Conference Papers

With the current emphasis on creative thinking and a vision of a Singapore known for ‘art, civilization and ideas (Straits Times, 21 Jan 1996), art has gained its much needed attention. This paper examines the cognitive profiles of Secondary Three and Four Art Elective and non-Art Elective students (Express stream). Art education in Singapore schools can be categorized under two major programmes – the Art Elective Programme (AEP) and the non-Art Elective or general art programme. The Cognitive Laterality Battery (CLB)(Gordon, 1986) was administered to 227 students from both programmes. This paper also discusses the implications of the findings on art curriculum in schools.

The concept of chemical reaction is fundamental in the study of chemistry. This paper is based on a study which examines the nature and progression of sixth formers' understanding of the concept of chemical reactions. The main findings are that whilst most students gave a good account of the reactants and products involved, they were less able in their explanations of the processes and energetics of chemical reactions. Contrary to expectations for A-level, few students were able to utilise the scientists' approach of using a single consistent conceptual model to explain a multiplicity of superficially different events. Rather, these students held a variety of task-related alternative frameworks.

We have employed a semiempirical molecular orbital method and a modified form of the Stillinger-Weber potential to investigate the characteristics of adsorption and diffusion of Si adatoms on the Si(110) and Si(100) surfaces. Our results for Si(110) indicate that the diffusion of the Si adatom is ani-sotropic along a low-energy zigzag path directly above the surface atomic zigzag chain. The activation energy for the Si adatom to diffuse along this zigzag path on the Si ( l 10) surface is 0.054 eV, suggesting that the Si adatom is highly mobile on Si ( l 10). For the Si(100) surface. the activation energy is about 0.33 eV with the direction of easy diffusion being parallel and to the side of the dimer rows on the fully relaxed Si (100) 2Xl surface.

Singapore has adopted English for education, social functions and governance since independence in 1965. As the medium of instruction in the education system, English has been highly regarded as a crucial linguistic and economic capital in children's academic and social life. However, the fact is that the majority of students still learn English as a second language (ESL). How these students ESL, especially ESL reading, for academic success, has become a concern for us. Against such a background, this paper reports on part of a larger study that investigated the reading strategies used by primary school pupils. The participants were 18 primary 4 to 6 pupils from three schools. Data were collected from top and bottom proficiency pupils at each of the three grades in each school, who read two texts at each level. Grounded in an information-processing theory and based on successful experiences of scholars using think-aloud, we asked the pupils to read and report what they were thinking while reading. The think-aloud protocols were recorded, transcribed verbatim, coded, and analyzed. Patterns of reading strategies by proficiency and grade level were presented, where differences in strategy use were exemplified with specific case studies. Implications for strategy-based instruction were also discussed.

Although action research has been around and had been used for a couple of decades in the world of academics and practitioners, its value and essence are often under appreciated. In the Singapore education scene, some may perceive action research as beneficial especially with the slew of recent reforms that demand greater accountability not only to the product, but also the process of education such as the School Excellence Model (SEM) and External Validation (EV). Some are given the choice between WITS (Work Improvement Teams) or LCs (Learning Circles) – the latter is one form of action research. In this paper, the author will provide the rationale for the use of action research in current change agenda, and conclude by emphasising on the necessity for action research to be critical, reiterating the salient proposition that “action research is a participatory, democratic process concerned with developing practical knowing in the pursuit of worthwhile human purposes” (Reason and Bradbury, 2001, p. 1).

Mathematical modelling is one of the current focuses in the Singapore Mathematics Curriculum Framework. A multi-tiered teaching experiment using design research methodology was conducted to build teachers' capacity in designing, facilitating, and evaluating learning during mathematical modelling tasks for Primary 5 students (aged 10-11). This paper illustrates the use of the retrospective analysis phase within design research cycles to activate a critical moment of teacher learning involving the interplay between questioning and listening during her first attempt at facilitating a mathematical modelling task. The teacher affirmed her deliberate focuses in the use of questions to (a) refine students' models, (b) encourage articulation of student ideas in self-evaluation of the models, and (c) clarify and understand student reasoning. However, she also discovered the importance of interpretative listening in conjunction with questioning to promote more sophisticated mathematisation processes in model development. Implications from the use of the retrospective analysis phase on activating critical moments of learning during teacher education will be discussed.

This study examines 10 weeks of collaborative learning activities that are supported by the GroupScribbles (GS) software technology in 2 Singapore Primary 4 Science classrooms. It is found that GS supports instant formative feedback from students and from teachers effectively. GS plays a positive role at both the level of individual learners and that of group learners. Several emergent collaboration behaviors manifested by students in GS were observed. With GS, the construction of knowledge is distributed across individual learners when they engage in social discourse within the activities. Students were found to have more opportunities to participate in class discussions to share and were better able to organize their ideas by using GS. The results show that the GS classes performed better than non-GS classes as measured by traditional assessments.

