Now showing 1 - 10 of 18
  • Publication
    Open Access
    “But I have not started teaching!”: Knowledge building perils
    Scardamalia (2002) discussed the knowledge building notion as one which is built on social cognitive principles of learning. She proposed 12 principles focusing on collaborative knowing among students gearing toward building a community of learners in classrooms. However, how teachers become the key mediator for fostering knowledge building in classrooms is not fully explored. This study aims to contribute to the knowledge building research in terms of teacher professional development. Set in Singapore, where the dominant pedagogy is teacher centred and routinised (Luke, Cazden, Lin & Freebody 2005), this paper examines the journey taken by two biology teachers trying to reform their classrooms by incorporating knowledge building principles. In one of our email exchanges with a teacher, she was exasperated with her attempt to bring knowledge building into her classroom. After a few sessions, she exclaimed “But I have not started teaching!” This prompted us to seek answers to the research question “What are the factors that will impact knowledge building efforts in a Singapore science classroom?” Interviews and transcript analysis of classroom lessons are used as data and interpretive methods of data analysis are used in this paper. The beliefs of the teachers are elicited through a semi-structured interview which takes the form of a post-lesson dialogue in this paper. The results of this study revealed three key areas of concern in adopting knowledge building principles, namely, renegotiation of institutional authority, changing beliefs about teaching, and learning and building students’ capacity for epistemic agency. In order for teachers to transform their practices in the classroom, there needs to be a structured and concerted understanding of these factors.
      360  60
  • Publication
    Open Access
    Solving ill-structured problems mediated by online- discussion forums: Mass customisation of learning
    (2019-12-02)
    Ramya Chandrasekaran
    ;
    ; ;
    Yeong, Foong May
    To foster students’ learning of critical-thinking skills, we incorporated ill-structured problems in a Human Diseases module for third-year Life Sciences students. Using a problem-solving rubric and working in groups of three, students attempted to solve problems presented to them. We mediated their discussions by asynchronous online discussion forums (AODFs) as part of mass customisation of learning for 40 students where personalised learning was constrained by structure of the module. We examined the quality of students’ discussion, focusing on the feedback group members provided to one another, using an interpreted Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes (SOLO) taxonomy to code students’ feedback. Our analysis indicated that the students were able to provide uni-structural and multi-structural level in relation to solving an ill-structured problem, even though they are not used to solving ill-structured problems. This indicated that in a mid-size class, while personalised-learning is not always easy, it is possible to mass customise learning for students using common ill-structured problems in a class by mediating problem-solving using student discussions as feedback. However, more can be done to scaffold peer feedback on solving ill-structured problems so that the level of collaborative-learning can be improved in a mass customised model that approaches personalised learning.
      147  182
  • Publication
    Open Access
    Reflection of teaching: A glimpse through the eyes of pre-service science teachers
    (2010-12) ;
    Wettasinghe, Cyraine Marissa
    ;
    ;
    Mazlan Hasan
    This paper examines pre-service teachers‟ reflection on teaching after participating in an online course using teaching videos of micro-skills coupled with self-reflection and group blogs. A total of 137 online entries were collected from 26 participants. Larrivee‟s (2008) four levels of reflection (pre, surface, pedagogical and critical) were used to code the reflection by the participants. The findings showed that 67% of the reflection by pre-service teachers falls in the pedagogical category and 2% in the critical category. These findings show that pre-service teachers are capable of engaging in reflection beyond a surface level even with limited actual classroom experience, and micro-skills teaching videos coupled with self-reflection and online blogs can serve as stimulus for reflection about actual teaching practices. The resources that the pre-service teachers used to make sense of teaching are (1) their knowledge of learning theories; (2) their ideas of teachers‟ roles and responsibilities; and (3) existing ideas of what makes good teaching. The pre-service teachers reflected upon their learning and showed evidence of willingness to incorporate the learnt ideas of good teaching into their future classroom teaching. The use of videos and reflection allowed them to restructure their teaching knowledge through identification, comparison, modification and synthesising.
      403  450
  • Publication
    Open Access
    Practices of science teachers: Evidence from teacher noticing
    Teacher noticing patterns offer insights into in-the-moment decisions and actions of teachers that have a direct impact on students’ learning. However, research on differences between novice and expert teachers’ vision in lessons remain limited. Using a mobile eye-tracker, we collected and analyzed data from two science teachers. Findings showed that the expert teacher focused her attention on relevant information across the classroom, while the novice teacher’s attention was restricted to specific problematic areas. As a work-in-progress, this paper provides valuable insights that we can build onto existential work for further studies.
