Mind Trap is a game that requires the players to think. For teachers who want to teach thinking skills, the cards that comes in the Mind Trap box are wonderful teaching resources. You do not even have to play the actual game. Just use the cards.

However, the teacher must select the most appropriate cards for the class. For starters, it should not be too difficult. Look at the cards and the answers and decide accordingly if they fit your needs. When selecting the cards, also think of how you will want to guide your students to get the solution.

The teacher can use a collaborative learning approach. The teacher can divide the students into teams of fours or twos. The teacher can either read out the question or puzzle or even flash it on a screen with a projector. Tell the students to read the question and give them time to think through individually first. They should not discuss with anyone at this stage.

Only after some individual thinking will they share their thoughts with their team members. Only after they have agreed upon an answer with their team members will one member of the team raise their hand to answer the question. If the answer is incorrect, it is left to the other teams to answer. If all teams cannot provide the correct answer, then all will discuss again in their group to arrive at the answer. If the correct answer is given, the teacher may want to ask the other groups for their solutions first before confirming the answer. The teacher may want to the team that gave the correct answer to explain their thinking to the rest of  the class. Only assist in the explanation if the group has extreme difficulty in doing so.

If no one can provide the correct answer, the teacher can facilitate their thinking by asking them why they came up with the answers they had given earlier. This guiding process is essential and this is why the teacher must think through before hand how to guide the stduents before teh teacher shows them the question or puzzle. The teacher may ask them what assumptions had they made in trying to answer the puzzle. The teacher may want to ask them to re-look at the assumptions and raise other possible assumptions other than the ones that they have already thought of. Thsi process is essential if we want to teach the students to think. We are in effect modeling our thinking aloud for them to “see”. After the explanation is given, get the students to “replay” the thinking process in their minds aloud before moving on to the next puzzle.

When the results of TIMSS was announced recently, again there was this outpouring of pride in MOE about the performance of students from Singapore. But is TIMSS really a good yardstick for comparison across countries? We all know that when we compare something there must be a basis for comparison. That basis of comparison must be valid for everyone or everything tested otherwise the tests will be rendered meaningless.

So how does TIMSS fare in this regard? Read this article by Gerald R. Bracey and draw your own conclusions. It does seems that while TIMSS tells the truth, it does not tell the complete truth. One wonders also if the Ministry of Education (MOE) of Singapore is aware of this.

“…I was struck by the brief section on curriculum, where the authors discuss Singapore’s ““Teach Less, Learn More” (TLLM) philosophy, which focuses on why, what, and how everything is taught. We’ve all lamented the depth versus breadth approach, but it’s important to understand that in Singapore, TLLM implies a conscious decision to reduce the pressure on teachers and students related to teaching and learning facts that do not connect with other content and increase the emphasis on higher level thinking and complex understanding which are integrated within the content areas. The curriculum focuses on inquiry-based learning, marked by real-world problems and connections to students’ lives. The report notes that, “In moving toward greater flexibility in the classroom, the MOE (ministry of Education) aims to help students develop the capacity for independent thinking.”

- Beyond TIMSS by Anne Wujcik on B2E News Alert

The quote above is another example how foreign observers who view Singapore’s education system from afar don’t seem to have an idea of what really is going on in our education system. This remarks were made in the context of Singapore’s TIMSS performance.

I wonder how many of you out there who have experienced Singapore’s education system as either students, teachers or parents can actually identify with what is quoted above with the real Singapore school experience? How many of us can say in all honesty that, even if the description above of how teaching and learning is done in Singapore occurs, it is the norm rather than the exception in Singapore schools?

Again this is another foreign observer who has been given a rose-tinted view of Singapore’s education system through international seminars where most of the time they don’t really see what actually happens in the schools in Singapore but read policy statements of Singapore’s Ministry of Education (MOE). Or they would read papers by other foreign observers who had read the policy papers and had quoted them without deeper investigation. Even worse, our MOE officials will begin to believe the views of these misled foreign observers who themselves were misled in the first place by the official MOE position. It is becoming like a dog chasing its own tail. Woof!