Blog 1: My ESE

ENHANCED SCHOOL EXPERIENCE:

PREPARATORY TASK FOR ICT FOR MEANINGFUL LEARNING

Enhanced School Experience: Classroom Observations of ICT Use

(I) Specific Observations

School Name: Yusof Ishak Secondary School

Class: Secondary 2 Normal Academic

Profile of the class: (For e.g., the students’ academic abilities, stream and other characteristics) It was a Secondary 2 class, in the Normal Academic stream. Some of the students were quite competent and was able to pick up any skill quite fast. But a large number of the students were generally slow learner and had problems in concentrating to a lesson or lecture for long. Unless they are provided with some hands-on activities as a part of their learning process, generally the class remains noisy. Most of the times they needed visual aids to accompany the topic they were supposed to learn. That in its turn kept them engaged to the day’s activity and also served the purpose of imparting the knowledge that was ought to be imparted.

Subject:

What ICT tools are used in the lesson? The Literature classes tend to get boring if only text books and lecture method is adopted. For the Secondary 2 NA class that I observed, use of ICT tools was an absolute necessity for an effective session. So the particular class that I observed my buddy teacher Salina Yusof Mohammad used Youtube Video, Power Point Presentation to serve the purpose. The video was introduced to familiarize the students with the general theme of the lesson that was followed by a general discussion and debate. In this context the use of Visualiser was also crucial. The Power Point presentation was also effective to draw the attention of the students and keep them engaged to the day’s lesson. Both the visualizer and the power Point presentation were used along with the white screen. The method paid off as at the end of the lesson the students could work out the work sheets quite satisfactorily.

Describe how ICT is used for teaching and learning in the lesson. A poem related to ‘Life in 21st Century’ was to be taught in the class and my buddy teacher Salina zeroed upon a poem named “Poison Talk”. The poem was basically in the structure of a dialogue between the poet and the polluting agents. To initiate the class Salina showed them a video, downloaded from you tube, related to pollution and the harmful effects of it. The students were really attentive at that time and watched the video minutely. The portrayal of the harmful effects extracted quite a strong reaction from them and before even starting the lesson that had already formed a clear opinion about pollution and the harmful effects of it. The teacher then divided the class into groups and discussed the general views about pollution and jotted down the comments and observations of the students on a white paper. Here she used the visualizer. The students could clearly see what the teacher was jotting down on the paper on the white screen. The work sheet was planned accordingly and they followed the teacher and copied the views themselves. They even contradicted if they thought otherwise regarding any views. Then the power Point presentation was used. The teacher made the slides containing one stanza of the poem in each slide. While she selected one student to read out one stanza from the screen, she called another to point out the key words that was related to the theme by highlighting the key words in her laptop itself. So the students could see the emboldened words that related the poem with the main theme and the video and that was more easier a strategy to make the ideas clear to them. This was followed until the poem was completed and then the students were asked to complete the worksheets. The teacher guided the students to solve the worksheets using the visualizer one more time. That was helpful for the students to follow the instructions and understand what he/she was exactly required to do

(I) General Observation:

How do teachers in the school feel about the use of ICT for teaching and learning? (For this question, you may want to speak to the HOD/ICT and other teachers you know in the school

Teachers at Yusof Ishak Secondary School were quite conversant with the use of ICT tools for their class room teaching and they always acknowledged the inevitability of the ICT tools for more effective teachings. Hardly ever I have observed any class where an ICT tool was not used—be it the visualizer or the power point presentations. Mdm Azwiza Ahmad, Head of the Deptt. English Language and Literature used to stress on the fact that colours and visualization worked wonder with the kids. The teachers were competent enough for this. Even during the PLCs, that were held on Tuesdays, using ICT tools were stressed upon. Mr Daryl, a teacher at YISS, once showed how he used Facebook community to discuss mathematics with his students and also mentioned that yielded better results than just class room teaching. He mentioned that the kids asked questions while their fellows answered them quite efficiently. So even if some one lost out one lesson he/she had a good chance to cope up with the class even sitting at home. Even as a preparation to the Oral test, the students were allowed to record their reading aloud passages and also their picture reading and then they uploaded them or e-mailed them to their respective teachers for further guidance. That really worked and it showed in the results. Ms. Clarisse Ng and Mdm Widya Zukassim Burnwall, both teachers of the EL Deptt conducted this whole procedure.

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