Thursday, January 27, 2005
Week 4
Yahoo Instant Messaging (IM) is a tool that we’ve learnt this week as a teaching aid. It is actually a tool that is useful in conducting counseling session whereby face-to-face interaction with the student can be avoided to allow him to be more at ease and in a way more conducive for sharing of innermost thoughts. This is also especially useful for students, who are not so vocal in class, to ask question online. At the same time, IM provides teacher with the ability to cater to many students at a time as well as a mean to archive individual conversation with the students which can be useful for future referencing.
With regards to the six elements of Constructivist Learning Approaches, IM provides an excellent Just-In-Time platform for students to enhance the Questioning aspect during an allocated IM session and concurrently allows the teacher to find out how much they have learnt (Exhibit) as well as to set up the bridge by extending the problems raised by the students, developing their analytical thinking skill. At the end of the day, students can reflect what they have learnt and discovered after giving it some thought and return to the next IM session to relate to the teacher.
Since Yahoo IM can be downloaded freely from the web, it is considered a convenient online discussion tool. However, it can pose some problems. Does the teacher want the session to be held in school? Then, does the school allow downloading of the IM? Again, will the students be hooked onto the attractive and fanciful IM such that they dabble on it the whole day and miss their homework? And, most importantly, parents might not want their children to be addicted to IM, which undeniably presents certain elements of danger especially if the children were to talk to other strangers and meet them up without the parents knowing.
Hence, IM is essentially a double edged sword. It can facilitate teaching and learning but on the other hand, if it is misused, the consequences can be detrimental.
With regards to the six elements of Constructivist Learning Approaches, IM provides an excellent Just-In-Time platform for students to enhance the Questioning aspect during an allocated IM session and concurrently allows the teacher to find out how much they have learnt (Exhibit) as well as to set up the bridge by extending the problems raised by the students, developing their analytical thinking skill. At the end of the day, students can reflect what they have learnt and discovered after giving it some thought and return to the next IM session to relate to the teacher.
Since Yahoo IM can be downloaded freely from the web, it is considered a convenient online discussion tool. However, it can pose some problems. Does the teacher want the session to be held in school? Then, does the school allow downloading of the IM? Again, will the students be hooked onto the attractive and fanciful IM such that they dabble on it the whole day and miss their homework? And, most importantly, parents might not want their children to be addicted to IM, which undeniably presents certain elements of danger especially if the children were to talk to other strangers and meet them up without the parents knowing.
Hence, IM is essentially a double edged sword. It can facilitate teaching and learning but on the other hand, if it is misused, the consequences can be detrimental.
Friday, January 21, 2005
Week 3
For this week’s lesson, we have learnt about something more theoretical: the six element model of constructivist learning approaches – Situation, Groupings, Bridge, Questions, Exhibit and Reflections. The model represents the onset of education based on cognitive knowledge construction whereby students build new knowledge based on their past experience and interaction with the environment. In addition, the design loop is introduced to us to facilitate the designing of a lesson for the students.
Essentially, I feel that the education should incorporate the awareness of the ever changing paradigm in reality -- a lot of phenomenon do not have a single solution. Different perspectives towards a particular issue can sharpen thinking and looking at matters with different angles. The constructivist approach thus serves this purpose of illustrating the imperfect world outside there to the students. Hence, it is pragmatic in using this approach in classroom teaching. Moreover, the emphasis on student-centred learning and the vision of Thinking Schools, Learning Nation highlighted the importance of adopting the constructivist approach in teaching and learning. In short, the vision that students are to assume a great role in their own learning is in line with the constructivist approach of learners being active learners –constructing their own knowledge-- with the teachers being facilitators. The role of the facilitators cannot be overemphasized. Students might be wrong when searching for answers in the world of knowledge. During the exhibition and reflection phase of learning, teachers must be alert and knowledgable enough to eliminate any deviation and error-- before they propagate-- in learning of a concept.
Basically, for the design loop, it is a useful guideline which focuses on the resources available, environment factor and objectives to produce a good lesson. However, I feel that the constraints should be analyzed after the conceptualizing of an idea. The placement of the constraints at the very last, will results in the tools and methods being formulated. As such, it might be difficult for us to make major adjustments to the strategy for fear of a tight deadline.
