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Jackie

History

Well-being and Humanities Education in Singapore

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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The “New” Multiculturalism: National and Educational Perspectives

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Jackie

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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Patriots, Collaborators and the Undecidables in Between: The Contestation between Official and Unofficial History in Malaysia

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Jackie

Using Film in Historical Inquiry: As Medium, as Evidence, for Empathy

Author/s:

Jeremy Stoddard

Jeremy Stoddard (College of William & Mary, USA) Keywords History Junior College Inquiry Concept Film Prespectives Though often portrayed as a clichéd example of poor history pedagogy, there is now ample research and numerous models of best practice to support the use of film in an inquiry-based history curriculum. In this article I present best practice […]

Jeremy Stoddard (College of William & Mary, USA)

Keywords
History
Junior College
Inquiry
Concept
Film
Prespectives

Though often portrayed as a clichéd example of poor history pedagogy, there is now ample research and numerous models of best practice to support the use of film in an inquiry-based history curriculum. In this article I present best practice models and practical examples of using film as a medium to engage students in inquiry. In doing so, I will attempt to answer the following questions:

What happens when film portrays history, and especially controversial events?
What are some effective goals and models for teaching with film?
How does film act as a historical text or as historical evidence?
How should I select films and structure film-based lessons?

History on Film
History is always shaped by the context in which it was recorded and constrained by the perspectives and evidence it contains. Similarly, any time a film is made to represent historical events, issues or peoples, whether it is a documentary or fictitious, it should be viewed as containing “perspective laden-narratives” (Hess, 2007). This is because films are: 1) made by people with particular views and within a particular context, 2) often based on written accounts that are compressed or adapted using dramatic liberty due to the need to fit the narrative and time constraints of film, and 3) usually driven with profit in mind – and thus need to attract an audience.

Further, because of the need to represent narratives that extend over long periods of time, great distances, or multiple perspectives, films also rely on genre conventions to help the audience follow the narrative and keep track of what is going on. This is why war movies often include stock characters such as the tough sergeant, or rely on cinematic effects such as lighting and music to help the audience identify the hero and villain easily. These conventions can be limited to particular audiences, such as those from the particular language, national, or cultural group for whom the film is intended, and may be interpreted very differently by audience members from outside of this intended audience. Regardless of whether or not a person is a member of an intended audience, however, every individual may interpret or understand aspects of the film differently based on their own knowledge of the events or people being represented, their experience in viewing film, or as a matter of personal preference.

Documentary films can be particularly problematic as they are often viewed as being objective accounts of the past because they include interviews with experts, film of actual events, and are most akin to written history. However, these films are still the result of thousands of decisions made by the film’s director and editor and are also reflective of particular genre conventions that shape the story being told. Historically, documentary style film has been a medium of propaganda used to influence audiences on political and social issues.

This does not mean that films are not useful as either historical accounts or as historical evidence. As films are shaped by people from particular contexts (e.g., time, place), and with particular views, they serve as a reflection or artifact documenting different time periods and societies. They serve as historical evidence of particular values, interpretations, and material culture. They also serve as a medium for historiography and for raising particular historical questions or controversial issues.

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The New Inquiry-based Approach: What It Means for the Teaching and Learning of History in Singapore Schools

Author/s:

Suhaimi Afandi

Suhaimi Afandi (National Institute of Education, Singapore) Keywords History Secondary School Inquiry Teaching Introduction Secondary Humanities teachers in Singapore are well-acquainted with recent developments and changes that accompanied the launch of the new history syllabus in October 2012. A most notable development was the adoption of inquiry-based learning as the recommended pedagogy for instruction. What was […]

Suhaimi Afandi (National Institute of Education, Singapore)

Keywords
History
Secondary School
Inquiry Teaching

Introduction
Secondary Humanities teachers in Singapore are well-acquainted with recent developments and changes that accompanied the launch of the new history syllabus in October 2012. A most notable development was the adoption of inquiry-based learning as the recommended pedagogy for instruction. What was the logic for this change? Why was there a need to pursue inquiry-based learning for school history? What was the spirit behind the change? What did the curriculum developers hope to achieve by pushing for an inquiry approach to history learning? Some of these answers can be obtained from the Singapore Ministry of Education syllabus documents, the Teaching and Learning Guides (TLGs), and other related documents. In this commentary, I offer some of my personal thoughts on the matter and I focus on some issues that require addressing if we are serious about proposing an instructional approach that aims to develop students’ disciplinary thinking in history.

Why the Changes?
In short, I would say that there was a recognition that things were not actually going as well as they should. Yes, our students did very well in the national examinations and have consistently posted impressive scores. But the perception that has emerged over the years was that although many of these students appeared to know a lot about the things they studied, there remained a high level of scepticism as to whether they understood much of what they had studied. From informal conversations with colleagues and school practitioners, the reasons offered for students not understanding much about the history they learnt in their classrooms ranged from too much direct or didactic instruction, too much algorithmic or mechanical learning, too much drilling or rote learning, too much teaching to the test, and so on. Subsequently, a common idea that emerged was that while our students have proven very adept at absorbing transmitted knowledge or information, they were not able to construct new knowledge– one of the characteristics of critical and independent learners.

