“The biggest challenge I see is in time constraint – we need time to build rapport and we also need time to ensure that the students do well.” ~ Daniel Tan, primary school teacher, Singapore quoted in the Straits Times, January 20, 2010.

The above quotation is the response of a teacher in Singapore in response to a lecture by two American psychologists at the National Institute of Education (NIE) in Singapore. The two psychologists, Professors Edward Deci and Richard Ryan from the University of Rochester had delivered a lecture at the NIE on their findings in a 20-year period study on nurturing motivated learners and the effects of testing which had covered covering 15 countries.

No surprise that they recommended that students be given autonomy to decide how and what to learn. They also recommended that teachers spend less time on preparing students for tests. They also recommended that teachers build strong rapport with students. So this is what the research says. I will also add that this is not new.

I find the reaction to the findings by the teacher that I have quoted above interesting. He identified time constraint as “the biggest challenge.” My question is why is there a time constraint? Why is studying tied to time? He said that time is needed “to ensure that the students do well.”

Do well in what? The learning and deep understanding of concepts? Surely not as that should not be limited by a time cap. So where did that time constraint come from. Singaporeans will know he was probably referring to the high stakes examinations that Singapore students need to sit for in the course of their student life in Singapore schools.

What has been said at the lecture is nothing new to the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Singapore. I am certain they know that. But why bother with learning from research (and the MOE has been pushing for research-based teaching) when it is continually ignored in favor of administrative convenience? High stakes examinations are an administrative convenience rather than a tool to assist teaching and learning.

The remark also points to the MOE’s continuing love affair with high stakes examinations despite all the evidence to the contrary about the effects of such an approach in schools. When will “doing well” in school refer to a deep understanding of concepts instead of being well-drilled to examinations like the PSLE, GCE O and A levels?

At the end of the day, the remark suggests that all teachers in Singapore know that all that really matters in Singapore schools are the results of these high stakes assessments. All else for the MOE is just a PR exercise for the gullible, both local and foreign.

Many years ago, when I was still fairly new at teaching, I attended a course on assessment for History. The course was meant to provide teachers with a better understanding of the marking of student’s History essays. This was before the days of the current History syllabus with the incorporation of the thinking skills. It was conducted at the National Institute of Education (NIE).

What I remembered most of the experience was the lecturer telling us that there wasn’t much to discuss as we all should know how the marking should be done and we would already know what is a good essay. He said that by just reading a good essay we should “know”. Of course, I immediately felt that I had wasted my time coming for the session and it turned out to be just that.

Several years later, when I was with the Educational Technology Division (ETD), I was asked to chaperoned some foreign guests from the ASEAN countries to the NIE. The visitors were all officers from educational institutions from the ASEAN countries. We were going to look at NIE‘s use of discussion forums in their teacher training. We were given an overview by one of NIE‘s lecturers and at the Q&A after the overview, a Malaysian guest asked the NIE lecturer how they assessed the students learning on the forum. The lecturer rather flippantly said that they just read the comments and contributions of the students on the forum and have a “feel” for the correct marks. I remember cringing and shifting uneasily in my seat, when the Malaysian who had asked the question, looked at me and whispered, “What he means is that he is just doing impression marking?” I also remember just smiling sheepishly at him. I was at a loss for words as I knew what the Malaysian guest meant.

A few days ago, I was at a meeting between teachers and parents of my son’s class. Just before the actual meeting started, a teacher for Design and Technology, was complaining to a parent about her son’s portfolio work that was due to be submitted for the GCE O levels. The parent accepted that her son was not doing what he should and asked the teacher what was lacking in her son’s work. All the teacher said was that her son was not doing “enough”. The teacher proceeded to say that her son was over-confident and had thought that he was doing a good job. The parent asked again what was lacking and again the teacher only said that he was “over-confident” and that her son had thought that he had done enough when in reality it was far short of acceptable standards. It, perhaps, never crossed his mind that it wasn’t a case of over-confidence at all but rather the student not knowing how to assess his own performance.

As I watched this last incident, the first two incidents came to my mind. I have come to the conclusion that students in Singapore are, in general, not taught how to assess their own learning and performance.In the first two examples, it seems that even the teachers concerned have no clear inkling of how the assessment of learning is to be done. If teachers have no idea of how assessment is to be done, we can safely assumed the students have even less of an idea of how to do it.

The sad thing is that, the last incident showed that it is still happening today. Teachers mark with some hazy idea in their heads about the assessment standards. Because they are hazy about it, they cannot transfer their knowledge to the students. Students will, therefore, always be dependent on the teacher to assess their performance. The students cannot do it on their own. I suspect this haphazard approach to assessment is still prevalent in Singapore schools. I am sure many students, for example, don’t know why their English language essay is considered good or bad. Sure there will be marks and some comments made on the student’s essay paper but rarely is the student given clear criteria for what constitutes a good essay. Writing essays is a hit-and-miss affair. Students who do well, don’t really know why their essay is good. The poor essay writer also does not know why his essay is good. They are all dependent on the teacher.

