New Pedagogies in Teaching and Learning

This study tries to describe how Japanese Lesson Study can support school to improve quality of teaching, encourage teacher agency, and construct knowledge network in practice based on the concept of ‘professional capital’ developed by Andy Hargraves, 2012. This paper especially tries to examine two specific research questions, a) what are key elements of social capitals through lens of Japanese lesson study as a professional culture?  and b) How schools provide and develop such capital for teachers to be a learner? Qualitative data are collected through two case studies included lesson observation and transcripts based analysis, and post-lesson teacher discussion analysis (September 2015 and March 2017). First case is from Tokyo which focuses on teacher learning through curriculum and content of teaching; and the second case is from Kanagawa which focuses on teacher learning through students learning activities. From this study it can be seen that teacher learning in school supports teacher agency especially ability of decision making of teaching materials in practice. However, in case of Kanagawa elementary school, teachers try to learn from students and students become as partner of teacher learning. In case of Tokyo elementary school, teachers try to learn from each other to design learning for each student. In conclusion, this paper contributes to public understanding of how teachers learn in school through lesson study in Japan and how it can be linked with theory of ‘professional capital’. In addition this paper tries to provide an alternative perspective to review Japanese effect of Lesson Study in practice.

In the speech given by our Minister of Education (Schools), Mr Ng Chee Meng, at the NIE Teachers’ Investiture ceremony on 5th July 2017, he said that teacher is key to our students’ learning. He also said that “teacher is key to help our students find passion and joy in what they are learning, not just to study to tackle exams, or score good grades.”
For our teacher to nurture the joy of learning in our students, we need to be able to ensure that they can learn as efficiently as possible. An action research was conducted in 2017 on primary 4 students in the learning of fractions in Mathematics by using Differentiated Instruction as the model of teaching. Personality of the students, in terms of introversion as compared to extroversion, was used as the learning profile. The research was focused on classroom discussions when differences in learning between introverted and extroverted students were clearly seen. As a result of this research, the intervention was extended to more students in 2018. Based on both quantitative and qualitative feedbacks, the students benefited from our intervention. The introverted students found that classwork suit their learning needs. The extroverted students found that they could discuss their learning easily with their group members. We hope that we can discuss our findings in the conference.

With the availability of ICT tools that could support students’ development of 21st-century skills, this study is trying to investigate the perceptions of Primary Four students’ self-directed learning (SDL) and collaborative learning (CoL) with ICT tools in the writing of narratives in Singapore. Limited studies explored the development of primary-school students’ perceptions of SDL and CoL, specifically in the areas of writing narratives using the socio-cognitive approach.
Chandrasegaran (2013) explains socio-cognitive approach as “bringing together elements of cognitive process models of writing and social-cultural views including genre-based approaches to writing instruction.” He views writing as a social activity. In the cognitive process theory of writing, writing influences students’ thinking in the planning, organizing, writing, and revising stages. Chandrasegaran’s (2013) theoretical approach was adopted as the basis for operationalizing the term socio-cognitive approach to writing in this study.
The main research question to be addressed in this presentation is to investigate students’ perceptions of self-directed learning and collaborative learning with the use of ICT tools in Primary Four English writing classes in Singapore.
During the intervention, students used ICT tools such as Grammarly to self-assess their narratives and made the first round of revisions. Next, the revised narratives were uploaded to platforms such as Google Classroom for peer reviews. Students learned to provide constructive peer feedback and commented on their peers’ narratives online. Subsequently, students made final revisions to their narratives based on the peer feedback. The learners’ motivation also plays an integral role in harnessing the ICT affordances for self-directed learning and collaborative learning (Choy et al., 2016).
A validated MSDLCL questionnaire was used as the instrument to collect quantitative data. It aims to examine the differences between students’ motivation to learn and their perception of self-directed learning and collaborative learning with or without ICT in class. Other sources of data, such as writing samples and lesson observations, were also collected to answer the research questions. Approximately 16 to 20 Primary Four classes from four local Singapore schools participated in this study. Preliminary findings from the study will be presented at the APERA conference.