In order to raise standards of history, geography and social studies education in Singapore, policy-makers and curriculum planners in the Curriculum and Planning Development Division (CPDD) recognized the need for a major shake-up in the way the Humanities subjects have been taught in schools. Inquiry-based learning was seen as the key to transforming the teaching of the Humanities from a largely content-transmission approach to an approach that gets students to take ownership of their learning by purposefully seeking information and constructing their own knowledge within the norms and standards set by the disciplinary nature of the subject. In history, the major thrust of inquiry-based learning was targeted at getting students to “appreciate the underpinnings of the discipline” as they engage in the process of “doing history” (Ministry of Education/Curriculum Planning and Development Division, 2012, p. 12). Inquiry was deemed essential for providing students with the opportunity to build essential understandings, particularly about the concepts that lie at the heart of history.

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“No One Icon”: Secondary Students’ Judgments of Significant Representations of Singapore

Author/s:

Syazwani Binte Amrun

Syazwani Binte Amrun (Raffles Girls’ School) Keywords History Junior College Singapore Representation Significance Concept This study was designed to explore how students in a secondary school make sense about the significance of different representations of Singapore, and to examine their ideas on what they conceived as icons of Singapore. The research was conducted in a premier […]

Syazwani Binte Amrun (Raffles Girls’ School)

Keywords
History
Junior College
Singapore Representation
Significance
Concept

This study was designed to explore how students in a secondary school make sense about the significance of different representations of Singapore, and to examine their ideas on what they conceived as icons of Singapore. The research was conducted in a premier all-girls’ school in Singapore. The data used in this study was derived from semi-structured interviews that included both a task requiring students to choose from among a set of thirty captioned images, and a set of questions designed to elicit their understanding of significant representations of Singapore. Twelve students, aged 14 to 15 years old, were interviewed in groups of either three or four per group.

The key question guiding this study was “What is the icon of Singapore today?” In order to address this question, students were expected to work with the concept of significance in history. Although the question did not specifically require students to refer to their knowledge of Singapore’s history or to have them make connections with representations of Singapore’s past, student responses may shed light on the way they think about the country’s past, and enable us to build a picture about how they perceive their identity and the country’s heritage. By identifying items they believed were iconic representations of Singapore, students’ responses appeared to reveal the kind of values they held about the country and the means by which they identified themselves as Singaporeans. The findings from this study will be useful for educators in planning programmes that would enhance our students’ understanding of specific icons and cultivate in them a deeper appreciation for Singapore.

Research Methods
Setting and Participants
This study involved interviews with twelve students from three different Year Three classes, with the age of participants ranging from 14 to 15 years old. These students were selected to participate in this study as they had all completed one year of studying Singapore’s history in Year Two. The decision to select Year Three students also was made with the assumption that participants would have a basic knowledge of Singapore’s history as their understanding of the milestones in Singapore’s history may affect their perception of what they conceived as iconic of Singapore. All the students involved in the study were Singapore citizens except for two who were Singapore Permanent Residents (PR). The students selected consisted of both high and average achievers within their history classes, and the selection also took into consideration the ethnic backgrounds of the participants. Students were interviewed in fours largely due to convenience as these interviews were conducted during breaks in their curriculum time. The first group of students consisted of two ethnic Chinese Singaporeans and two ethnic Indians (one of whom was a PR from India); the second group of students consisted of 4 ethnic Chinese Singaporeans; and the last group consisted of one ethnic Chinese Singaporean student and three ethnic Malay students (one of whom was a PR from Indonesia). For more information of the participants, refer to Appendix A.

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Historical Concepts and National Examinations: Have O-Level Structured-Essay Questions Encouraged the Teaching of Historical Concepts?

Author/s:

Jackie

HSSE Online

Index

Jackie

Authors List

Authors List

Teaching Venice in Schools

Well-being and Humanities Education in Singapore

Old Ideas Made New Again

The “New” Multiculturalism: National and Educational Perspectives

Designing Classrooms of the Future Now!

Patriots, Collaborators and the Undecidables in Between: The Contestation between Official and Unofficial History in Malaysia

Using Film in Historical Inquiry: As Medium, as Evidence, for Empathy

The New Inquiry-based Approach: What It Means for the Teaching and Learning of History in Singapore Schools

“No One Icon”: Secondary Students’ Judgments of Significant Representations of Singapore

Historical Concepts and National Examinations: Have O-Level Structured-Essay Questions Encouraged the Teaching of Historical Concepts?

HSSE Online

HSSE Online