Chye Yen Leng Stefanie

In this study, we shared findings from selected student teachers in National Institute of Education (a teacher education institution in Singapore) who have created eportfolios that presented their learning and teaching practicum experiences. The eportfolios were constructed with the aim to document their learning journey and teaching practices, and to reflect and showcase what they have achieved. Data were extracted from their eportfolio artifacts in order to seek evidence of their teacher identity formed during this process. The main research questions addressed in this paper were: ―What type of teacher identity was reflected through pre-service teachers’ use of eportfolios?‖; and ―How their teacher identity developed in different contexts over time?‖ The paper concluded that student teachers‘ identities evolved as they went through the teacher education program. Such identity constructions are never fixed, and develop under the influence of student teachers‘ surrounding contexts and experiences.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the way we live, work and learn overnight. With school closure during the circuit breaker, teachers in Singapore had to quickly adapt to these disruptions and adopt new modes of teaching and learning. Education is now taking place in the midst of an increasingly complex and interconnected global landscape. COVID-19 underscores even more clearly that teachers need to prepare students for jobs and challenges that may not yet exist. Most importantly, teacher education and professional learning must evolve to equip all our teachers to prepare their students for an unpredictable and challenging future, but one that is filled with great opportunities. Our schools will need teachers with an inquiring and creative mind, a heart for the learner and a passion for lifelong learning. The NIE Strategic Vision 2022 sets out to prepare future-ready teachers for future-ready learners though providing them with education ‘4’ life i.e., Life-long, Life-deep, Life-wide and Life-wise."

The educational scene is evolving rapidly in response to societal developments over the last decade. Attempts to confront challenges of the 21st century have meant that ambitious goals are being set forth in current educational reform efforts. Singapore’s Prime Minister, Mr. Goh Chok Tong, summed up the nation’s vision for educational reform in these words – "Thinking Schools and Learning Nation". This vision of schooling however, poses great challenges for teachers and the schools in which they work. In order to meet these challenges, renewed forms of teacher preparation are an imperative. The purpose of the present paper is thus to discuss future directions for teacher education programs in light of current societal demands. A conceptual framework for developing teachers who are equipped to teach in the schools of tomorrow will be suggested. Particular emphasis is placed on ways to train pre-service teachers to teach thinking effectively. It is suggested that self-regulation be employed as a vehicle to support student teacher learning in this area.

Virtual Reality (VR) and Immersive Virtual Environments (IVEs) are increasingly becoming employed in the classroom to facilitate embodied forms of experiential learning in sensorially rich contexts. This chapter presents the findings of a study conducted with 15-year-old students in a Singapore school. The study evaluated the effectiveness of IVEs as a novel pedagogical approach to the teaching of social and emotional competencies, in the context of Character and Citizenship Education; it sought to ascertain if the affordances of VR and IVEs—immersion, presence and embodiment—when accompanied by real-world narratives would facilitate greater empathy, perspective-taking and responsible decision-making. Students were divided into three treatment conditions: IVEs, “pen-and-paper” mental simulation and video-viewing, and each treatment contained a problem scenario that involved an ethical dilemma young people in Singapore today face. A quasi-experimental, pre-test post-test, non-equivalent group design was employed and the study adopted a mixed-method approach to data collection. The findings show how IVEs can effectively facilitate perspective-taking and empathy, and this is due to its ability to immerse the user in the fictional space of the narrative, thereby encouraging a deeper sense of presence and embodiment.

This study examined the motivation of young people in internet gaming using the dualistic model of passion. Path analysis was used to examine the relationships between the two types of passion: obsessive and harmonious passion, behavioral regulations, and flow. One thousand and seventy-four male secondary school students from six schools in Singapore took part in the study. The participants completed a questionnaire designed to measure harmonious passion, obsessive passion, behavioral regulations, and disposition flow. The results of the path analysis showed that external, introjected, and identified regulations positively predicted obsessive passion, while harmonious passion was predicted by identified and intrinsic regulations. Flow in digital gaming was predicted directly by harmonious passion, as well as indirectly through intrinsic regulation. This study supports the proposed dualistic model of passion in explaining young people’s motivation in internet gaming.

The capacity for self-regulated learning (SRL) is presently recognized as a necessary and inherent goal of continual lifelong education. This makes developing SRL an educational imperative. However, beyond the general recognition that SRL can and should be explicitly taught, how formal SRL instruction should best be implemented is less clear. This study attempts to shed light on the issue by examining how SRL development may be supported or constrained in a tertiary level SRL instructional module for pre-service teachers, as it occurred. It is assumed that an understanding of these processes would contribute to an improvement in pedagogical practices.

A sociocultural perspective is employed as the overarching theoretical framework for the study. In line with the sociocultural orientation, the study focuses specifically on the local context of the classroom, the forms of instructional discourse employed with and within the classroom practices and the cultural models about SRL that are produced.

Through a combination of ethnographic classroom research and discourse analytic methods, the lecturer's uses of monologic and dialogic forms of pedagogical discourse are first identified. The analysis then demonstrates how different forms of instructional discourse result in the production of different cultural models about SRL. Specifically, the study shows how monologism may produce the following cultural models about SRL: (i) that knowledge for SRL is true and objective; (ii) knowledge for SRL consists of fixed and predetermined facts; (iii) that there is a one right way to SRL; (iv) knowledge for SRL is the sole domain of the lecturer and texts; (v) learner identities established in class are true and permanent; and (vi) SRL problems can be objectively diagnosed. Dialogism on the other hand, was largely associated with the construction of an opposing set of cultural models about SRL. In some instances, the cultural models produced in the SRL module may not be the sole construction of the lecturer, but may reproduce those of the larger society.

An interpretative analysis of how the cultural models about SRL may act to facilitate or assuage the development of self-regulation is offered. This discussion draws upon postmodern and sociocultural accounts of truth, epistemology, identity and power and considers them in relation to SRL development and the goals of SRL instruction.

Overall, the findings suggest that the cultural models about SRL constructed through monologic and dialogic forms of pedagogical discourse can both act to support and undermine SRL development. While the monologic stance may be necessary, it is insufficient to bring about SRL development. Dialogic SRL instruction presents its own difficulties, but appears to be more in keeping with the goals of SRL instruction and the development of self-regulatory processes. This suggests that dialogism may need to be accorded a more central role in SRL instruction.

In closing, it is hoped that the present study casts a different light on current understandings about SRL development in instructional contexts and serves to map out new research agendas to be pursued by future researchers and educators concerned with SRL development.

“This report identifies and synthesises findings from a total of 42 unique studies that are relevant to at least one of the SFEd Areas of Practice, as well as to teacher learning and PD (see Annex A for the full project list).”--Overview of the Synthesis.