was aware of how should I explain to the students to let them understand the content better. For this term, I learnt that I should go through myself the explanation of the concepts before going to classes.

Teachers around me are always so helpful, whom I can turn to when running into some problems. They’re willing to share their experiences with me. This is one thing I’m glad to be in this kind of environment where supports are all around me. In the whole, this Term 1 is quite smooth sailing for me, though workloads are getting heavier. ☺. Hopefully I can cope with them as time goes.







Ginny Teh Hooi Ching
8th March 2008

Anonymous said...

Testing...

Anonymous said...

This is my 1st year teaching Lower Sec Maths. I really learn alot during this period. I find that for many of our Ping Yians, they lack self-confidence and the belief that they can excel and achieve.

For instance, the first time I met Sec 112, when I ask them how do you think you will fare for Maths in Sec Sch? To my surprise, many of them said that they hated Maths and they don't think that they can perform. In fact, some of them had bad memories of their Maths lessons and how discouraging their teachers were. For instance, one student suffered from anxiety-attack during her PSLE Maths paper. Once again, the issue of “self-fulfilling prophecy” comes into action again.
Robert K. Merton's concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy stems from the Thomas theorem, which states that:
If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.


Hence, I believe for many Ping Yians, they just lack self-confidence; and hence, self-assuredness. So, motivating and encouraging our students is very essential in building up their self-esteem!

“If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right.”
By Henry Ford


Wong Xiu Yan
19th March 2008

Anonymous said...

Piaget divided the cognitive developments into 4 operational stages and processes that children go through– the sensorimotor stage ( birth to 2 yrs), the preoperational stage (2 to 7 yrs), the concrete stage (7 to 11 yrs) and the formal stage (11 – adulthood).
The formal operational stage, is when logical thought and deductive reasoning emerged, when they develop the ability to think in abstract terms. At this stage, they should be able to plan and organize approaches to solve problems. It seemed to me that most of my pupils are still at the concrete stage. Albeit, I’m teaching the lower end of the Sec 4 Express, Normal Academic and Normal Technical classes. Not having any special needs, surely their cognitive development CANNOT be so much lower than expected.
To Piaget,the structures of development are organized in a hierarchical manner. This means that if the child has not developed the concrete cognitive structure, then he cannot proceed to the formal operational stage. According to Piaget, when a child is faced with new experiences, ie. he is mentally in ‘disequilibrium’, he changes his cognitive structure to accommodate this new experience and thus, he develops. Piaget however, did not elaborate on how this cognitive change takes place.

If Piaget is to be believed, the implication is that my students are in their present state because they have not been challenged cognitively enough to make that change to the formal stage. Since it is recommended that children should be challenged but not using materials nor information too far beyond their level ,they may have to be taught based on the concrete stage of learning. I can’t help but ponder what had happened in the upper primary/lower secondary, such that the 16-year-olds are left so far behind in their cognitive development, if Piaget is to be believed.

Piaget also placed great emphasis on learning through individual discovery and less on social and cultural influences. This is one aspect of his theory that I do not at all subscribe. According to The Straits Times on March 11 2008 ( World Section page 18 ), the United States lauded our Mathematics textbooks and our curriculum for “the gentle, clever ways that the mathematics is brought to the intuition of the students.” Our curriculum hammers (gentle ?) on the basics before introducing the concepts. A study in some Maryland schools has also shown that the books should be used with trained teachers to produce better results. This study clearly indicates the need for an adult to assist and scaffold if a child were to perform much better than he otherwise would (Zonal of Proximal Development). Anyway, I can’t imagine my students learning independently without assistance and scaffolding.

Anonymous said...

An Eventful Workshop

Ginny, Layna and i attended a workshop at TN on Heuristic & Thinking Skills in late Feb.

Unknown to us was that all other teachers attending the workshop were from various primary schools instead of secondary schools.

The lecturer spoke with great humour, related many personal experiences & life examples to us, & gave us a series of hands on activities to keep the drowsy us awake & engaged. Of course, we followed through her activities conscientiously!=)

However, what appeared weird to us was that all answers we gave her were rejected!=(

Now let us look back at the activities:
Activity #1: Given 4 numbers.
Q. Find the number of ways they can be arranged.
We: Oh, easy! Use Permutation!
Lecterer: No! Factorial not allowed.
We: listing is so troublesome..
Other teachers: Conscientiously list down all different combinations.

Activity #2: Problem sum...
We: Use algebra loh! Let x be ...
Lecturer: Cannot use algebra
We: Stuck...
Other teachers: use model method

Activity #3: Given a box of shapes of different colours, shapes & sizes.
Q. Name a property.
Group 1: they classify the shapes into 4 piles: triangles, squares, circles & rectangles
Group 2: they classify the shapes into 3 piles: red, yellow & blue
Group 3: they classify the shapes into 3 piles: large, medium & small
But when all teachers came to look at our classification, they were shock!
We had 1 big pile of shapes not classified & on the table we had many postids written: similar figures, congruent figures, polygons, sum of angles = 180deg, 360deg, etc ... we wrote so many conceptual ideas but did not have a clear classification of the shapes! How embarrassing!=P

It was then that we realised we were actually the 'Aliens' of the class! We were the only secondary teachers! That explains why we answer questions differently.

