My Enhanced School Experience

PREPARATORY TASK FOR ICT FOR MEANINGFUL LEARNING Enhanced School Experience: Classroom Observations of ICT Use

(I) Specific Observation

School Name: Yishun Junior College

Class: JC 2

Profile of the class:

(For e.g., the students’ academic abilities, stream and other characteristics)

6 H2 Art students taking Study of Visual Arts (SOVA) as 40% of their final art grade. These students are from different classes and only have art lessons together 5 periods a week. They are generally quite responsive in class and are able to discuss about art works. According to their teacher, their abilities vary quite drastically as some find it harder to grasp the subject due to language problems.

Subject: H2 Art

What ICT tools are used in the lesson?

SOVA website

Describe how ICT is used for teaching and learning in the lesson.

The art teacher created a website to facilitate learning during ICT. The SOVA website helps learning in many areas. First it is an information depository, where readings and notes by teachers can be downloaded. Students can download them anytime, anywhere and prepare for lessons before the actual lessons. Secondly, students were each allocated a few artists to research on during the holidays and their findings were uploaded so that all the students can share these resources outside lesson time. Assignments are often uploaded online as well, so that they can check and refer to these instructions even if they forgot to bring their worksheets. Students who are absent can also refer to the website to check what they have missed.

In the lesson observed, the teacher has finished the syllabus and was starting to do some revision questions with the students. Past year questions were posted on the SOVA website and the website is subsequently used for teaching. The teacher had a discussion with them for one of the question. When there were parts of content information that the students have difficulty remembering, the teacher would access the website and play videos or open up websites and resources that they have previously went through from the website to help them. Students were more stimulated by the images and seemed able to point out details of paintings for discussion more easily than when given printed assignments.

As the lesson was only 50 minutes, the students did not manage to finish discussing the other questions. Outside lesson time, students could still post their opinions on how to answer the questions, points they would include, essay structure they would adopt or even stand they would take. The students were able to interact with their classmates outside of classroom time and comment on each other’s work. The teacher also checks the website regularly to monitor the discussion and add in points that they have missed.



(II) General Observation:

How do teachers in the school feel about the use of ICT for teaching and learning? (For this question, you may want to speak to the HOD/ICT and other teachers you know in the school.)

The teachers in this school generally are very receptive to the use of ICT for teaching and learning. For example, all subjects in the Arts department have each built a website so that learning resources can be shared with students and the website acts as a teaching tool during some of the lessons as well. There were a few sharing on the use of ICT during staff meetings for that teachers can share their best practices and talk about issues encountered.

Many teachers are also communicating with students via social platforms such as Facebook or in their respective subject blogs. Students are encouraged to ask questions during their revision at home and the shy students also find it easier to voice out their opinions in online discussions. Student’s projects and assignments were uploaded and everyone can easily comment on them. This builds up the ownership students feel for their work. For example a science tutor in the school shared that he asked his students to make short videos to explain physics theories. All of them were very excited and they posted the videos on Facebook for sharing. The other students were able to comment and vote for the best video. In this way, students are engaged in learning, actively creating their own works and learning from their friends’ works.

Students are also able to share their thoughts and difficulties through such platforms. Many teachers have shared that they know more about their students’ problems through online social platforms as students are more inclined to share their problems when they do not have to face the teachers one to one. This helps the teachers to identify the problems earlier.

The school also actively encourages the use of online learning management systems. All records of academic and co-curriculum activities progress are uploaded on these students. Lecture slides, notes, readings and announcements are also posted so that students can have access to them easily. Online quizzes are conducted so that the students can get immediate feedback. This system is also made accessible to parents so that they can track their child’s learning.