Week 6: Changing Learning Environments

Strengths and Weaknesses in SJI’s Physical Learning and Teaching Spaces

Background: St Joseph’s Institution (SJI) was founded in Singapore in 1852 as a secondary school for boys. By the mid-1980s, the school building was deemed an unsatisfactory environment for conducive teaching and learning as the building was situated along Singapore’s busy Bras Basah Road and was literally just 50 metres from the noisy main road and the classrooms were crowded. Classrooms were of traditional design (Warger & Dobbin, 2009) possibly fitted out to facilitate De La Salle's simultaneous method of instruction (Battersby,1949; Wright, 2000) now synonymous with the traditional classroom setting.

The old Bras Basah Campus very near the main road

In 1988, SJI relocated to a more spacious campus at Malcolm Road. Here the physical learning environment was a great improvement from the 1852 building. New and improved modern facilities included computer labs, a spacious library, special interactive classrooms and school-wide Wifi accessibility.

SJI Library: A comfortable learning environment

In 2013, it was decided that more classrooms were needed to be added to the existing campus because of “an increase in student population from 1,600 to 2,200 students” (Surbana, n.d. p. A2) as the new International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme would necessitate this. Presently, besides building more classrooms, the decision was taken to redevelop the whole campus. Building plans include refurbishment of the existing building as well as adding new educational blocks for the students of the International Baccalaureate Programme based on the philosophy of “[creating] a sustainable and environmentally sound design, in tune with the Global Energy & Emission Concerns” (Surbana, n.d.).

Surbana Artists' impressions of the new campus

Considerations:

I am very impressed by the process taken by the school in consulting the various stakeholders (teachers, parents and alumni) in the conceptualising of the new school building.

However, it might be good also to consider the views of the students seeing that they will be the ones benefiting most from the new building. As it is likely that the student of the future will be a networked student (Jonassen, Howland, Moore & Marra, 2003), IT support needs to be reflected clearly in the planning of a new campus building.

Also, as the new campus will be a teaching-learning space, perhaps more emphasis should be placed on the requirements/ desires of teachers. It would be good to allow teachers a ‘free hand’ in generating ideas for maximising the teaching-learning experience in the classroom. By extension, perhaps each teacher could be given a budget for purchasing items needed for achieving this objective.

For further consideration

With the changing nature of the student, what learning environment (virtual or real) might be detrimental and/or beneficial to the student and are these environments economically viable to administrators of educational institutions? Has there been research into the effects of home schooling/ distance education (non brick and mortar type education) on the learner and the educator?

References

Battersby, W.J. (1949). De La Salle: A pioneer of modern education. London, New York: Longmans, Green.

Jonassen, D.H., Howland, J., Moore, J. & Marra,R.M. (2003). Learning to solve problems with technology: A constructivist perspective. (2nd ed.). Prentice Hall

St Joseph's Institution. (2009). Open House day. Retrieved from http://www.sji.edu.sg/subpage.php?id=465

St Joseph's Institution. (2009). ArtScience Workshop. Retrieved from http://www.sji.edu.sg/subpage.php?id=307

St Joseph's Institution. (2009). Tan Ser Yung. Retrieved from http://www.sji.edu.sg/subpage.php?id=351

Surbana.(n.d.) Architectural Report

Warger, T. & Dobbin, G. (2009). Learning Environments: Where space, technology, and culture converge. Educause.

Wright, G. (2000). John Baptist de La Salle: a 17th century educational innovator. Philippines: De La Salle University Press

Week 5: The Role of Technology

On the Use of Technology as an Enhancement Tool in Teaching-Learning

Report on the role of technology: When I first started in 2002, the use of technology for teachers meant using Excel spreadsheets to input student marks, email access for teachers to do administrative work and to provide feedback to parents. In the classroom, it meant using over-head projectors (OHPs). There was no wireless yet, so we had to plug in the computer into the port for Internet access. I used the technology very infrequently because the technology was unreliable, it was time-consuming to set it up and technology had very few applications then for the subject.

At present, 2013/2014: The wireless system is very efficient. The teacher just needs to connect the projector to the laptop and lessons could be screened. Many teachers use Powerpoint in lessons with links to Youtube videos at appropriate times. The use of videos is usually subject-specific. In Literature, teachers would usually show snippets of the play to elicit student discussion.

Analysis of enhancement of teaching-learning: While there has not been a formal study in my context, generally teachers note that students are able to grasp content faster especially in Literature in general and Shakespeare in particular (D. Martens, personal communication, April 12, 2014). However, there is still an interplay between learning from and learning with computers. The role of the teacher as facilitator to the lesson is still essential. Some effort has been put in for students to learn with computers (e.g. e-learning day activities) by incorporating formative assessments. Some teachers see this as worthwhile while others question this approach as summative assessment requires very different skill sets.

An interesting experiment conducted by Sugata Mitra on how children learn from technology

Parents and students: As schemes of work are published online (http://sji.edu.sg/subpage.php?id=306), with the aim of promoting self-directed learning. Also, students have foreknowledge of what the teacher will covering for a particular lesson. However data on its efficacy on students is not known.

