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Choy, Ban Heng
Preferred name
Choy, Ban Heng
Email
banheng.choy@nie.edu.sg
Department
Office of Teacher Education and Undergraduate Programmes (TEUP)
Mathematics & Mathematics Education (MME)
ORCID
50 results
Now showing 1 - 10 of 50
- PublicationOpen AccessExploring the affordances of a worked example offloaded from a textbook(2022)
; In designing a set of instructional materials to use in his classroom, a teacher heavily offloaded items (e.g., worked examples, practice questions, exercises) from school-based materials and textbooks. At a cursory level, one may easily dismiss this as a thoughtless lifting of curricular materials. But upon careful analysis – as is detailed in this paper – a different picture emerges. In this paper, we describe and analyse how this teacher adapted one of many worked examples, beyond its typical use, during instruction to develop students’ conceptual understanding of proportionality. We argue that he noticed and harnessed multiple affordances in a single item that most teachers may overlook, without the need to modify the example, and propose a notion of “affordance space” as a lens to view teachers’ design of instructional materials.76 198 - PublicationOpen AccessChanges in qualities and abilities of Japanese teachers through participation in Global Lesson Study on mathematics(Emerald, 2022)
; ; Ozawa, HiroakiPurpose The authors aim to determine the effects of Global Lesson Study (GLS) – a two-year, one-cycle program defined as “international cooperative lesson study through international exchange among teachers using ICT” – on intercultural competence for lesson study based on pre- and post-survey conducted for Japanese teachers.
Design/methodology/approach
In accordance with the GLS program, mathematics lesson studies on mathematics between Japanese and Singaporean elementary school teachers were conducted over a two-year period. Questionnaire surveys on intercultural competence for lesson study was conducted using 7-point Likert scale and descriptive questions with Japanese teachers (N = 5). Analysis of Wilcoxon's signed rank test and correlation analysis were conducted.Findings
Followings are identified as the effects of GLS for Japanese teachers: (1) Japanese participants felt improvement of their competence in areas of attitude, internal outcomes and outward impact. (2) Participating in a GLS led to the improvement of Japanese teachers' qualities and abilities for subject teaching related to mathematics education. (3) Improvement of intercultural competence for lesson study was related to each other, and GLS led to improvement of these competences. (4) It was meaningful to have a two-year period to assimilate and adjust to independent experience of the host and guest.Originality/value
The GLS led to teacher empowerment among this sample, not only as cooperative research, but also at the individual level of teachers where participants continued to develop lessons based on the GLS learning after study completion. This has important implications for the implementation and dissemination of the GLS.111 112 - PublicationOpen AccessExcellence in mathematics education: Multiple confluences(2021)Excellence in mathematics education is often linked with high performance in international achievement tests such as TIMSS. In this short paper, I broaden the notion of excellence by considering how the different aspects of mathematics education come together instead of only focusing on what these aspects are. Using confluence as a metaphor to describe excellence, I examine Singapore’s excellence in mathematics education by showing how the “big things” of education such as societal expectations, policy formulation and implementation, and how the “small things” of classroom practices—scheme of work, tasks (especially typical problems), and examinations—flow together towards the same vision of ambitious teaching articulated by the Singapore Mathematics Curriculum Framework.
138 235 - PublicationOpen Access“It feels different when blindfolded”: Developing social empathy through inclusive designs in STEMNarratives about STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education are strongly connected with conversations about developing learners' humanistic knowledge and their ability to listen with understanding and empathy. This is challenging because learners need to find resonance through first-hand contextual experiences with the issues at hand. In this paper, we describe and discuss an activity that was enacted to actively engage 74 teachers from Thailand in constructing a prototype cutting device for the blind to prepare food themselves. This activity underscores important considerations for inclusive design and offers affordances for teachers to develop their learners' inclusive mindsets. Findings were generated from voice recordings of reflections and written reflections collected after the activity. We highlight the importance of creating opportunities for learning to listen and resonate with others' experiences and argue that such STEM activities can offer a platform for learners to develop humanistic qualities such as social empathy.
