Enhanced School Experience

Enhanced School Experience: Classroom Observations of ICT Use

(I) Specific Observations

School Name: Beacon Primary School

Class: 4/4

Profile of the class: 4/4 is made up of 32 mixed abilities pupils. There is an ADHD girl but after the school’s AED had spoken with the other girls in the class, they provide great support so it wasn’t too difficult to handle this case. The class is generally outspoken and most of the pupils participate actively in activities. Pupils have been trained to use computers since P1 on various skills such as doing projects on Power Point, research on internet, using specific software for voice recording and etc. Each pupil owns a laptop as his/her personal learning device (PLD). As BCPS is a future school, pupils were heavily trained on ICT skills. It was compulsory for the pupils to purchase a PLD in P4.

Subject: Science

What ICT tools are used in the lesson? - Projector/Interactive White Board - Brain Pop Junior - PLD - Google Search Engine - PowerPoint Presentation - Class Blog

Describe how ICT is used for teaching and learning in the lesson. This was actually a project done over 2-3 weeks in which I observed all the lessons involving this project. Pupils were told that they were going to start a new topic on human system. But this time, they were going to be their own teachers. They were divided into groups of 4 or 5 and each group was to pick a human system, do research on it and then present their findings to the class. They were supposed to set quiz questions to test the class on their understanding at the end of their presentations. Pupils were given specific guidelines such as: - The only search engine allowed is Google (as there are many advertisements and irrelevant links on other sites such as Yahoo!) - Each group was to come out with a 6-slide presentation - Diagram of the human system chosen must be included in the slides - Everyone must speak during the presentation During the group work, I was so surprised that everyone was so proficient in using their PLDs. They were using mainly Google and Wikipedia to get their information. Upon completion of the slides, some of the groups even took the initiative to come out with scripts for the presentation. A female group leader still wrote presentation script for a weaker pupil in her group. Before the presentation, the teacher told the pupils to grab their chairs to sit at the front. They were told that they have to give constructive feedbacks at the end of each presentation. The teacher also gave some examples on what kind of feedbacks are considered ‘constructive’. During the presentation, I was again impressed with their PowerPoint skills. All the slides were interestingly filled with sound/video effects coupled with appropriate animations (they started using PowerPoint since P1). Slides were generally useful and good. There were two groups giving out small tokens for pupils who answered the quiz questions correctly. The whole presentation was smooth, pupils were attentive when it was not their turn and participated actively in the Q&A session. At the end of the presentation, pupils were able to give constructive feedback such as: - Voice too soft - Animations between slides were too long and unnecessary - Unsuitable font colors for words After all the groups have presented, the teacher summed up the project by asking the pupils to do a short reflection post on their experience. There were many positive feedbacks on this project. Pupils enjoyed the learning process a lot. He then played the Brain Pop Junior science video on human system to focus on the important points to note. After which, he did a short quiz with pupils using the interactive white board. Unlabeled diagrams of the different systems were shown pupils were to match the names at the side to the correct organs. Pupils were very engaged in this activity as they get to learn ‘hands-on’ by dragging the names to the correct parts on the white board. At least ¾ pupils from the class raised their hands to volunteer to answer the questions. This was the first time that the teacher was testing out this project idea and it was very successful. Initially he was afraid this project might be too difficult for P4 pupils, but it turned out that the pupils had some really good content and they managed to put the information in a clear and organized manner to present to the class.

(II) 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.)

Generally, all the teachers I have spoken to find that it is efficient when teaching is combined with the use of ICT tools.

Some assessment materials would be uploaded onto school portal and marked electronically when the pupils have attempted. This cuts down on marking time which allows the teachers to have more time to plan for more activities to enhance learning experience.

The 21^st century students are more IT savvy and it seems like they enjoy learning more with the ICT tools than the traditional setting.

Where technical difficulties might cause frustration to teachers in other schools, the problem is minimized in BCPS as it is a future school and thus large support is given from the school, MOE as well as IDA.