IN THE penultimate ‘Teacher Forum 2017’ of Tutong Sixth Form Centre (PTE Tutong), Cikgu Raihan Nokman discussed the enhancing working memory capacity in biology lessons through the use of dictation activities while Cikgu Dr Vincent Andrew reflected on teaching practices that work in classrooms and shared the ones he found to be most effective.
The Teacher Forum began in late 2015, and had since organised four forums in 2016 with another four including this penultimate one in 2017.
It shall continue next year with another four forums.
As a platform for teachers to share the best teaching practices as well as findings from their classroom-based investigations, the Teacher Development Programme (TDP) hopes such action can motivate teachers to be more involved with improving teaching and learning through continuous reflections and refinement, in light of new knowledge and pedagogies.
In the first presentation, Cikgu Raihan, herself a biology tutor, remarked that science subjects such as biology require students to remember an innumerable facts and concepts. Many students thus find learning biology quite a challenge.
She continued, “Memorising is a rudimentary method of learning any subjects. Although many claimed that memorisation is rather destructing and leads to rote learning, other research have shown that working memory could be the basis of general intelligence and reasoning in learning.”
Cikgu Raihan’s study set out to examine two things – firstly, to determine if running dictation can be a useful tool in a biology lesson and secondly, to gauge the retention of biological knowledge post activity.
While she presented only preliminary data, Cikgu Raihan’s presentation highlighted a similar pedagogy used commonly by English as a Second Language (ESL) tutors.
As one set of students (as runners, moving between stations) dictated what they read repeatedly, eventually they would improve not only their retention of knowledge but also learn to communicate effectively with the writer; hence the ‘running dictation’ activity.
Cikgu Dr Vincent, a Business Studies tutor, took over in the second presentation, whereby he raised thought-provoking questions – “Which teaching practices work in the classroom? Are these practices specific to business only or can they be applied to other subjects? Are these practices supported by the research literature? Many teaching strategies influence achievement but which are the best?”
He also asked the audience to consider including his students’ involvement in the Junior Achievement programme, the role of high expectations, the ratio of student talk to teacher talk, the quality of feedback, the role of learning with other teachers and lesson designs.
Cikgu Dr Vincent said, “Although business was introduced as a new subject in 2016, the May/June 2017 AS results of the first cohort surprised me. The students achieved 80 per cent A-E (quantity) and 33.3 per cent A-C (quality). However, the Qualifying Examination (QE) results provided some cause for concern as the students were not achieving well in Paper 3, the A2 component.”
“This is a three-hour case study with six long questions requiring the full range of skills to be displayed. These skills include knowledge, application, analysis and evaluation. In a post-mortem after the QE, the number of students who did not achieve high evaluation skills was considerable. This prompted a reconsideration of the teaching strategies,” he continued.
Throughout his presentation, Cikgu Dr Vincent provided ample evidence of his attempt to check his students’ weaknesses, and encouraged the audience, in particular the social science subject tutors, to attempt similar method and subsequently report their eventual findings.
To conclude the 2017 series of forums, Cikgu Onn Chee Sheng, who spearheaded the classroom-based investigation team, said in the subsequent colloquium, “It is important that we as educators continue to grow and improve. For this is exactly what we encourage our students to aspire to on a daily basis. I personally believe that intelligence is malleable, and through high expectations of our teaching staff, we aim to inculcate the same within our students – that through perseverance and hard work, they can improve.”
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