57 245 - PublicationOpen AccessBy teaching we learn(National Institute of Education (Singapore), 2022)
; ; 312 176 - PublicationOpen AccessRefining teaching expertise through analysing students’ work: A case of elementary mathematics teacher professional learning during lesson study in SingaporeThis article provides a concrete illustration of how teachers in a primary school in Singapore discuss students’ learning in a lesson study cycle and grew professionally as a community. Specifically, we examined how collaboratively analysing students’ work serves as a useful practice for teachers to learn to work with diverse learners.. The findings suggested that open discussions around students’ work helped teachers to reflect upon their unwarranted perceptions of their students and their teaching. The study provided insights into how teachers’ understandings of their students’ diverse backgrounds, as well as teachers’ understanding of subject content and pedagogy, developed as they participated in lesson study activities that were focused on analysing students’ work. Our findings found that lesson study provided the following affordances to foster such changes: (1) eliciting hypotheses in dialogue; (2) creating space for alternative perspectives; (3) collaboratively scrutinizing student learning evidence for follow-up teaching; and (4) identifying problems for further discussion. While the illustration of this case is uniquely Singaporean, implications include concerns about teacher professional learning and teaching for equity common to many other educational contexts.
WOS© Citations 2Scopus© Citations 6 162 243 - PublicationMetadata onlyInstructional materials as a site to study teachers′ planning and learningWhile reports of teachers’ use of curriculum materials are common, that of teachers as designers of their own materials are far less so. We argue that these (rare) instructional materials, defined as materials that are classroom-ready and that carry the teachers’ actual instructional goals, are ‘objects’ that are suitable as records of teachers’ planning and learning when developed alongside professional development. We provide supporting evidence of this claim and unpack the complexities of interacting instructional goals through a case study of a teacher who (re-)designed her own instructional materials as she participated in professional development. From the findings of the case, we reflect on the educational and methodological implications of pursing this research approach.
Scopus© Citations 3 299 - PublicationOpen AccessBoundary actions for collaborative learning: A practical perspective of adapting lesson study in a Singapore primary schoolThis qualitative study seeks to establish a deeper understanding of how and what teachers and teacher educators learn collaboratively during the lesson study process in a Singapore primary school. We used the boundary theories to conceptualize this learning process and delineate the learning mechanisms to foster mutual learning between the teacher educators and teachers in the case school. It was found that the teachers’ practical concerns and the improvement proposals from the teacher educators were constantly being negotiated considering the perceived and received consequences, which drove the boundary actions that include both boundary making and boundary crossing to form a learning space for the participants. Findings from this study provide a practical perspective that explains the complexities, challenges, and possibilities of implementing lesson study and working with boundaries to support teacher professional learning.
Scopus© Citations 4 111 105 - PublicationOpen AccessConsiderations for teaching with multiple methods: A case study of missingvalue problems in proportionality(2022)
; In this paper, we present a case study of a secondary mathematics teacher, Isaac (pseudonym), and his considerations for teaching with multiple methods for solving missing-value problems. While his students preferred methods that drew more closely on their intuitive understanding of proportionality, Isaac emphasised the algorithmic cross-multiplication method. Analysis of Isaac’s introduction and use of the cross-multiplication method suggest his key considerations were linked demonstrating the efficiency of the cross-multiplication method, while also helping students to make making meaning from the cross-multiplication method.48 127 - PublicationOpen AccessBy teaching we learn: Comprehension and transformation in the teaching of long division(2021)
; ; Dindyal, JaguthsingDespite recent calls to adopt practice-embedded approaches to teacher professional learning, how teachers learn from their practice is not clear. What really matters is not the type of professional learning activities, but how teachers engage with them. In this paper, we position learning from teaching as a dialogic process involving teachers’ pedagogical reasoning and actions. In particular, we present a case of an experienced teacher, Mr. Robert, who was part of a primary school’s mathematics professional learning team (PLT) to describe how he learned to teach differently, and how he taught differently to learn for a series of lessons on division. The findings reiterate the complexity of teacher learning and suggest possible implications for mathematics teacher professional development.128 184