coNcEptS cOncepTs.. mOre cOnCepTs!!! *pull hAir*

uRghhhZzz!!! bIg-eYe dEerS??! EWww..?

What is Understanding by Design?
Understanding by Design (UbD) is a framework for improving student achievement and it emphasizes on the teacher's critical role as a designer of student learning. Developed by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, they proposed a three-stage design process called "backward design" that delays the planning of classroom activities until goals have been clarified and assessments designed.

Yup.. since the questions provided can't fit in here.. hee.. I shall just share what i learnt from the lesson!

There are basically 3 stages of Backward Design:
1. Identify desired results (What do i want them to understand? What should they come away understanding?)
2. Determine acceptable evidence (What is the evidence of that understanding?)
3. Plan learning experiences and instruction/ strategies (What activities will develop the understanding?)

And personally, what struck me was what Miss Lian said about learning being about looking for patterns, identifying similarities and differences. Hence, as designers of our student's learning, we need to first identify these patterns ourselves and then, plan our lessons such that we can help our students see these relations and patterns.

What was also interesting was how Miss Lian likened teachers being doctors! =) haha.. and in our careers, we will meet different groups of patients such the outpatients (needs "medication" once in a while), the ones that need intensive care (needs extra "treatment" and attention) and finally the "coma-toes"( the hopeless ones that just can't respond to "Treatment")! hahaha.. Well.. I have never really looked at myself that way.. but it's an interesting perspective, isn't it? ^_^

Many students find geography difficult because they feel that it requires plenty of memorization, which is true ONLY if one looks at geography as a subject made up of many separate facts and information. However, if we can see the relationships between the different geographical concepts, we'll start to appreciate and understand the patterns that link the big ideas together under an enduring understanding statement, hence, giving us much lesser to study and remember! With the appropriate cues, we will be able to learn and remember much more easily! =) ISn't that cool! heh.. If only i knew... then my Secondary and Junior COllege mugging years would have been so much simpler and interesting! It's my wish to be able to use these strategies effectively to help my "patients" in the future! CAn sure save them a whole lot of "pain" and memorization! ;)

fiEldwORk pAckagE!!! ^_^

Karen, Tingfang, Cheepeng, Michelle and I did our Sentosa field trip package on Tourism and it was fun! :)

What do you intend the students to learn?
We intend for the students to experience and see the positive and negative implications of tourism development in Sentosa through the planned, station activities on the island.

How did u transform the big ideas?
We discussed at length and decided that our big Idea will be that "tourism shapes the sociocultural and physical landscape of a destination". We hope that through the stations (at palawan beach, siloso beach and the MErlion) and activities (like Beach profile sketching, secondary-data collection tourists from interviewing and completing of activity sheets), students will gain a better firsthand experience and understanding of the impacts of tourism in Singapore's context.

How did the events of the lesson unfold?
Students will be briefed before the fieldtrip and they will have a pre-field trip activity to "whet" their appetite and prepare themselves for the fieldtrip!
For the fieldtrip proper, 10 students are allocated into each group with a teacher facilitating the activities and they will move from station to station and complete some exciting activities at each station before moving on. There are 3 stations in all with various activities.
They are each given a fieldtrip booklet to complete and a post-fieldtrip group activity to conclude and wrap up the entire fieldtrip package. :)

How did u make sense of lesson delivery?
The lesson starts from the pre-field trip activity in class, to the fieldtrip proper that takes place outdoors at Sentosa with the facilitation of other teachers during and between the stations, followed by the concluding post activity in class and the completion of the booklet, which will act as a form of assessment of the student's learning progress and an evaluation of the effectiveness of the package.

What did you learn from the experience?
I learnt that planning fieldtrips may be fun but can be quite tedious in terms of planning because the learning takes place outdoors, with many uncontrollable factors, we have to consider and look into many other administrative aspects such as a wet-weather program, safety issues, indemnity forms, transportation and food, and receeing issues to plan for the actual fieldtrip itself. Nonetheless, the experience can be quite enriching and fulfilling despite the amount of effort needed.

Does the experience teach others?
well.. not really but we can share these ideas with the rest of the class so that we can make use of these resources in the future? We did, however, learn from each other in the process of planning though and it was really fun! :)

What does it teach you about student learning?

