Here it is, Eu Khim's and my webquest:

http://geographyoffood.sphosting.com

I hope your web browser has a pop-up blocker. For this free web hosting site actually comes with a price. Lots and lots of annoying advertisements popping up here there everywhere.

I showed my girlfriend the webquest. She commented, 'I wish my geography teachers did something like that for us. Maybe I would have then liked the subject.'

I guess there is something to be learnt here. This is partly what student-centred learning is all about. Understanding what excites students, what motivates students, and creating engaging lessons that would promote self and peer learning. Too many of my friends hate Geography. Many of them raise their eyebrows when I comment to them that I major in Geography, and am looking forward to being a geography teacher. To them, Geography is just about rocks, rivers and industries. And copying down in lectures the 20 factors that affect the above mentioned.

Geography is actually a very unique subject, it covers almost every realm of the world we live in. It may perhaps be the subject that is the most relevant to all, for it deals with current issues of the world. What shapes this world we live in, why is the environment so and so, what should we be concerned about this earth and society, what can we do to contribute as a Singapore, world and earth citizen. As my JC tutor use to say, Geography is the Mother of all subjects.

And because of Geography's nature of being such a dynamic and relevant subject, it lends itself to webquests very very well. There are too many issues we have to face up to in this messy world we live in. To keep up to date, there can be no better resource than the cauldron of information in the World Wide Web. And students love exploring the web! We have the curriculum stating to us what we need to teach, we have textbooks aiding us in this endeavor, but we need to take advantage of the web to make the curriculum constantly relevant and engaging for our students. We teach not only to fulfill syllabus requirements, but as Dr Chang repeatedly emphasize, there is some Big Idea behind every lesson we teach. Teaching Geography is also about moulding attitudes, developing opinions and encouraging moral development. Webquests is one method towards achieving such a goal. Hopefully, as students plough through the webquests each one of us in class has prepared, they would learn not only content knowledge, but also develop a critical eye towards issues and web sites they encounter.

Signing off, Keeevin the eternal idealist. :) Enjoy our webquest.. with wine or not, up to you.

Assessment

We just finished our Geography module today! And of course, it is logical for us to end with a look at 'assessment'. I think Eu Khim makes a good point in his blog about how it might be more helpful to look at assessment prior to microteaching, so that we can structure assessment requirements into our lessons and to put in more consideration for assessment within our pedagogies. However, I feel that there's value in leaving it to the end too. For one, assessment considerations are necessarily very pragmatic in nature, and introducing it before microteaching may kill a bit of our idealism in creative teaching. Secondly, it is a good way to end off the module. Food for thought: did we allow assessment requirements to guide our teaching and curriculum, or are we allowing the curriculum and 'Big Ideas' to run the show? Basically my fave debate between idealism in teaching and pragmatic education requirements once again. But that aside, let me do my bit of assessing on assessments here, based on the last couple of sessions:

1) Assessment is so subjective! Gee, even before we were introduced to levels marking, we had a hard time agreeing as a class how marks should be awarded. I foresee many catfights in time to come in our staffrooms, and the absolute need for moderation. That being said, a lot of the ambiguity can be resolved with a careful setting of questions and marking scheme. Honestly, some of the questions and schemes we looked at during class were not quite up to standard. Its easy to critique of course, but there really is value in putting more effort to setting clear questions and devising a clear marking scheme. The 'big idea', the motivation behind questions set must be clear, and issues of validity and reliability will more easily (and hopefully, naturally) be put in place. I am not a big fan of the A01 + A02, A01 + A03 structure as it is too deterministic, but the motivation behind it is clear. We are seeking to assess and hopefully help students develop their knowledge, thinking and judgmental skills, and really, when setting questions, it should not merely be an exercise to meet with deadlines appointed by the HOD. Hee.. MOE will do well to employ more teachers and spread out thinner the responsibility of exam paper setting in every school. That brings me to my next point..

2) Assessment is so taxing! Wah lau, just kill me will you, the marking schemes are so tediously long and detailed! And yet it is necessary (see point 1 above). I cannot imagine having to set papers, devise marking schemes, and mark tons of papers in the future! This is one MINOR annoyance I forgot to consider when I signed my teaching contract!

Levels marking may make our time easier though. Merits of this form of assessment for a students' learning aside, practically speaking, it may be easier for teachers to assess and mark papers in the future. Marking scheme may be less pedantic too in nature. But perhaps this is just me bring hopeful (crossing my fingers haha).