On the whole, the constructivist approach in teaching does fit well in the 'teach less, learn more' education paradigm.
Essentially, I feel that the education should incorporate the awareness of the ever changing paradigm in reality -- a lot of phenomenon do not have a single solution. Different perspectives towards a particular issue can sharpen thinking and looking at matters with different angles. The constructivist approach thus serves this purpose of illustrating the imperfect world outside there to the students. Hence, it is pragmatic in using this approach in classroom teaching. Moreover, the emphasis on student-centred learning and the vision of Thinking Schools, Learning Nation highlighted the importance of adopting the constructivist approach in teaching and learning. In short, the vision that students are to assume a great role in their own learning is in line with the constructivist approach of learners being active learners –constructing their own knowledge-- with the teachers being facilitators. The role of the facilitators cannot be overemphasized. Students might be wrong when searching for answers in the world of knowledge. During the exhibition and reflection phase of learning, teachers must be alert and knowledgable enough to eliminate any deviation and error-- before they propagate-- in learning of a concept.
Basically, for the design loop, it is a useful guideline which focuses on the resources available, environment factor and objectives to produce a good lesson. However, I feel that the constraints should be analyzed after the conceptualizing of an idea. The placement of the constraints at the very last, will results in the tools and methods being formulated. As such, it might be difficult for us to make major adjustments to the strategy for fear of a tight deadline.
On the whole, the constructivist approach in teaching does fit well in the 'teach less, learn more' education paradigm.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Week 2
This week has been a fruitful week. I've learnt to use the two web tools; using Microsoft Word to create webpages as well as NIE online file storage and website server, MyDisk.
Pertaining to using webpages for teaching purposes, will it be merely used as a platform for students to download supplementary materials for the subject or can it be used more prevalently? I personally feel that unless we can attract students to come to my website designated for the course frequently, otherwise the online file storage MyDisk would suffice for students to extract or upload relevant exercises or material. Hence, to increase the practicality of setting up a website, we can add in information that are of interest to the students, for instances, fashion, graphic, computer games etc and set up related discussion groups for them to discuss their interest. In this way, the website will serve as a gathering point for like minders in the class to raise their points and also avoid them to surf other such websites and run into the danger of meeting lurking predators who prey on innocent students. We have better control, so to speak, if we can attract the students to surf the websites that we've created. Moreover, the website can serve as an avenue for students to relate problems to teachers without the coyness of face-to-face talks. As such, problems can be addressed quickly without them being complicated in time to come.
Furthermore, the using of Microsoft Word to create webpages has it advantages; websites can be set up quickly and the software is available in all schools. Being in a technological era, the using of websites to teach will also be in synchronous with tech-savvy students and hence increase their acceptance to this tool.
To sum up, the setting up of a website will be a successfully one if it can be visited regularly and act as a bridge of communication between the teacher and students. The failure of these objectives will deem it as a glorified online storage system.
Pertaining to using webpages for teaching purposes, will it be merely used as a platform for students to download supplementary materials for the subject or can it be used more prevalently? I personally feel that unless we can attract students to come to my website designated for the course frequently, otherwise the online file storage MyDisk would suffice for students to extract or upload relevant exercises or material. Hence, to increase the practicality of setting up a website, we can add in information that are of interest to the students, for instances, fashion, graphic, computer games etc and set up related discussion groups for them to discuss their interest. In this way, the website will serve as a gathering point for like minders in the class to raise their points and also avoid them to surf other such websites and run into the danger of meeting lurking predators who prey on innocent students. We have better control, so to speak, if we can attract the students to surf the websites that we've created. Moreover, the website can serve as an avenue for students to relate problems to teachers without the coyness of face-to-face talks. As such, problems can be addressed quickly without them being complicated in time to come.
Furthermore, the using of Microsoft Word to create webpages has it advantages; websites can be set up quickly and the software is available in all schools. Being in a technological era, the using of websites to teach will also be in synchronous with tech-savvy students and hence increase their acceptance to this tool.
To sum up, the setting up of a website will be a successfully one if it can be visited regularly and act as a bridge of communication between the teacher and students. The failure of these objectives will deem it as a glorified online storage system.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Trying for the first time on this blog....
