The experiences of Secondary one at-risk students' with technology in a CPA classroom

Abstract

Singapore has a multi-track secondary education system which has the high achievers placed in the gifted education programme, the Express stream for moderate achievers and the Normal Academic and Normal Technical (NT) Stream which is lowest. The first cohort in the NT system was introduced in Singapore schools in 1994 to cater to the needs of students who are less academically and more technically and vocationally inclined. It provides these students with an opportunity to complete 10 years of basic education and prepares them for post-secondary education in technical education institutes. The formal curriculum for this group includes subjects such as Computer Applications (CPA), Elements of Office Administration (EOA), Design & Technology and Technical Studies that are not part of the curriculum for the other streams. The Normal Technical Stream of students are generally perceived to be lacking motivation to study, have less inclination towards academics, show more problems in school with respect to behaviour and have very little task orientation. This paper is a narrative describing how a group of at-risk NT students respond to computer technology lessons. Descriptively, we try to understand the pedagogical practices in place in this classroom, the teacher-student interactions taking place, the skills that the students learn and the level of the student engagement in these lessons. An in-depth understanding of how this group of at-risk students is involved in these lessons enables our attempts to analyse the objectives and goals of the proposed CPA curriculum and the pedagogy that surrounds it.