But seriously, I like levels marking. It really puts assessment and education into the right perspective. We are testing students not so much of memorization skills, but also of attitudes. Levels marking will do much to advance thinking skills in students, and hopefully allow them to form opinions and judgments of their own of pertinent issues in this world we live in. Of course, Singaporeans being exam smart, we will soon have students spouting clichés like 'I agree with you to a large extent' in time to come. Let's hope it won't come down to that. Or worse.. we might have develop a breed of smart-alecky students who are so bold like our terror guests in class just a few weeks ago. Heh. You know my view on that. See my post a couple of weeks ago.

3) Finally, my last point: Assessment is so important! And not just for paper qualifications' sake.. We often forget that assessment takes two forms: Summative VS Formative marking. An ability to look at a question, and answer what it requires, to form an informed opinion – these takes time. And really, regular assessment modes of various kinds, not just final year exams, will allow us teachers to gauge how well our students are doing. Just look at the sample scripts over the last couple of sessions. It was easy to identify the areas which the students needed more guidance on. Just a simple paper test, some verbal questions, or some creative exercise can reveal to us teachers what our students have understood, and what needs to be built on.

Much better than staring at blank faces in class after we babbled on too much. Which is what I have done here, rambled on too much. Sorry, a UK syndrome. But I am not the worse, aye? Haha.

Microteaching

Let's compare the 2 microteaching sessions we had this week. Please note that I am not trying to insinuate about any session being superior to the other, but I thought there is just a pertinent point to make.

Throughout our microteaching sessions, we had a perennial debate and discussion about the tension between idealism vs pragmatism, knowledge development vs assessment requirement. We saw these contrasts playing themselves out in the 2 microteaching sessions of this week. The first by Mr Tee and Mr Phoon was driven more by a realistic understanding of what Sec 4 students would need and seek for in their chosen topic, whilst the second by Ms Aw and Mr Sim was guided more by an idealistic Big Idea of educating the students of the importance of Social Justice and concern for humanity.

Which approach ought we take? As beginning teachers, idealistic keeev believes that we have the energy in us to come up with more thought-through activities, and the fact that our minds and attitudes are less steeped in the miry concerns of assessment and pragmatism helps. We read Geography in University not simply as a 3 year content training course to equip us to download and drill students of the future, rather our education ought to have tuned us to be more aware and concerned for humanity, for societies, for earth and the environment. And that is the role we ought to take, to develop in young minds a fervour and concern for issues of this world, to appreciate the beauty of the environment, to be aware of their roles as citizens of this world we live in. Geography is such a unique subject in that it is so intricately woven into every part of our living - teaching Geography really shouldn’t be guided simply by results alone.

And because the world is so diverse, the subject so multi-faceted, who are we as teachers to decide for students which subjects are important, and which ones are not? I'm pretty much a post-structuralist, and I believe each and every topic, every voice deserves an equal chance to be heard, and every mind an equal chance to discern what is true to them. And as an educator, I believe firmly in the importance of instilling a love for a subject – that is the key to achieving results. A teacher's passion and enthusiasm is contagious, and we ought to put in effort where we can and the students can and will discern.

Interestingly, we had our guests at Aw-Si's lesson reflecting that they felt the lesson non-content dense enough. They need a 20pt rehearsal for essay writing purposes, to score, to be secure. Would they have preferred a Tee-Phoon style lesson then? I guess that might be so, and that might what they have been used to. A clear structure with a clear listing of factors, and clear case studies to support the list of factors they can rehash. Helpful? Perhaps. But how many times have we heard from our friends, peers and students, 'Oh I hate GEOGRAPHY!' And why is that so? Too many listing of factors I believe! Too many view Geography as a bland subject with little purpose whatsoever, nothing more than a listing of dry factors with no correlation to their everyday life at all. Tourism, Industry, Weathering, River Processes… everything can be broken down into systematic points, every topic we can memorise a standard 3 case studies for assessment purposes. Is that the kind of Geography students we want to produce, is that they type of Geography teacher we want to be?

Time is short in Singapore schools, and for pragmatic purposes, we ought to be aware of the balance that is needed to answer to students’ exam requirements. But at the same time, let’s encourage one another to not be entirely subsumed by the system, and churn out standard 20pt lectures that so kills the subject. Perhaps we should try to think creatively for helpful ways to introduce each topic, but at the same time seek always to draw students back to important points to take home when they end each unit. To that extent, thanks guys for the many microteaching sessions we had so far, not least Aw-Sim and Tea-Phoon. To comment on what some of us has written.. I do think that the micro-teaching sessions has been helpful, it does get me thinking how real classroom environments will be like. Granted, its not the most natural of environments, with us fairies, monkeys and clowns running all over the place, but it does get one thinking and reflecting. And the passion's infectious - thanks for spreading the love for the subject and in teaching friends.

