Book Chapters

An important role of assessment is to measure changes in cognitive functioning over time. Current prevalent assessment methods for measuring change and learning progress are primarily characterised by institution-based or standardised tests. Even though education systems globally have introduced alternative modes of assessment, these components predominantly aggregate towards high-stakes behavioural assessments, which inadvertently obscure the dynamic nature of individual cognitive engagements over time, limits dynamic change tracking of individuals’ learning, and remains opaque in unpacking underlying mechanisms of learning. This chapter aims to inform a science-based understanding of the possibilities of complementary cutting-edge assessment tools in education, through an articulation of neural-physiological modalities that can move us closer towards augmenting assessment possibilities, including catalysing ‘assessment-capabilities’ to vitalise one's own learning trajectory.

This chapter aims to decenter discourse around diversity. Using a case study of ten teachers’ perspectives of diversity as academic readiness in Singapore, this chapter illuminates the socially-constructed and relational nature of diversity. Rather than assume traditional markers of diversity—such as ethnicity, culture, and language—travel across context, this chapter argues that curriculum and discourse around diversity needs to be transformed to foreground contexts and notions of diversity beyond what is commonly referenced in Anglo-Saxon contexts so as to achieve greater inclusivity.

In schools, global education is commonly taught via subjects such as global studies, citizenship education, history, geography, and social studies. Less explored has been the connection between global education and Literature. In the first part of this chapter, I argue that Literature’s primary role in global education lies not in providing substantive knowledge but in developing perceptual dispositions, particularly a cosmopolitan concern for justice and care for others. In the second part of this chapter, I utilize case studies of four Literature teachers in Singapore secondary schools highlighting how they foster such cosmopolitan dispositions through the diversity of texts and strategic pedagogies employed

This chapter focuses on the reading practices of adolescent girls in a global, multi-mediated age of constant information flows and easy access to reading resources in print and online. As part of a larger study, twelve 14- and 15-year-old girls from one all-girls’ school in Singapore were invited to participate in a mobile ethnography study, where they used an app to share about their in- and out-of-school reading in print and on their devices (smartphones, e-readers, laptops, tablets) over four days. Descriptive survey, textual, and visual data were collected. Individual interviews or focus groups were conducted immediately after the data collection, following photo-elicitation methods, to deepen understanding of the girls’ reading. The chapter draws on Elizabeth Long’s (1993) concept of a “social infrastructure” from the original The Ethnography of Reading to examine the girls’ reading practices, highlighting how their leisure reading practices are implicated by familial, schooled, media, and peer communities of reading. Reading choices, ways of reading, means of access, and attitudes toward reading are acts of self-making that are enabled by economic circumstances and technological access. Finally, I reflect in this chapter on the possibilities of using mobile ethnography as method for understanding everyday literacy practices.