It taught me that such activities can be a very fun, experiential and practical way of engaging students in the learning of geographical concepts and ideas and applying them into reality. Speaking as a student myself, I, indeed learn better with such hands-on activities and these programs not only engages students but also generates interest in the subject itself! :) Looking back, I really enjoyed all my past fieldtrips even the last short but exciting one to bukit timah nature reserve with Mr Yee! Somehow all the textbook knowledge just comes to life and it's amazing how much we can reap from Mr Yee's vast experience and knowledge! ^_^

my eXcitiNg wEbQueSt!! =)

heyhey! :)

i've decided to start journalling on this topic since it is the freshest in my mind! Do pardon my use of informal language since i feel like i'm semi-talking to myself! hahaha.. oh well.. here goes..

What do you intend the students to learn?
For this webquest project, Michelle, Cheepeng and I chose the topic of "Rivers" and our webquest touches on River Management and the controversies of dam construction, which is an evident issue in many countries, all the world today. From this webquest we hope to:
1. Involve students in the reality of dam construction concerns
2. Actively engage them in the use of Information technology tools/resources to aid them in extracting relevant information
3. Approach geography in another fun, engaging and exciting way! =)

How did you transform the big ideas?
The big idea that we wanted to bring across was that "River Management is not merely a political issue". It should be the concern of not only the country's government but also the citizens, especially those using the River directly.

How did the events of the lesson unfold?

It starts off with an introduction on what the entire webquest is about, followed by the explanation of the task and process, where the students are made to role-play as a special taskforce that the government has tasked to survey the population's stand on the Dam construction. They are to reach a common conclusion on whether or not to go ahead with the construction of the dam. Thereafter they have to design a political poster/ storyboard/ cartoon as a form of propaganda to persuade the population on the government's stand on the issue.

How did you make sense of lesson delivery?
The instructions and evaluation rubrics are all included into the package, in the form of an interesting, colourful powerpoint presentation. Thus, the lesson delivery is rather straightforward with introduction, task, process, resources, evaluation format and a conclusion, for the teacher to go through at the end of the webquest lesson.

What did you learn from the experience?

I've learnt that creating a webquest can actually be quite interesting and simple as plenty of resources and templates are readily available on the internet. Besides role-playing, webquests can also be used for many other tasks such as:

- problem or mystery to be solved;
- position to be formulated and defended;
- product to be designed;
- complexity to be analyzed;
- personal insight to be articulated;
- summary to be created;
- persuasive message or journalistic account to be crafted;
- a creative work, or
- anything that requires the learners to process and transform the information they've gathered.

Does the experience teach others?
I do hope so! It will be a systematic guide for the students to follow in their search for information and discussions. Through this experience, students will assimilate their own ideas, with the introduction of role-playing and taking on of different perspectives , and understand that such issues require careful contemplation because the impacts are often two-fold.

What does it teach you about student learning?

It taught me that proper scaffolding is essential to guide the students through the lessons and it is important to state clearly what the expectations are and allow student's room to express their creativity through challenging, interesting tasks.

On the whole, I really enjoyed the entire process of creating the webquest package! The sense of satisfaction was overwhelming as I went through the finished product! =) My concern would be peoper time management in carrying out such activities with my classes in the future. It is essential to have a follow-up activity to evaluate the effectiveness of the webquest project and to assess on whether the students have benefitted individually from the activities! ^_^

miRcOtEaching: OVer at lAst!! :D whEeee..!!

What do u intend the students to learn?
From my lesson (C:\Documents and Settings\Annabelle\Desktop\tourism\tourism powerpt_files\frame.htm), which was an introduction to "Tourism", I wanted my students to understand what tourism is, why and how it develops, using Singapore as an case study.

How did u transform the big ideas?
I started off with a brief flowchart to link the previous lessons together under the big idea that: " Industrial sectors develop to meet rising demands in an economy". Thereafter, I wanted to bring tourism under this big concept, thus giving it the enduring understanding (EU) that: "Tourism development is dependent on the industry’s ability to meet the increasing demands".
However, I realize it wasn't easy to come up with an overarching statement for a single lesson on it's own. After my lesson and the feedback that I received from my classmates, I realized I didn't emphasize or relate to the EU throughout the lesson until the conclusion part, hence, making it less effective. Perhaps the EU wasn't clear or direct enough, or my lesson wasn't planned properly towards it. Nevertheless, the process of planning for an EU was quite enjoyable and thought-provoking. Moreover, from the observation of others' lessons, I also learnt how they tied ideas together under interesting, big ideas and it helps to overcome the inertia of planning or using it in my own lesson.