      96  105
  • Publication
    Open Access
    “But I have not started teaching!”: Knowledge building perils
    Scardamalia (2002) discussed the knowledge building notion as one which is built on social cognitive principles of learning. She proposed 12 principles focusing on collaborative knowing among students gearing toward building a community of learners in classrooms. However, how teachers become the key mediator for fostering knowledge building in classrooms is not fully explored. This study aims to contribute to the knowledge building research in terms of teacher professional development. Set in Singapore, where the dominant pedagogy is teacher-centred and routinised (Luke, Cazden, Lin & Freebody 2005), this paper examines the journey taken by two biology teachers trying to reform their classrooms by incorporating knowledge building principles. In one of our email exchanges with a teacher, she was exasperated with her attempt to bring knowledge building into her classroom. After a few sessions, she exclaimed “But I have not started teaching!” This prompted us to seek answers to the research question “What are the factors that will impact knowledge building efforts in a Singapore science classroom?” Interviews and transcript analysis of classroom lessons are used as data and interpretive methods of data analysis are used in this paper. The beliefs of the teachers are elicited through a semi-structured interview which takes the form of a post-lesson dialogue in this paper. The results of this study revealed three key areas of concern in adopting knowledge building principles, namely, renegotiation of institutional authority, changing beliefs about teaching, and learning and building students’ capacity for epistemic agency. In order for teachers to transform their practices in the classroom, there needs to be a structured and concerted understanding of these factors.
      140  172
  • Publication
    Restricted
    Professional learning of general science teachers: Epistemic discourse and understanding of scientific epistemology
    (Office of Education Research, National Institute of Education, Singapore, 2024) ; ;
    Talaue, Frederick
    This study examines the epistemic discourse and the understanding of epistemology of teachers teaching general science at the lower secondary level. The secondary science curriculum in Singapore is designed in a spiral manner and is written as outcomes statements. These outcomes focuses on the content of science that students are expected to learn at the end of each school year. In secondary schools, science teachers are trained as specialists in various sub-disciplines of science such as biology, chemistry, and physics. These specialist science teachers can potentially be deployed to teach lower secondary science that is designed as general science with all the three sub-disciplines coming together to form one subject. As such, biology-trained teachers will have to teach chemistry and physics, while physics-trained teachers will also have to teach biology and chemistry. Anecdotally, this has resulted in some levels of discomfort as teachers are uncertain of scientific content that they are not trained in. These practical difficulties experienced by teachers teaching general science seemed to concur with the theoretical idea that while all the three sub-disciplines of science falls under the large umbrella of science, there are subtle but important differences among them. Based on Biglan’s (1973) ideas of disciplinarity, while academic subjects are classified into categories of similar ways of thinking, there remained degrees of differences between these categories. This is because the sub-disciplines of sciences, from biology (soft) to physics (hard), give different emphasis to what constitute evidence and placed different prominence on the use of specialized vocabularies. The differences between knowledge structure in biology, chemistry and physics can also be viewed from a sociological perspective. In Bernstein’s (1999) ideas of horizontal and vertical discourses, biology show more features of a discipline that has more traits of everyday local knowledge with more diffused vocabularies while physics is characterized by specialised knowledge and vocabularies.
      18  62
  • Publication
    Open Access
    Teaching analytics: A multi-layer analysis of teacher noticing to support teaching practice
    This paper, as part of a larger ongoing study, presents the use of a multi-layer approach to analyzing teacher noticing for the improvement of teaching practices. Situated in the field of teaching analytics, the use of multimodal sensors and analytics, especially for teacher noticing research, has provided affordances to discover deep insights for improving teaching practices. We collected data from a case study of one teacher over three lessons of science teaching in a secondary school. Multimodal sensors including an eye-tracking device, a microphone, and multiple video cameras were deployed in a classroom. The various sources of data were integrated and a multi-layer analysis was performed to uncover insights into the teaching practice. The findings show that a novice teacher in our case study was able to attend to events in her classroom, with some interpretations and sense-making of the events; some necessary actions were taken based on the teacher’s analysis but in some instances, necessary action was found to be lacking. Prior knowledge and the wealth of experiences or the lack thereof, together with visual cues in the environment, can affect the decision of novice teachers in executing certain actions in a classroom.
      155  265
  • Publication
    Open Access
    "Why the spiral moved": Seeking for knowledge building
    (2006-08) ; ;
    Ow, John Eu Gene
    This paper tracks the learning experiences in science of three students using Knowledge Forum. We examine the interaction process, in particular the seeking patterns that result as the three students explore and build the knowledge of convection current. Using micro-analysis of contribution on Knowledge Forum and principles of analysis of electronic interaction and discourse proposed by Zhu (1989), this paper analyses the forms of participation a student can assume, focusing mainly on the different forms in which students seek information as they navigate through the sea of information posted online. Using a grounded approach, we characterize two different ways in which students seek for information in an online environment, which we labeled as interpersonal seeking and collaborative seeking. We believe that the seeking behavior, albeit subtle, is instrumental in directing learning and directing the courses of ‘discussion’ and the quality of the knowledge that is built.
      260  160
  • Publication
    Open Access
    Managing student behaviors and maintaining positive learning environment: Reminder or reprimand
    This paper reports an empirical study on the use of a teacher noticing approach to investigate how two teachers managed students’ classroom behaviours. We examined the integration of data from an eye-tracking device and video cameras, focusing on what the teachers paid attention to in classrooms with their corresponding managing practices. Our findings show that the experienced teacher was able to advise her students calmly and smoothly resume the lesson to preserve the welcoming environment for the students. The novice teachers constantly scanned for misbehaved students and at times used strong words and a stern voice that betrayed her emotions. The awkward silence of the class ensued, suggesting a break in the flow of the instruction.
      135  182