Parents tend to monitor this information closely. Sometimes, lesson-sequencing is reorganised and/or the teacher judges it fitting to re-teach certain lessons. There sometimes can be queries from parents asking why lessons do not follow the published schedule. This might be symptomatic of parents questioning the judgement of teachers in assessing the pace of a particular class. Parents’ queries can be sometimes unpleasant.

For further consideration

What impacts does the role of present and future technology in education have on NARCMO (O'Neill, 1979) and on other stakeholders (parents, owners etc)? How much is apportioned in budgets for the development and upkeep of technology within the physical learning environment? Has there been any research into the direct correlation of positive student outcomes with digital technology used in education, bearing in mind that much of present summative assessment systems are paper-pen exercises?

Links:

Use of IT in school promotion

Reference

O'Neill, J. (1979). Accountability as an individual mission. (Unpublished Doctoral thesis). Columbia University, USA.

St. Joseph’s Institution. (2009). Subject outlines & assessment. Retrieved from http://sji.edu.sg/subpage.php?id=306

Week 4: Changing Curriculum and Pedagogic Design

Adopting a Rigorous Outcomes-based Curriculum.

My organisation is a secondary school with a 160+ year old history. As can be imagined, change is not easy. Rather various cycles of change have come and gone through the decades; present day stagnation was yesteryear’s innovation.

Currently, National plans to promote the use of ICT in Singapore Schools (http://www.moe.gov.sg/media/press/2008/08/moe-launches-third-masterplan.php) aims to:

• strengthen integration of ICT into curriculum, pedagogy and assessment to enhance learning and develop competencies for the 21st century;
• provide differentiated professional development that is more practice-based and models how ICT can be effectively used to help students learn better;
• improve the sharing of best practices and successful innovations; and
• enhance ICT provisions in schools to support the implementation of mp3 (http://ictconnection.moe.edu.sg/cos/o.x?c=/ictconnection/pagetree&func=view&rid=665)

School has adopted the use of technology in the teaching-learning process. Some may argue that this policy was top-down and not bottom up but the jury is still out. For example, many teachers have adapted the use of IT and brought in their own flavour in its application in the classroom.

School conducts various ICT based programmes, the largest being the school-wide e-Learning Day where students do not come to school but rather access e-learning lessons from home.

Besides specific programmes, school has also weaved in most student, parent and teacher information accessibility online. Information dissemination is done through level and class websites. For this to happen seamlessly, the BYOD (Bring your own device) programme was launched in 2013 as a tool for the educational process to happen (http://www.sji.edu.sg/subpage.php?id=453).

Critique

Using the RASE model (Churchill, King, Webster, & Fox, 2013) to critique these innovations in ICT, it can be noted that there is a positively strong skew in Activities, Support and Evaluation/ Feedback. What seems to be lacking, is providing Resources for students’ learning. This may be viewed in a positive or negative light. I view it as being indicative of an invitation for students to do their research and find solutions to specific problems connected to learning. Often however the nature of the student can be overlooked and a negative effect may be the outcome. For example, faced with a many assignments and quizzes etc, a student might simply ask a friend for the quick answer. While this might be permissable in a formative task, the objective of achieving deep and explorative learning is an issue that should be addressed.

Besides curriculum design shortcomings, technical support is also an issue frequently taken for granted and overlooked.  For instance the system has crashed a few times with a few hundred students logging in at the same time to access the same subpage in order to complete a task by a specific deadline.

For further consideration

Viewed against the Blended Learning concept, how is change in Curriculum and Pedagogic Design effected and implemented? Have enablers acquired sufficient skills that empower them to implement Masterplan 3 successfully while adapting the curriculum with a view of NARCMO (O'Neill, 1979; Blaikie, 1998)? What value is ICT in summative assessment, bearing in mind that most summative assessments are often a paper-pen exercise?

References

Blaikie, J. (1998). My philosophy of education: A synthesis project – The history and         philosophy of education. (unpublished project paper). Nairobi, Kenya: CTIE.

Churchill, D., King, M., Webster, B., & Fox, B. (2013) Integrating learning design,interactivity and technology. In H. Carter, M. Gosper, J. Hedberg. (Eds.).Electric Dreams. Proceedings ascilite 2013 Sydney. (pp.139-143).

O'Neill, J. (1979). Accountability as an individual mission. (Unpublished Doctoral thesis). Columbia University, USA.

Singapore Ministry of Education. (2008, Aug 5). MOE Launches Third Masterplan for ICT in Education. Retrieved fromhttp://www.moe.gov.sg/media/press/2008/08/moe-launches-third-masterplan.php 

Singapore Ministry of Education, Education & Technology Division. (2010-2011). Masterplan 3. Retrieved from http://ictconnection.moe.edu.sg/cos/o.x?c=/ictconnection/pagetree&func=view&rid=665

St Joseph’s Institution. (2009). Bring your own device (BYOD). Retrieved from http://www.sji.edu.sg/subpage.php?id=453