Volume 3, Issue 2 2014 Archives

Index

Susan Adler

Volume 3, Issue 2 2014

Old Ideas Made New Again

Author/s:

Susan Adler (University of Missouri-Kansas City) Keywords Geography History Social Studies Junior College Secondary School Primary School Critical Thinking Teaching Dewey I started teaching long ago. The air was full of new ideas about curriculum and teaching methods. In the United States and the United Kingdom we had the “New Social Studies,” “New Math,” exciting hands-on […]

Susan Adler (University of Missouri-Kansas City)

Keywords
Geography
History
Social Studies
Junior College
Secondary School
Primary School
Critical Thinking
Teaching
Dewey

I started teaching long ago. The air was full of new ideas about curriculum and teaching methods. In the United States and the United Kingdom we had the “New Social Studies,” “New Math,” exciting hands-on science projects, and the like. It was all about engaging learners in the “methods of the discipline,” in doing inquiry not just memorizing facts. This was a long time ago. Today we are hearing these old “new” ideas again.

In fact, we have been hearing for some years now that we have to do school differently; that teaching for the 21^st century cannot be the same as it was back in the old days (i.e. the 20^th century). The Singapore Teachers’ Growth Model (TGM) recognizes that teachers need to be equipped with the relevant 21^st century knowledge and skills so that they are better able to develop students holistically. Education in the past, we are told, focused, more or less, on memorizing a lot of information – learning and digesting a lot of facts. Today, we must think of education, the development of young minds more broadly, to include problem solving and creativity.

These changes in focus have come about because of the changing social and economic environment. Critics of the “old” education point to:

A “knowledge explosion” – what you learn now won’t hold for the rest of your life; we must be life-long learners.
The idea that today information is at our finger tips – there is no need to simply remember information when it is so easily retrieved.
A communication explosion which means we must be able to filter what we read and hear. How do we make sense of it?
Related to this is our interconnected world – we hear news about the world far more quickly than we ever did. And people use that connectivity to make news. Consider the kidnapped girls in Nigeria. Without Twitter the world might not have been concerned, at least not for very long.
Of course there are the demands of the economy – the post industrial age needs workers who are flexible, who are life-long learners, who are problem solvers and creative thinkers.

It’s a new world. Consider the movie Her. The protagonist falls in love with his operating system. And it isn’t absurd! Movies aside, young people today must deal with a world unlike the one I started teaching in; very unlike the one that existed when public schooling, schooling for everyone, began to be the norm. Once, you could get a few years of schooling, go out and get a job, raise a family, lead a good, productive life. But today, if you do not continue to learn, you lose.

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Context, Interests, and Unintended Consequences: Lenses for Seeing, Comprehending and Engaging with the World

Author/s:

Teo You Yenn

Teo You Yenn (Nanyang Technological University) Keywords Social Studies Secondary School Citizenship Sociology Perspective The White Paper on Population created quite a firestorm when it was released in 2013. Many critiques were launched against it – ranging from big and obvious worries about the sheer number of people who are expected to live in this small […]

Teo You Yenn (Nanyang Technological University)

Keywords
Social Studies
Secondary School
Citizenship
Sociology
Perspective

The White Paper on Population created quite a firestorm when it was released in 2013. Many critiques were launched against it – ranging from big and obvious worries about the sheer number of people who are expected to live in this small city; to complaints about where these people would come from; to very nitty-gritty critiques about the details and tone of the White Paper – right down to how nurses are referred to as low-skilled workers in the footnotes.

When the White Paper came out, I was teaching a course about Power, Politics and the State. The White Paper and the controversy around it became something that students and I discussed in class. Based on such experiences in teaching, I highlight the sorts of questions that I think we ought to get our students to ask and answer when policies are introduced and when controversies arise. As a teacher, I think we should be invested not so much in convincing students about our points of view, but in giving them the tools and lenses to think through problems.

So how do we do provide students with lenses and tools? As a sociologist, three things are key: interests, contexts, and unintended consequences. Let me say a few words about each of these and give some examples of how they are useful in discussing population issues.

