The Straits Times reported today that the National University of Singapore (NUS) will be introducing compulsory writing modules for freshmen from August next year. The modules will focus on topics like press freedom, information and technology, or the environment. Students are expected to pick up skills ranging from taking good notes, effective presentations, analyzing texts and constructing coherent arguments.

The university’s provost, Professor Tan Eng Chye explained that the university needed to introduce such modules because NUS students have been found wanting in presentation skills, or are inarticulate or unable to write succinctly.

Professor Tan was reported to have said that he had attended presentations where students would read from their notes rather than make eye contact with the audience. He also was reported to have said that:

“I have also read minutes of meetings written by university students that are not clear at all.”

The report reminded me of a book by a Harvard education professor, Tony Wagner, who had argued that secondary students in the US are not “jury ready”. By this, he meant that students leave school without acquiring the skills to be able to analyze an argument, weigh evidence, and detect bias. In his book, “The Global Achievement Gap”, Professor Wagner defines his “Seven Survival Skills” for students to succeed at the university and at the workplace, and in life in general. The Seven Survival Skills are includes problem solving and critical thinking, collaboration across networks, adaptability, initiative, effective oral and written communication, analyzing information, and developing curiosity and imagination.

It seems that Professor Wagner’s view about this inability to produce “jury ready” students is not only true for the US, but also for Singapore, an island lauded for its rigorous education system. One wonders what our students are learning in their English Language classes in our schools?

Why are our students still unable to master these skills by the time they finish their secondary or junior college education? Is the format of the GCE O levels English Language paper to be blamed? Most teachers in Singapore will tell their students to avoid the expository essays for the examinations and concentrate on writing descriptive or narrative essays. This is their “pragmatic” strategy that they teach their students in order to get better grades in the high stakes examinations.

Should the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Singapore seriously reconsider how English Language for the GCE O levels is designed? To be sure, students in Singapore, at the Junior College level are required to sit for General Paper, where they are required to write expository essays  and analyze text more critically, as part of their GCE A Levels high stakes examinations. Many have found this subject “tough”. They are also required to do a Project Work module. In addition, they have also been taught thinking skills in the other Humanities subjects like History and Geography even at the O levels. So why are our students still not “jury ready” that NUS now has to consider compulsory modules to instruct its students in these skills?

I suspect that despite thinking skills being officially incorporated in the secondary and junior college syllabuses, teachers in Singapore have found a way to work around these to prepare students for their high stakes examinations in a very mechanical way. What is supposed to be  the teaching and learning of critical thinking skills has been reduced to rote learning and mechanical operations only.

This is made worse by the lack of interdisciplinary connections across subjects. Students, therefore, think that the skills they have learned are only for use within the specific subject matter. Little transfer of knowledge or skills is emphasized perhaps by the teachers and MOE. A silo mentality is created where little of what has been learned in school is used for anything else. This is despite MOE’s “Thinking Schools, Learning Nation” (TSLN) and “Teach Less, Learn More” (TLLM) drive. Teachers and students still think that what matters most are the grades students obtain for the high stakes examinations that mainly encouraged rote learning and mechanical operations.

The new NUS initiative, while laudable in its aims, is in my view, too little, too late. Our students should be “jury ready” at an earlier stage of their education. All our students should be “jury ready” irregardless of whether they finally attained a university education or otherwise. After the secondary education, our students will be channeled to the university track or the polytechnic track or the technical education institutes. To think that such skills are only required of those in the universities will be folly. We cannot afford to be so wasteful in the face of the challenges of globalization in the 21st century.

In Singapore, passengers of our bus services are allowed to stand and one particular bus service has standing room in the front half of its buses while the seats are located in the rear half. During peak hours, these buses will encounter a jam within the buses as passengers who are standing will clog the front end of the buses and make it difficult for others to board the buses as the entrances are usually located at the front of the buses. The rear half where the seats are mainly located but with grip poles for standing passengers would have no passenger standing. This has led to the drivers having to remind (yell at?) the standing passengers to move to the rear of the bus, usually to little avail. Alighting from the bus is also made difficult as the exit is near the middle of the bus. In my view, the bus services should have just “flipped” the design of the bus and place all the seats in the front half and the standing area at the rear half. Passengers boarding the buses at the front will more naturally move to the rear that is designed for standing only as it leaves them with little option and the appearance of space at the rear will invite them there.

