Suhaimi Afandi

This study investigated the ways a select group of Secondary 3 Social Studies teachers and students worked with online information sources in Singapore’s Social Studies curriculum. The study utilized a set of web-based tools, the Critical Web Reader, to better understand the kinds of skills and knowledge necessary to work with Internet information sources. Research examined the ways these Social Studies teachers designed and implemented curricular resources to support online source work. Findings point to the need for greater scaffolding to support students’ conceptual understanding and literacy skills, and suggest the need for greater curricular and professional development efforts to scaffold skills with online information sources in classrooms.

This chapter examines history education research and practice in selected European and Asian countries. We draw on research literature from European (United Kingdom, Germany, and Scandinavia) and Asian countries (China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore) to develop broad themes across contexts. The chapter examines the ways history education is shaped and constrained in particular Asian contexts; the international influence of research from the United Kingdom focused on second-order historical concepts and progressions of understanding; and literature on historical consciousness in European contexts. We synthesize current scholarship and theoretical work found in the literature as well as implications for curriculum and classroom practice and point to future areas of development for comparative history education research.

This chapter shares efforts to conceptualize, develop, and implement two signature labs to support Humanities education in Singapore—the Historian’s Lab and the Sustainability Learning Lab. In particular, we focus on lessons learned in innovation (e.g., the necessity of creative and collaborative synergies among disciplinary experts, curriculum specialists, ICT designers, and teacher leaders, among others) and managing the challenges and constraints of educational innovation in a centralized, results-oriented system that at the same time continually encourages innovation.

This chapter examines how the teaching and learning of history in Singapore have evolved since colonial times and throughout Singapore’s transformation into a modern, internationally connected, and cosmopolitan city-state. In the decades following the achievement of political independence in 1965, Singapore’s approach to history education has been carefully managed to meet the challenges and the shifting needs of a newly independent nation-state. National survival, economic imperatives, and social cohesiveness were overriding priorities. These foundational notions continue to wield significant influence in subsequent formulations of the history curriculum. Over the years, the dynamics of global change, concerns over economic functionality, and challenges to national cohesion have guided further iterations of the national history curriculum. These have subsequently led to changes in the way history education is conceived and how the subject is taught in the classroom. Since 2001, the introduction of disciplinary-focused aspects of historical study such as source-work methodology, inquiry-based learning, and concept-based teaching has transformed pedagogical and professional practice in many history classrooms in Singapore. By drawing on relevant scholarship and research in history education, the paper traces the evolution of history education in Singapore and highlights significant developments that have contributed to the way the subject is currently taught and learnt in schools.

This paper reports the experiences of the History Unit at Tanjong Katong Secondary School (TKSS) in their attempts to craft a discipline-based curriculum model focusing on instruction that develops students’ historical understandings. The paper describes the project structure and development of the Tanjong Katong (TK) Teaching for Historical Understanding (TfHU) approach to historical instruction, shares some reflections by teacher participants involved in the project, and highlights several learning points and implications for curriculum change at TKSS. The history teachers at TKSS recognised that the TfHU project had further developed their awareness of more effective methods to teach history, and were confident that the focus on disciplinary understandings will enhance student engagement in their history classrooms. They demonstrated strong belief that students can be made to understand complex issues in history if they are given the proper tools or cognitive challenges suitably crafted to develop deeper thinking about aspects of the discipline.

This small-scale study explores professional development (PD) designs for history teachers in Singapore and proposes a PD model that uses a job-embedded collaborative approach. Drawing from research on effective PD and data gathered from questionnaires and interviews conducted with participants involved in a PD workshop, this paper considers the value of collaborative PD approaches aimed at promoting and encouraging historical thinking. The authors conclude that PD history workshops that are carefully designed to support the development of teachers’ professional knowledge bases, and ones that offer opportunities for teachers to actively translate conceptual ideas into concrete teaching strategies, are critical in transforming beliefs and practices that can work towards more robust historical thinking and discourse in the classroom.