Interests
Used crudely, people think that “interests” is about how someone is trying to gain something, trying to maximize their interests. But the way I want my students to think about interests is to pay attention to two related things: when we say the word “interests,” we are first and foremost pointing out that there is no neutral position from which to speak. All positions involve a point of view, and more specifically, somebody or some group’s point of view. They may take their point of view because there may in fact be some sort of material benefit or disadvantage involved. But at least equally often, they take that point of view because it fits into the worldview of not just themselves as individuals, but also into the various social groupings to which they belong.

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From Classroom to the Field and Back: Understanding the Ways Fieldwork Empowers Geographic Learning

Author/s:

Diganta Das

Diganta Das (National Institute of Education, Singapore) Keywords Geography Junior College Secondary School Concept Geography Perspective Fieldwork is an integral part of learning Geography. Fieldwork has been widely used in both research and as pedagogic approaches as it provides a platform for students to understand their classroom content in a better way and help them to […]

Diganta Das (National Institute of Education, Singapore)

Keywords
Geography
Junior College
Secondary School
Concept
Geography
Perspective

Fieldwork is an integral part of learning Geography. Fieldwork has been widely used in both research and as pedagogic approaches as it provides a platform for students to understand their classroom content in a better way and help them to become real geographers. This article begins with understanding fieldwork in geography, touching its importance in contemporary human geography, and then describes the ways a one-day fieldwork was planned, prepared and performed in Singapore to understand human geography concepts. The fieldwork helped students experience concepts through everyday urban practices and apply geographic methods into practice. In the conclusion, students’ perspectives about what they learnt and the ways it complemented their classroom learning is discussed.

Introduction
Fieldwork is a means of collecting information and involves engagement with the outside world beyond the classroom (Phillips & Johns, 2012). As Cindi Katz (2009, p. 251) observed, fieldwork can be “a means towards examining the relationships between people and their environments”. Fieldwork in geography helps us document these experiences and their complex relationships. Fieldwork is an integral part of Geography with a long historical tradition in both geographic research and teaching. It not only provides an opportunity for the student to understand classroom content, it also helps in training students about conducting fieldwork, set-up equipment (especially for physical geography fieldwork), and learn the relevant skills of interviewing and interacting with people in real settings. Fieldwork contributes toward students’ personal development, social skills and ecological and political literacy (Job et al., 1999). According to Phillips and Johns (2012), fieldwork differentiates the genuine geographer from the not so genuine one. Fieldwork has been seen as the bridge between theories and practical concepts (Kent et. al, 1997).

The importance given to fieldwork in geography education has been influenced by many prominent geographers around the world. Carl Sauer (1956) argued that the fundamental training of the geographer should come from fieldwork. Sauer transformed the fieldwork tradition in American geography education (Phillips & Johns, 2012). Beyond North America, fieldwork has a very long tradition in the United Kingdom, pioneered by the Royal Geographical Society and very much integrated into the university and college level geography education system (Phillips & Johns, 2012). Beyond the western world, fieldwork has been incorporated into the geography education system, and is seen as a tool that encourages engaging, creative and independent learning processes (see Goh & Wong, 2000). In Southeast Asian contexts, Goh and Wong (2000) said that learning geography without fieldwork would be seen as “deficient” (p 99).

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The “New” Multiculturalism: National and Educational Perspectives

Author/s:

Jackie

Structured Academic Controversy for Upper Secondary Social Studies

Author/s:

Ang Hui Xia

Ang Hui Xia (Hong Kah Secondary School, Singapore) Keywords Social Studies Secondary School Controversy Structured Academic Controversy Discussion This article will describe the use of Structured Academic Controversy (SAC) as a teaching strategy to help a class of Secondary Three Express students in Social Studies analyse issues from multiple perspectives and to strengthen their explanation, questioning […]

Ang Hui Xia (Hong Kah Secondary School, Singapore)

Keywords
Social Studies
Secondary School
Controversy
Structured Academic Controversy
Discussion

This article will describe the use of Structured Academic Controversy (SAC) as a teaching strategy to help a class of Secondary Three Express students in Social Studies analyse issues from multiple perspectives and to strengthen their explanation, questioning and listening skills.