A similar thing can be done to schools. Schools too can be flipped. The flipping here involves the re-thinking on how instruction is done and also the change in emphasis on the collaboration between teachers and students, and also between students and students. A flipped classroom according to Jerry Overmyer is:

“…. a model of teaching in which a student’s homework is the traditional lecture viewed outside of class on a vodcast. Then class time is spent on inquiry-based learning which would include what would traditionally be viewed as a student’s homework assignment. Synonymous with Reverse Classroom.”

Whether it is inquiry-based learning or more traditional classwork is not very important to me. What is important is that the students get more time to work with the teachers and their peers in the classroom, rather than sit passively listening to lectures.

This flip model is made possible with the advances made in ICT. Lectures can be podcasted or “vodcasted“. Recordings of lectures can be done easily and the availability of free online platforms like Moodle to host these online. Email and IM software allows for additional support to be given.

Of course, doing all these is not new. Even in Singapore, it is done by schools. However it is done on an ad hoc basis rather than it becoming central to the delivery of the curriculum. Schools have adopted it as part of the “Teach Less, Learn More” approach. But has never been the main means of curriculum delivery. It is all too often just to pander to “Teach Less, Learn More” where perhaps one week of lessons (out of a possible forty weeks) is transferred online.

A school in the US, Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology, has taken to flipping in earnest and is ripping the advantages of flipping. The advantages of the model are many but two stands out. As Technology with Intention states:

• Flipped teaching means that an educator doesn’t need to guess at what speed to deliver content – with students watching lectures at home they can move at their own speed and review concepts as necessary.
• Without large portions of classroom time spent lecturing, educators can use that time to see students working through projects and assignments that would have previously been done in isolation at home:  break out sessions can occur spontaneously, students can work in mentor-based groupings, jigsaw opportunities, supplemental support, etc.

From the Singapore viewpoint, it can also help address the problem of excessive private tuition that many of its students attend to seek additional assistance. It may also mean a cutting back on the amount of homework. Furthermore, the flexible and more social arrangement inherent will also better reflect a 21st century workplace.

Of course, there are some who will think that such flipping can only benefit the brighter students. What do you think?

I know it is not always an “either or” issue. But I thought that I should revisit this issue of what is more important between the two after reading this article especially after reading the comments by readers that followed it. The article was reporting on ICT trends in education for the year 2010 (is that enough for a trend?).

I am not talking about an ideal scenario where schools have well-trained teachers and lots of funds for ICT purchases. It is rarely like that. Even in a rich country like Singapore with its massive MasterPlan for IT in Education (MPITE) didn’t escape this problem. When I was with the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Singapore as part of the team pushing MPITE, I knew that the teachers in general were not quite ready to use ICT in education. And mind you, these were trained teachers.

I am not against the use of ICT in education. But I think ICT in education, especially its use in the classroom, must be accompanied or even preceded by good teaching strategies and good instruction. Too often in my experience with teachers, I have found that they were unable to make a successful transition to the use of ICT for teaching and learning. This was because they needed to make a few changes before they can successfully use ICT in the classroom.

To make that transition more successful and less foreboding for the teachers, there is a need for teachers to first change perhaps the way they teach. Cooperative learning methods and a shift away from the traditional frontal teaching is a pre-requisite. There are others but I think these two are essential.

Among the most important purpose of using ICT in the classroom is the opportunity for students to explore and collaborate. If the use of ICT does not reflect these, then I think the use of ICT in the classroom is severely curtailed. In order to do these, teachers must undergo a paradigm shift in the way they teach. They must be willing to take a more “hands off” approach. They will have to design meaningful learning activities that involve collaboration. There is no point in having 21st Century tools and yet teach as if it is a 19th Century classroom. At the other extreme, you may have teachers who enjoy using ICT so much that they lose sight of the learning goals.

Schools would do well to invest more in teacher training and development to make this paradigm shift among teachers. Of course, there is also a need to change the syllabus and move away from traditional written high stakes examinations but that is another story. If schools move into ICT in education without these changes, they will find their teachers teaching ineffectively in an old mode in a high tech environment or having lots of classroom activities involving the use of of ICT but with little learning done.