Now this might seem normal to some of us but at a time when schools are spouting slogans like “independent learners” and “life-long learning”, how do we expect students to display such characteristics when they are not taught to assess their own learning? How are they going to be taught this if teachers themselves are hazy and vague?

In my view, independent learning and life-long learning will not happen as long as this state of affairs continue. It is just as bad for students to be waiting for an “assessment” from the teachers about their learning, as waiting for the teachers to provide them with ready-made notes.

The independent learner needs to be taught how to assess his own learning. He has to be his own “man in the mirror.” He must be able to reflect accurately on his own abilities and decide what he lacks and what he is good at. Without this skill and attitude, independent learning will only remain an illusion.

I’m Starting With The Man In

The Mirror

I’m Asking Him To Change

His Ways

And No Message Could Have

Been Any Clearer

If You Wanna Make The World

A Better Place

(If You Wanna Make The

World A Better Place)

Take A Look At Yourself, And

Then Make A Change

(Take A Look At Yourself, And

Then Make A Change)

- “Man in the mirror” by Michael Jackson

Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can be a powerful way to teach students in schools about spatial distribution. When I was at the Ministry of Education (MOE) of Singapore, I was at the forefront of the Educational Technology Division’s (ETD) attempt to encourage teachers to use GIS software as a teaching and learning tool.

While most of the teachers who took part in our workshops and projects involving the use of GIS software have generally found the tool to be powerful, I do not think we have been very successful in encouraging the widespread use of GIS even among the teachers who were involved in our workshops and projects.

In my view, there are a few reasons why GIS has not caught on among teachers in Singapore schools then. I believe one important reason for this is due to the fairly steep learning curve with regards to the use of GIS software. Many of the teachers found the software quite intimidating. This was at a time when the Masterplan for IT in Education (MPITE) was in its first phase. Teachers were still struggling with incorporating ICT into their lessons. Many of these teachers are veterans of the teaching service and generally less ICT-savvy. This made learning GIS software difficult for them. A lack of exposure to the software meant that they never acquired adequate mastery of the software for it to be useful. The lack of exposure to GIS software is also due to the relatively high costs of GIS software. Schools and HODs were reluctant to spend limited budgets on expensive software acquisition especially if the software is seen as useful only for a small portion of the examinations-oriented syllabi.

In addition to the software, to use GIS effectively, it can be argued that it needs its partner which is Global Positioning Systems (GPS). using GPS will also imply the need for GPS hardware like GPS receivers and also GPS software. This again increases costs. Effectively this means that few schools actually bought the software and hardware for using GIS and GPS for teaching and learning. Many teachers are limited to using the software only during workshops and projects undertaken in conjunction with the ETD, which admittedly were at best only sporadic.

Another reason for the lack of enthusiasm for GIS (and GPS) in schools is because the teachers have not undergone a fundamental change in the way they approach teaching. Teachers in Singapore still adopt a very traditional  approach to teaching. It is made worse, by teachers teaching only to the exams. This is largely due to Singapore’s over-emphasis on high stakes examinations that not only decide the academic fate of students but also the professional fate of teachers. Content is over-emphasized as opposed to the acquisition of skills or appropriate attitudes that will lead to independent learning. If perhaps, the emphasis had been on the learning of skills and the inculcation of proper learning attitudes, GIS might not have been seen as useful for only a small portion of the school syllabi. For example, if correct attitudes like getting students to learn to ask good questions for investigation and learning to analyze, gets the proper emphasis in Singapore schools, teachers and school administrators will probably not see the use of GIS as just a niche and expensive thing.

However, all is not lost I hope. There is available for free, legal GIS and GPS software. These are Open Source Software (OSS). They are a viable alternative to the expensive, proprietary (usually) Windows-based GIS software. This would make cost issues no longer relevant. More importantly, their ready availability means that teachers will have the chance to get properly acquainted with GIS and hopefully master the software. Alternatively, the availability of Google Earth offers an interesting alternative option for teachers to use. GPS receivers are also getting cheaper and easier to use too. Perhaps the more difficult aspect of promoting GIS use among schools is the mindset of the teachers and perhaps the policy makers. As long as learning is seen as only for the examinations, teachers will not change their view of tools like GIS to enhance and deepen learning despite its clear real-world application. Hopefully this will change with the influx of new trainee teachers exposed to GIS at the university level especially at the National Institute of Education (NIE) in Singapore. They can act as the catalyst for the widespread use of GIS in Singapore schools.