The SAC lesson was implemented in a class of twenty Secondary Three Express students with above average ability who are able to work well together in a group setting. The duration for the SAC lesson was 70 minutes. It was the first time that they had experienced a SAC lesson. Generally, this class possesses good inference skills and are able to critically analyse sources that are provided to them. However, a quarter of the class tends to be soft-spoken and is reluctant to speak up in class. I decided to adopt the SAC as a teaching strategy for this class as I wanted to provide students who are less vocal an opportunity to speak up in a small group setting. At the same time, I wanted to help other students to be more aware of themselves and others in terms of practising their empathetic listening skills when their classmates are presenting. As SAC focuses on student-centred learning, it helps to promote and strengthen cooperative learning in class, which will help students to create new knowledge in the process.

Importance of Getting Students Prepared before SAC
A two period lesson was conducted prior to the SAC lesson to provide students with a better understanding of the challenges that Singapore faced in fostering social cohesion and maintaining harmony as a multi-ethnic society. Students were directed to engage in self-study using the textbook to find out about the measures that Singapore took to promote social cohesion and maintain harmony. After which, they recorded their key findings into a mind-map. It is essential for students to acquire the pre-requisite knowledge on the controversial issue, apart from their personal experiences, so that they are able to contribute meaningfully and participate in the SAC discussion in a constructive manner.

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Designing Classrooms of the Future Now!

Author/s:

Ron Starker

Ron Starker (Singapore American School) Mark Baildon (National Institute of Education (Singapore)) Keywords Geography History Social Studies Junior College Secondary School Primary School Learning Environments Classroom Design In this article we showcase the work of three teachers in redesigning classroom learning environments to enhance student learning. Through short interview excerpts, a video, and classroom photos we feature […]

Ron Starker (Singapore American School)
Mark Baildon (National Institute of Education (Singapore))

Keywords
Geography
History
Social Studies
Junior College
Secondary School
Primary School
Learning Environments
Classroom Design

In this article we showcase the work of three teachers in redesigning classroom learning environments to enhance student learning. Through short interview excerpts, a video, and classroom photos we feature ten design ideas they used to redesign their classrooms. In the article we also argue that despite lofty rhetoric espousing pedagogical innovation and 21^st century learning, classroom design provides the most visible sign of what schools and educational leaders actually believe and value. We call for greater attention to the ways classroom spaces constrain and enable teaching and learning that can better support important 21^st century educational outcomes.

Introduction
Every year, thousands of educational studies seek to find the best methods and conditions under which students learn. As educators we are constantly looking for ways to adapt new approaches to teaching and learning and improve our teaching methods and curriculum. Many educational leaders call for classroom practice that is more student-centered, innovative, collaborative, inquiry-based or project-based, and for teachers who are empowered to help students develop 21^st century competencies (e.g., see MOE, 2014).

However, school culture can often constrain or inhibit new and innovative classroom practice. Cornbleth (2001) has described different school cultures that often interfere with educational innovation or make teachers reluctant to use innovative instructional strategies. She has described these school cultures as often highly bureaucratic (emphasizing order and control), conservative (to maintain the status quo), and excessively competitive with a great deal of attention given to student testing, accountability, and school rankings. This puts teachers in a sort of double bind in which they receive conflicting messages about the need for innovation while school culture and classroom environments remain quite conservative or place an emphasis on order, accountability, and stasis (Baildon & Sim, 2009).

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HSSE Online

Index

Susan Adler

Authors List

Authors List

Old Ideas Made New Again

Context, Interests, and Unintended Consequences: Lenses for Seeing, Comprehending and Engaging with the World

From Classroom to the Field and Back: Understanding the Ways Fieldwork Empowers Geographic Learning

The “New” Multiculturalism: National and Educational Perspectives

Structured Academic Controversy for Upper Secondary Social Studies

Designing Classrooms of the Future Now!

HSSE Online

HSSE Online