Curriculum Development and Practices

Graphs are widely used to communicate statistical information. However, research shows that school children, students and even professionals are challenged to provide accurate and meaningful interpretations of the information in graphs. Various factors such as statistical beliefs, habits of mind and knowledge have been offered to try to explain such challenges. The purpose of this study is to examine the interplay of these factors to explain how people make sense of statistical phenomenon in graphs. The corpus of empirical evidence came from two phases, Phase 1: Written Tasks and Phase 2: Task-based interviews. Eighty-eight post-secondary diploma students from one polytechnic in Singapore participated in Phase 1 of the study, of which 22 also participated in Phase 2. Phase 1 provided the initial insights into participants’ statistical beliefs, habits of mind and knowledge. Participants responded to two paper-based tasks and the responses were analyzed using the Structured of the Observed Learning Outcome (SOLO) taxonomy and qualitative classification. In Phase 2, participants were interviewed as they performed two tasks, the Sorting Task and the Labelling Task. Both the interview tasks were designed based on the theory of discernment. In the Sorting Task, participants were asked to sort 12 graphs into categories they deemed appropriate. The Labelling Task teased out participants’ statistical knowledge on the important notions in statistics such as ‘sample’, ‘population’, ‘randomness’, ‘representativeness’ and ‘variation’ as well as their knowledge of the sources of statistical data. The findings from Phase 1 and Phase 2 of this study were consolidated to construct the Diversity in Sense-Making framework. This framework is captured on a spectrum, with Expert-like sense-making at one end and Novice sense-making on the other. The sense-making of statistical phenomenon in graphs is shown to be a function of statistical beliefs, habits of mind and knowledge. The interplay between these three components is captured by segments in a doughnut-like ring. The different ways the segments in a doughnut-like ring interact were associated with the different ways the participants of this study interpreted statistical information, meaningful or otherwise, in graphs. The framework is used to suggest how to advance the field further.

In this 21st century teaching and learning environment, much emphasis has been placed on the attainment of 21st century competencies that is demanded in today’s workforce. It is important to understand how teachers come up with assessment practices to attain such competencies, stemming from what they conceptualise assessment of such competencies to be. This study thus centres on three research questions and they are, to understand the teachers’ conceptions of the assessment of critical thinking, what their assessment practices for critical thinking are, and how these practices are translated from their conceptions of the assessment of critical thinking.
For the purposes of this study, critical thinking has been identified as a competency in which teachers’ conceptions of its assessment can be understood. The subject discipline in which the teachers are purposefully sampled from is English Language because of the nature of the subject, its demands on students, and the focus on critical reasoning. Using an embedded multiple case study design and based on a social constructivist research approach, six English teachers were interviewed once prior to their two lesson observations and once after the lessons. Notes from twelve lesson observations, the teachers’ assessment tasks, and student artefacts were collated and analysed for triangulation purposes. Following the completion of one semester of curriculum work, a focus group discussion involving the six teachers was conducted. The data set was analysed and interpreted through a content analysis, with member checks also completed with further questions for clarifications asked.
Key themes in terms of conceptions and practices were surfaced and this included the focus on the role of the teacher, the test-exam focus, the constraints of time, subject-critical thinking nexus, and student learning. There was a consistent set of assessment practices for critical thinking as well as similar issues in translation of their conceptions into practice.  The study provides insights on how teachers in Singapore can better frame critical thinking lessons and assessments better while realising the aims of language learning.

To address the knowledge gap among young Singaporeans about the country’s recent past (Goh, 1996), Social Studies was introduced in the Singapore secondary school curriculum in 2001 as the major vehicle of national education. The curriculum envisions students as “informed, concerned and participative citizens” and seeks to develop their “critical and reflective thinking skills” (MOE, 2016, p. 2). Drawing on data from a baseline study, this paper illustrates the opportunities a teacher provides her upper secondary students, to critically examine the notion of citizenship because she wants them to “care and appreciate the complexity of their own citizenship.” Social Studies in the nation-state constitutes a rather uneasy alliance of history, critical thinking and national education (Kramer-Dahl, Teo, & Chia, 2007) and this case study addresses the question: How does the teacher negotiate national education goals and the need to develop students’ critical thinking in the Singapore classroom?
The focus is on a young, graduate teacher in a neighbourhood gGovernment school, with about two years of teaching experience. The data presented (January-March 2017) comprises vignettes of classroom talk from a unit of nine videotaped lessons, and audio data from brief post-lesson interviews and a semi-structured interview with the teacher. Hess’ (2005) framework provides a useful basis for considering the teacher’s pedagogical approach undergirded by her belief that “Social Studies lesson is not a National Education lesson” although it has a “National Education tone to it.” Evidently, she employs a “balanced” approach (Hess, 2005, p. 48) in encouraging her students to deliberate on the controversial topic of Amos Yee’s status as a Singapore citizen, which her students initiate.
Interest in citizenship has never been higher but remains a contested concept (Sim, Chua, & Krishnasamy, 2017). Aligned with the curriculum focus on showcasing multiple perspectives that illustrate the complexity of issues (MOE, 2016), the teacher’s classroom enactment arguably, enables her students’ understanding that “citizenship continues to be an argument…” The teacher’s approach filtered by her view of Social Studies as an “ongoing tension” highlights teachers’ mediating role in curriculum enactment. Overall, the issues raised have implications for classroom practice and professional development