How did the events of the lesson unfold?
Quite quickly because the entire lesson was rather rushed due to the lack of time. Nevertheless, I managed to carry out the group activities and the spiral questioning parts towards the end of the lesson.

How did you make sense of lesson delivery?
My aim was to make the lesson as simple as possible to understand and identify with; and yet informative and engaging for all. According to the comments by my peers, the presentation and lesson was engaging and fun, however, the overarching understanding as mentioned previous, can be further worked on and improved.

What did you learn from the experience?
I learnt that resources and careful planning is essential for the lesson to go smoothly, especially when I, personally, lack experience and exposure in this aspect. Moreover, proper time management is also very important, especially in the managing of group activities and teaching time.
The belief that we are to "teach as we were taught" can no longer apply in today's school context, because we are heading towards student-centered learning, which is quite different from how we were taught in the past. Moreover the new generation of students out there are quite different as compared to the past (our generation), thus, it is going to be a great challenge ahead of us when we enter into the schools in 6 months time. :)

Does the experience teach others?
I certainly do hope so! I managed to share some exciting ideas that I employed in the past and I believe that the enthusiasum of the teacher is essential in engaging the class during lesson and I do hope i managed to bring that out at the microlesson. =)

What does it teach you about student learning?
It taught me that students can actually be very creative and knowledgable, thus, sometimes we do not need to keep providing them with answers that we want. We can become facilitators in their learning and we guide them towards their own understanding of the issues in geography. :) hoorayy!!! Does that mean less work for us? =P not really.. in fact I think more effort has to put into planning for learning.. oh well.. shucks? hahaa.. kidding! ;)

What's spiRal qUestiOning? =)

"whY doEs the spidEr have 8 legs? whY is the skY blue and not gReen? whY do i have stripes and not you? whY?? whY??? WHY??!!" ~Hobbes

"AAAaaaaaarGGgggggghhhhhZZzzzz.....!!!!!!! just shudddduppp!!!" ~ Calvin

HAhaha.. familiar isn't it? I'm sure we would have met an inquistitive student like this, once in a while! Well... some are true troublemakers, while others are genuinely interested in finding out more! hah.. I remember how I used to be one of those rebellious ones, furiously waving my hands waiting to ask some silly question and get the thrill of having the teacher dumbfounded! ;p haha.. oOps! I hope I won't get retribution in the future! hee.. Anyways, during this lesson we watched a video on how this really good teacher engages her students in the thinking process through a series of spiral questionings! It was amazing! That video showed me that students can be really knowledgable and creative, thus teachers do not necessarily always have to be the answer-providers! In fact, students learn and remember a lot better when they are made to think through issues and draw conclusions on their own! =)

The pattern of spiral questioning follows like this:

1. Observation (simple enough to engage everybody, with no interpretation but just observation)

2, Application (in context)

3. Analysis (requires some inference from data)

4. Prediction (helping them to paint beyond what they can see)

5. Synthesis (write down student's comments, combining all the information together and make connections)

6. Evaluation (What do you think?)

Hmm.. guess very often we are reluctant to engage in such questioning in our lessons because, unlike our usual lesson plans, this strategy reduces the amount of control we have over our lesson, due to the inability to anticipate the answers of the students! Moreover, sometimes as teachers we might be uncomfortable with the possible silence that might arise in class and our impatience cause us to rush through, instead of waiting for an answer!

At the end of the lesson, we each jot down three things that struck us.. and mine were these:

1. Students can actually have very interesting and creative answers that should be harnassed!

2. Synthesis: learning occurs when patterns are drawn! (always ask "whAt's in common?")

3. Repeating can be very helpful for weaker students. It is also good to use captions with pictures and create notes on transparency/whiteboard using their responses.:)

"Whenever we think, we think for a purpose and within certain point of view, which is based on certain assumptions/consequences. We use facts/data/evidence to make inferences and judgements based on theories/comcepts in attempting to answer questions/problems."

- Richard Paul on Elements of Reasoning