These activities really showed us how different primary & secondary teachers think. It was interesting to know our differences and learn ways to bridge our differences so that we could help lower sec students to smoothen their initial journey in the learning of mathematics in secondary school.

Huiqun (sorry for the late entry!)

Anonymous said...

It has always been the role of all educators to constantly experiment with different instructional practices with the aim of getting the students fully engaged in their learning. One of the practices that could be implemented in our classes is through the use of so-called “self-correcting” materials. This aims to provide students with an independent practice activity that includes multiple response opportunities while also including a way for students to self-check their responses.

The materials used should provide both appropriate math skill prompts and solutions and easy to follow directions.Materials can be teacher or commercially made, or can be existing materials that are modified to be self-correcting materials (e.g. board games where math skill prompt/answer cards added). In addition, the materials should also provide multiple practice opportunities for the students. A response record could be included so the teacher can evaluate student performance at a later time. However, it is important to note that the students must have received previous teacher instruction for each math skill practiced and demonstrate at least an initial ability to perform the math skill independently.

Some years ago, I tried designing a set of cards with half of the cards having the different trigo graphs printed on it and the other half with their matching equations. The students formed groups of any number and played some kind of a “mix & match” game. I found that it actually could help in some way, to reinforce their learning by making them able to recognise the different attributes of the types of graphs learnt and linking them to their respective equaton types.


It has been found that this instructional strategy positively impacts students having learning problems. Firstly, it provides students a way to practice a particular math skill a multiple number of times while receiving immediate feedback on their performance since they have access to the solution for each math skill prompt. Furthermore, students work in a "risk-free" environment to practice skills they have initially acquired through teacher instruction but for which they have not mastered. When students are willing to take risks, they will attempt more problems. The more problems they attempt, the more opportunities they provide themselves toward mastery of the math learning task. Also, students can evaluate their performance privately without worrying about anyone else seeing them make mistakes, reducing their anxiety about "doing" math. This strategy also provides "modeling" because students can review an accurate example of how to solve the particular math skill by referring to the problem-solving model that is provided. Immediate feedback helps them to recall specific problem solving steps they may have failed to retrieve from memory. Immediate feedback also helps them to refocus on essential features of the particular problem solving task they may have "missed" due to distractibility. The response record allows you to evaluate the student's performance. You can remodel, provide corrective feedback, and provide positive reinforcement as appropriate.

Points taken and summarised in article from http://coe.jmu.edu/mathvids2/strategies/ scm.html

Wee Wee

Anonymous said...

Hi everyone,

It is refreshing to read personal reflections, experiences and shared articles in our blog.

To Ginny, it is a good practise to always reflect whether the lesson that you have conducted is a well planned and executed lesson. Normally, you will know whether the lesson was good when at the end of the lesson, you feel refresh and energized rather than lethargic....this is based on your intuition but if you prefer a more concrete evidence then you can conduct a short feedback session with on your students. Ask them, what are the things that they have learnt, what are the things that they like and dislike abt the lesson. This really helps.

I would also like to encourage all teachers to give your comments/pointers/advice to any of the reflections that was posted. Especially for the experience teachers.....your words of wisdom will surely be useful for our younger teachers.

Do keep the entries coming.......

Abdul Malek

Anonymous said...

Hi everyone, this is Ryan.

Currently I am teaching 122, 412 and 421. 421 was not with me last year so needed to warm up with them. I had an advantage as I taught them CPA in Sec3 so I know their tricks and they know my expectations.

412 was with me last year and is my current form class. They are a ok lot to teach and I can see the maturing and growth in terms of their characters, and even academic achievements. This is a good feeling.

122 is the class that is the most difficult to manage for my term 1. They are ok in terms of behaviours and are generally an obedient lot. My problem with them is that they don't respond well to my usual teaching method.

I am used to teaching upper Sec for the past 3.5 years whereby students are able to respond to a longer string of instructions and have a longer attention span.

For 122, I realized that not only must I give short and precise instructions, their attention is much shorter that the 10 min norm of most students. I suspect most of them have attention span of less than 5 min!! Their content knowledge is alarming sparse. Thus, I am still trying to strike a balance between activities ( which requires a certain degree of content knowledge) and frontal teaching (which imparts content knowledge but needs attention span).

For my other duties in school, I guess I have gotten used to them and thus they don't seem to be 'bothering' me this year.

That's all for me, wihs everyone has a bright year ahead!

Anonymous said...

It has been a pretty eventful Term 1 at least for me.

Besides dealing with lower sec this year, I have to deal with some "handful" students. It really zaps the energy out of me.

It is pretty interesting to note the students that make up class 122. I am not sure if other teachers feel the same, but I do feel that they really need our attention... URGENT attention.

With regards to the transition of teens during this stage of their life...
From "cute and cuddly" innocents to "....you get the picture", no one can stop the change. However, i do feel that we as teachers can play a small role in lessening the impact of change on these teens.

Then again, CHANGE for the better or the worst.. only time will tell.

Lee LP