ENHANCED SCHOOL EXPERIENCE:

PREPARATORY TASK FOR ICT FOR MEANINGFUL LEARNING




Enhanced School Experience: Classroom Observations of ICT Use

(I) Specific Observation

School Name: Changkat Changi Secondary School

Class: 1N1

Profile of the class:

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

Coming from a neighbourhood school, the students in 1N1 were relatively more rowdy at times. The attention span they had was no longer than ten minutes or so depending on the teacher’s style of teaching as well as subject. Having observed the chemistry class for this top normal academic class, I would say that other than a few students who tend to be more playful, the others were all very willing to learn. A little reshuffling of the seating arrangement led to a huge improvement in the second week of the term. Having also relieved taught some of the other secondary one classes, including the express stream, 1N1 gives me the impression that many of the students in that class are trying really hard to do well in their studies, perhaps to hop back into the express stream. However, some of the observations above were not in tangent to what some of their other teachers expressed. This goes to show that the behaviour of the students in the class is characteristic of each teacher. As for the academic abilities of the students, pace of the class cannot be too fast, as advised by my Cooperating Teacher. Despite being the top class from the normal academic stream, these students take a longer time to absorb some of the content taught. This could most probably be attributed to the fact that they are seeing some of these things for the very first time (eg the Periodic Table, burette, pipette, etc), thus taking some time to get accustomed to some of the terms used.


Subject:
What ICT tools are used in the lesson?

Video clips, Microsoft powerpoint, Microsoft word using tablet PC.




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

Video clips were shown in class to deepen students’ understanding on some of the content covered. New terms and concepts such as alkali metal reacting violently with water was conveyed better with illustration as words alone was insufficient.

Microsoft powerpoint slides were used in conjunction with their notes in class. The pictures and clips in the slides help students get a clearer picture of the content. For example, the colours of some of the group VII elements in the periodic table cannot be easily pictured without any background prior to the class.

The teacher also used a tablet PC to go through the handouts in class. Instead of just telling what the students have to write to fill in the blanks, the teacher filled in the blanks with the students as she taught. This not only drew the attention of the students whenever the teacher starts writing, it also made it very clear what each blank is supposed to be filled in with.



(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 whom I spoke to regarding the use of ICT for teaching and learning all gave very positive feedback. Majority of them feel that ICT not only made the lesson more interesting to the students but also for the teachers when they are teaching. Rather than simply writing the equations and terminologies on the whiteboard, they are now able to play around with the computer effects to lighten the weight of the content of the subjects.

Another teacher also commented that with the implementation of ICT, students are now given one week in the middle of the semester to learn purely from home. This not only allows more freedom for both teachers and students. For the students, they are now able to learn at their own pace as well to learn more independently. As for the teachers, they are now able to trace the performance of each student better given a chance to take a step back to see how the progress of the students are.