Our current teachers have many useful practices which they feel yield better educational outcomes. From the teachers in the TLLM group, we have listed some of the practices which we currently use and which we felt will lead to better learning.
These ideas will be shared with the other teachers to find staff who are also using similar practices. Our newly minted RA Ser Yee can help these teachers design an experiment and to offer her input to help these teachers do a piece of research on the respective areas. The outcome will be numerous research papers which can be shared at various platforms.
Nalini:
ReplyDeleteDifferent methods used by me which was a better tool of teaching as compared to last year.
More quizzes for History: Allows them to use the quizzes as a mode of learning content rather than me teaching the content.This is especially used for my Sec 1s and Sec 3s, where they attempt the learn the content on their own and transfer it to the quizzes provided to them.
Enquiry Questions for History: This gets the students to think about the bigger picture of the topic.
Tweet and facebooking as tools for my Secondary 4s which allows them to use these tools as a platform to discuss issues, clarify doubts and of course to shout out their deepest fears.
Showing, Not Telling
ReplyDeleteI attended a course that focussed on getting students to describe emotions realistically and effectively. It summed up the problems in students' writing, and went on to suggest some methods to improve. The great thing was that the suggestions came in baby steps; things or exercises that I could implement in my class in small doses. I have been trying such exercises with them every Monday, and the following week I will showcase the really good examples and give them feedback on their work.
I really like how they are challenged to write well so that their work can be featured or they can receive encouraging comments. They also seem more willing to consider describing situations beyond their immediate experience, and I hope/think that it helps them to empathize with others, as they try to experience these other emotions. The exercises get progressively harder in difficulty, and the small steps also help me see how much the students have improved and what they are capable of. Sometimes the task is too difficult for them, so I'll give them a easier one the next week and we'll slowly work our way up again.
Hypothesis: Showing, not Telling makes for more effective descriptive writing, and short structured exercises are better practice than full essays.
1. Going thru answers-in the form of exercise/ pair work instead of Teacher going thru the answers one by one.
ReplyDelete2. incorporate more pair work/group work into lessons,
3. Let the higher ability students do more challenging assignments and the lower & middle ability students to follow the normal lessons.
In language teaching, when it comes to Oral presentation, we have used a set of rubrics to measure pupils performance. This set of rubrics also serves as a guide for the pupils as it enables them to evaluate their own performance as well.In a way, I feel that this teaching strategy involves the pupils more directly and effectively in the learning process.
ReplyDeleteAnother important little strategy I used will be giving pupils actual examples and doing post presentation review. I realise that pupils tend to be more engaged and took the initiative to make improvements to their presentation.
Hypothesis-Rubrics is effective in measuring the performance of pupils in Oral Presentation.
Using of Games in a competitive mode
ReplyDeleteOften, pupils were given worksheets to work on as a form of revision. The pupils find it boring to work on it. They will just take their time or wait for the teachers to give the solutions. From here, we see that they are not thinking and thus learning does not take place.
I find that a better way to engage the pupils in thinking and find out on the spot which content they are weak in is through games where the pupils in their groups will compete with each other and at the end maybe give them a reward for the achievement. On the spot, they will have to immediately engage in their thinking and not just wait for the answers or solutions. Although they may not be the first to give the answers but at least they are engaged in their thinking.
My hypothesis is that Pupils learn better through Games.
Some current practices that can be researched on:
ReplyDelete1. The use of a blog to teach – SS
hypothesis: The use of a blog helps to improve the quality of results for SS.
2. Diagramatic arrows for explanation of SS.
hypothesis: The use of diagrammatic arrows for explanation of SEQ factors leads to be better understanding and SEQ results.
3. Checklist for EL Oral
Hypothesis: Checklists for EL Oral will lead to greater awareness level of errors and improves OPC performance.
Wikispace - This is an internet site which I have used to archive my resources including students' work. This will allow them to access the information online and they can post their queries at the same time. Higher ability students are also invited into the discussion forum to respond to postings by the moderator.
ReplyDeleteHypothesis -
1. Students are more inclined to revise and seek clarification via an internet portal.
2. Students are motivated to produce quality work when there is an incentive of it being published on the web.
3. Students are more conscious about the content of their postings online where it is visible to everyone hence are more likely to post quality work.
Media Production Room - We used the school's Media Production Room to create and film a setting where students simulate and Oral Communications examination. It allowed them to feel the pressure under a controlled environment and the video clip was able to provide them with proper, accurate, lasting and of course indisputable feedback.Students had a fun time doing it and took the session seriously.
Hypothesis - Use of filming under a simulated setting allows provision of proper feedback which will improve the performance of the students subsequently.