Blog 1 - Enhanced School Experience

ENHANCED SCHOOL EXPERIENCE:

PREPARATORY TASK FOR ICT FOR MEANINGFUL LEARNING Enhanced School Experience: Classroom Observations of ICT Use

(I) Specific Observation

School Name: Broadrick Secondary School

Class: 3A5

Profile of the class: Normal Acadamic (For e.g., the students’ academic abilities, stream and other characteristics) Class has about 39 students. I observed that most students are not very attentive in classroom. The teacher use step-by-step approach worksheet to engage students for them to listen and write on their worksheet. Students are quick to respond to surrounding environment and peers’ activities. In other words, they are distracted easily by small things happening around them. A few repeat students are bored to go through the same topic again. For students who are better in mathematics may also find the pace of teaching being too slow and would talk or do something else in class.

Subject: Mathematics

What ICT tools are used in the lesson? Geogebra for chart

Describe how ICT is used for teaching and learning in the lesson. This ICT lesson covered Quadratic Equations via Geogebra. It is used to explain the concept of quadratic equation and show the relationship between components of a quadratic equation such as the turning point, x- and y-intercepts and the coefficient of x2 . The overall aim is that students will be able to understand the concept and sketch quadratic equation curve without graph paper or detailed table. The lesson is conducted in the IT lab and the teacher assigned 1 PC to each student. For the start, the login process takes about 10 minutes. Teacher then proceed to explain the chapter on quadratic equation. By compare varies equations and lines, students are to understand the generic equations for straight lines (y=mx+c) and all types of quadratic equations (y=ax2+bx+c) result with a “U” or inverted “U” shapes. With Geogebra, students are asked to explore the changes in variables and see how it impacts the original curve. Through the use of such software, teacher can show the “true and accurate” graph on projector screen as compare to manual drawing on the whiteboard. It also allows teacher to re-draw the graph in seconds with few clicks and re-explain. One drawback of the lesson is some students were distracted, surf internet or watch youtube video. However, the risk is minimise as students are required to put in their observations and conclusions in their worksheet to ensure they learned the use of Geogebra and able to sketch a graph at the end of the lesson.

General Observation::

How do teachers in the school feel about the use of ICT for teaching and learning? (For this question, you may want to speak to the HOD/ICT and other teachers you know in the school.)? Teachers are basically quite positive to the idea of the use of ICT for teaching and learning. However, at present, ICT application is still focus on the classroom connection to the projector and visualiser to show case videos and worksheet. Each classroom has internet connection through the school server. Currently, the school is organising e-learning at home for Sec 1 and 2. Lessons are pre-planned and uploaded on to the system before the date of e-learning. There will be a fixed time table to enable students to follow closely as though it is a “classroom” condition. Students from home are to required to login to the school MOODLE for “attending” the lessons. Subject teachers will station in school to access the MOODLE and monitor students’ attendence as well as to answer to adhoc queries from students. It is quite an eye-opening experience to see how it is being carried out. The process to conduct half a day lesson is not as easy as it is. Briefings are conducted to inform teachers of the process and due dates to complete preparation and uploading of lesson material. Students without PC at home are required to use the school computer lab for lessons. Another area of e-learning is the Ace-Learning which students are required to subscribe. Upon subscription, teachers are able to utilise the videos to explain the various mathematical concepts. It also allows teachers to use the questions database to prepare worksheet whenever necessary. Ace-learning has a Quiz Module to allow teacher to create and assign quizzes to student. Students would login using their personal password to answer such quizzes. Teacher would be able to analyse the individual student’s performance gauge the pace for next lesson. This Ace Learning combines contribution of exam / test papers from cluster/zone to enable a large data bank for teachers to share and learning. Any sharing benefited by 1 students will be amplify to his/her class. It also allows quick generation of simple format questions for students when teacher is doing relief lesson or spot-test. This Ace-learning would also provide the platform for giving assignment when school is closed due to certain health alerts, eg SARS.