Don't we love our 3 guests? :)

After 2 weeks of deadlines nightmare in NIE, I finally have a breather to post some reflections.

Many in class were outraged, appalled, shocked etc. by the response of our 3 guests in microteaching yesterday. I must admit I wasn't very surprised with their reaction, in fact, I must say I congratulate them on their sheer confidence in expressing their opinions to a bunch of people who were a good 10 years older than them. Think about it. The government has been encouraging critical and creative thinkers since 1997. This is the product you can expect of such an education, thinking students who are opinionated, who do not fear to voice their views. Their opinions are not entirely baseless nor misinformed, clearly, they display good competence in geographical knowledge and also in certain aspects of pedagogy and philosophy (Bloom's Taxonomy anyone?). Before we draw out our swords and the guns and crucify them for their sheer audacity, we ought to recognize that there is certainly a democratization of the classroom these days – students' opinions matter, especially since they are much better informed and educated these days, with the advent of the internet and all.

I recall my days in JC, when many of my classmates were similar to the boys, if not 'worse'. They were frank, they were honest, they were often blunt in their opinions and criticisms. But they meant NO HARM. It was the CULTURE that was bred in the class, one which they were accustomed to, one where they have learnt much from. Our tutors (my tutors in JC were British expats) encouraged each of us to voice our opinions, and there was the understanding that everyone of us deserve to have a voice, and in airing our views, we learn most as we engage in critical debate and thought. It was a classroom environment that was vibrant, energetic and always engaging. Talk about student centred learning.. we learnt most in the countless debates on current affairs we had in geography class. Our teacher was really a facilitator, and he allowed each of us to develop our own independent thought and stance. Come to think of it, he had a pretty cushy job, coming into school after 8am, leaving by 12..

The point I want to make is that in the Asian society we live in, we need to be aware of the increasing 'westernization' of the classroom (to use hackneyed terms we are used to in our Chinese essay writing in secondary school..). Singapore is at its roots pretty Confucian in nature, where teachers are (were) figures of authority who were viewed with absolute respect, and those with authority were revered and almost religiously worshipped. Yet as the society developed, we cry out for more independence, to be freed from nanny-style governance and teaching, to be allowed space to express, to criticize, to be independent in our opinions. And the result? You get more and more students who dare to challenge the authority of the teacher, where hierarchies are blurred, where every individual counts - young, old, Chinese, Malay, ACS, Jurong West whatever. In that light, we ought to applaud the 3 guests we had yesterday. They dared to challenge, they dared to think, they dared to differ. They were not entirely obnoxious - this may very well be the classroom culture they were brought up in, this may very well be what they have been encouraged to do amongst peers in school, and they may very well be desiring to help create a better future in schools by offering their honest opinions to us future teachers. I'm glad to read in Alvin's blog that he wasn't offended, but rather he was happy. Its hard to swallow honest criticism, but it wasn’t meant in any negative sense. The boy simply shared his pragmatic concerns from his contextual point of view.

I must admit that at first, I felt a knee-jerk reaction to be defensive of Leah and Alvin, and I felt some of the boys' critiques were not exactly valid. I felt indignant and annoyed at their audacity. But that passed off pretty quickly, as I tried to put myself in their shoes. Dr Chang was right.. they might want to show off. Who wouldn't, when they have a bit of brains, and this was their little chance to impress. And he did substantiate his points. In addition, the environment was a little hostile from their perspective. Here I am, an invited guest, and I was told to give my honest opinion. But why are all these big sisters and brothers gunning me down for an honest opinion I want to make? Why are they drowning me out when I have something to say, that I have not finished saying? Do they honestly want constructive critique from me, or are they just happy to be defensive?

2 lessons learnt I guess. One, its human nature to react against criticism, but its true maturity if we can look beyond hurt egos and see things from the other's perspective – is it a justified criticism? Is there anything I can take note of? Second, education isn't just about intellectual growth. Clearly, these boys needs education on values, on respect, on EQ, on pride. They've done well in thinking for themselves, in developing an opinion of their own. They'd do better if they can now learn lessons on how to think for others, on service to others rather than trying to impress.

To develop critical thinkers who are at the same time non-proud and non-selfcentred. Whose role is that?

Us. Uh uh. We are not just Geography teachers. We are educators, facilitators, mentors. Let's just make sure we have 1) the content to be able to confidently engage with these students, and 2) ALSO, the maturity too to help mould these students into well-balanced adults with the right values.