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?

In this video you see Obama asking why the US can’t provide “math instruction and science instruction for our children that matches countries like Taiwan and Singapore.” I cannot help again feeling that foreigners tend to see only an official rose-tinted view of Singapore’s education.

Do we have great Science instruction or teaching in Singapore? If we look at how Science is taught in Singapore it is not much different from that of teaching another content-based subject, like History. Only the content is different. Is the student encouraged to do scientific inquiry? Is he familiar and conscious with the scientific approach? Is cramming our students with Science “facts” considered science instruction? How different is that from teaching History “facts” in History lessons? Not much really except for the subject-related information taught.

I hope we in Singapore don’t allow such praise get to our heads. Teaching science is not happening in our schools. Only now is some of it happening. Even then it is happening only in the most elite schools here as if it is beyond the ken of the rest of the school-going population in Singapore.

Teachers planning to move their teaching and learning online must be aware that it is important for them to equip themselves with certain skills. Besides the ICT literacy that is to be expected of them, what other skills would they need?

In truth, the basic teaching skills that a teacher is supposed to have in brick-and-mortar classroom still applies and perhaps it may be argued that some of them become even more essential. The essential ingredients of what makes a good class and lesson will still remain. Teacher beliefs and values, class management skills, a clear understanding of the learning outcomes, the assessment of the learning, good instructional planning and motivational skills are all still important ingredients of a successful class whether online or otherwise.

However, the manner these skill are put into practice in the online classroom will differ quite considerably. For example, with regards to the need to create a safe learning environment, in a brick-and-mortar classroom, everyone is able to see and talk to each other spontaneously while in an online classroom, this is not the case. Plus the facial gestures and the nuances in the way words are spoken that is so important in everyday communication is replaced with only dry and impersonal text. This is where the well-known emoticons come into play. Other examples of unique online class management skills include for example taking into account the types of online behavioral tendencies of online participants.

Good instructional planning or design becomes even more important in the online classroom. Good instructional planning is required in a brick-and-mortar classroom but in such classrooms, teachers can make spontaneous adaptations to the situation in the classrooms. In an online environment it is not as easy to do so. This can influence considerably the flow of the lesson or instruction.

In short, teachers need to familiarize themselves first with the likely online classroom environment. They must also remember that the online classroom environment can differ according to the kind of learning activity that is to be used. A discussion forum is quite different from a synchronous chat session. The facilitation approach for both would also be quite varied. Drill-and-practice activities require perhaps less class management attention. The best way for teachers to understand the differences between these environments is to perhaps undergo an online class themselves.

In seeking to understand the students’ online experience, the teachers must learn to be online students themselves. The online experience for the teachers does not have to be a class on online learning itself. But it is important that whatever the online course the teacher undergoes, the teacher should consciously note the experience and compare it with their past classoom learning experience. Only then can they craft an online lesson themselves. The crafting of an online lesson goes beyond the technicalities of the online learning platform. More important is the re-shaping of the traditional teaching skills to fit the new environment.