Interdisciplinary project work or interdisciplinary project-based learning places demands on learners and teachers that challenge the traditional practices and structures of modem day schooling. Learning from doing complex, challenging, and interdisciplinary authentic projects requires resourcefulness and planning by the student, tools that support knowledge construction and representation, mechanisms for collaboration and communication, and support for reflection and authentic assessment. This paper argues that activity theory provides an appropriate framework for interdisciplinary work, in particular, the emphasis on (a) intended goals to be achieved; (b) subjects involved; (c) the mediating artifacts; (d) the rules of accomplishing the activity; (e) the community (teachers, experts, and students); (f) and the division of work involved in the project. Computer-mediated supporting environments should attempt to model the activity structures, tools and sign systems, socio-cultural rules, and community expectations {which are commonly interdisciplinary) that subjects or learners must accommodate when acting on some object or goal of learning. After explicating assumptions of activity theory, we describe components of a computer-mediated environments for supporting interdisciplinary and authentic work. These components generally support planning, knowledge construction, collaboration, and assessment. The paper proposes a possible prototype design based on the activity theory framework and discusses the managerial and implementation functions of interdisciplinary work within the proposed system.

This paper reports on an attempt to describe mathematics teaching and learning from the perspective of cultural-historical activity theory. It offers, with the intention of stimulating discussion and critique, a reading of the theory and its potential in guiding classroom practice. The paper presents briefly the development of the activity theory through its major phases, describes its theoretical position and discusses a mediational take on cognition, language, and appropriation of meaning in the mathematics classroom. Examples considered illustrative of an activity-theoretic approach in mathematics teaching and learning are presented. In doing so, the paper hopes to clarify the central concepts and principles of the theory and to take first steps to examining its possible use in theorizing about mathematics education in and out of the classroom.

Libraries have been traditionally viewed as places to support the community development of literacy skills, but their importance in a networked and global world is constantly being contested by alternative visions of their social and technological relevance. Whether public and school libraries thrive in particular contexts depends on more than the presence of a space labelled “library”. This article uses Actor Network Theory (ANT) as the primary framework for analysing the relations between libraries, literacies and change in two contexts, one in Singapore and the other in Australia. Using a trans-local dialogic approach, the two authors engaged in place-centred, immersive and sustained conversations about their research cases, tracing how people, objects and ideas are received and travel across contexts to effect change. The ANT analysis of the process of innovation and change in both libraries through the minute tracing of the network relations and effects between objects, spaces, emotions revealed the interconnectedness of human and non-human objects in moving people and ideas, highlighting the distributed effect of the social and material. Through tracings of things, people and ideas using ANT, the assemblages that make the transformation possible are made visible enabling greater clarity.

‘What is Happening in This Class?’ (WIHIC) is a validated classroom environment instrument developed by Fraser, Fisher and McRobbie (1996) to assess the nature of classroom learning environments. It was translated into Chinese in a cross-national classroom learning environment study with Taiwanese samples (Huang & Fraser, 1997). The present study further modified the Taiwanese Chinese version for use in assessing the nature of Chinese Language classroom environments in Singapore secondary schools. The modification procedure consisted of five stages and the whole cycle was repeated from stage 2 until all the items were satisfactorily translated into Singaporean standard Chinese Language. The aim of this paper is to describe the procedures and report on the outcomes of the different cycles, which the WIHIC questionnaire underwent before the final modified form was adopted for the main study.

When mathematics teachers plan lessons, they interact with curriculum materials in various ways. In this paper, we draw on Brown’s (2009) Design Capacity for Enactment framework to explore the practice of adapting curriculum materials in the case of a Singapore secondary mathematics teacher. Problems from the textbook used and the worksheets she crafted were compared to determine how she adapted the content. Video-recordings of the lessons and post-lesson interviews were used to clarify how her personal teacher resources contributed to her design decisions. The findings suggest that her seemingly casual use of problems from the textbook are in fact unique variations of adapting curriculum materials.

The use of concept videos in science was designed to incorporate the teaching and learning of 21st Century skills in particular self-directed learning (SOL) which focus on developing thinking, communication and management skills in pupils. Science concepts are often abstract for young children, especially those in primary schools, to grasp. Pupils often bring to the classroom their own sets of science ideas, believes or alternative science concepts which may not be accurate and may contain serious misconceptions. Teachers need to constantly unteach and correct their alternative concepts before effective learning can take place. However, these unscientific ideas, believes or alternative conceptions that pupils have are usually difficult to change through routine classroom instruction. Addressing pupils' alternative conceptions is critical and if this is not addressed at early stage, it will impede their understanding of science concepts at higher study level. This paper examines the impact of using concept videos in SE inquiry-based science lessons (IBL) to trigger the thinking of primary five pupils (11-years old) as well as elicit any prior knowledge that pupils have into an active investigation of science concepts explicitly applied in authentic situations. A team of teachers created videos that present learners as subjects with alternative conceptions based on authentic situations in everyday life. These customised concept videos produced in-house are then used at crucial "hinge points" in a lesson to elicit their existing thoughts and trigger further in-depth thinking in pupils.

This paper presents data on the ways Singaporean adolescents choose to cope with problems. A sample of 467 secondary school students completed the Adolescent Coping Scale (ACS: Frydenberg & Lewis, 1993) which yields data on eighteen potential coping scales, namely, (1) Seek Social Support, (2) Focus on Solving the Problem, (3) Work Hard and Achieve, (4) Worry, (5) Invest in Close Friends, (6) Seek to Belong, (7) Wishful Thinking, (8) Not Coping, (9) Tension Reduction, (10) Social Action, (11) Ignore the Problem, (12) Self-Blame, (13) Keep to Self, (14) Seek Spiritual Support, (15) Focus on the Positive, (16) Seek Professional Help, (17) Seek Relaxing Diversions, and (18) Physical Recreation. The association between coping style and gender, school and stream will be presented.