School : CHIJ St Nicholas Girls’ School

Contact : Mrs Janis Kok
Janis_LEE@moe.gov.sg

Title : The Thinking, Reflective Teacher

Background
The Teacher’s Record Book has been, for many generations of teachers, an indispensable, prominent item in their bags. When teachers buy bags, it has to be long enough to hold The Record Book. In fact, the Singapore’s Teachers Union used to give an annual gift of a plastic folder to wrap The Teacher’s Record Book.

Into this Teacher’s Record Book, all the teacher write in advance, in one phrase or sentence, the topic that they will teach for the each lesson for the entire week. It is a weekly planner. Every Monday, The Teacher’s Record Book is handed in to be checked by the principal or vice-principal. This ritual has since progressed, in some schools, to an on-line repository of lesson plans that teachers then copy and paste into their e-record books for submission to their respective Heads of Departments.

Is this a meaningful activity? What does it achieve? More specifically, how does it promote thinking and learning?

Innovation & Enterprise

“Reflective teaching means looking at what you do in the classroom, thinking about why you do it, and thinking about if it works - a process of self-observation and self-evaluation. By collecting information about what goes on in our classroom, and by analysing and evaluating this information, we identify and explore our own practices and underlying beliefs.”

Julie Tice, Teacher, Trainer, Writer, British Council Lisbon,
Reflective Teaching: Exploring our own classroom practice

In January 2005, the new Head of Chinese Department in CHIJ St Nicholas Girls’ School, embarked on a courageous innovation. She sanctioned the abandonment of the Record Book. Teachers do not need to fill in The Record Book. Instead, they have to engage in a more challenging, meaningful and ennobling activity – reflective journaling. Teachers were to write at least one piece of reflection a week.

They reflect on and critique one of the lessons that they had conducted that week.
Each teacher was presented with a school journal. A few questions were provided to trigger their reflections.
1. Were the lesson objectives achieved?
2. How did the pupils respond to the lesson taught?
3. Did I manage my class well?
4. If I could teach this lesson again, what would I do differently?

Teachers were also encouraged to reflect on newspaper articles or educational policies and practices. Whilst all the teachers were relieved about abandoning an exercise that has become meaningless, some were apprehensive as it had been some time since they last wrote a lengthy piece of prose.

Outcomes
Closely facilitated by the Head of Department, Mdm Soh, teachers were able, albeit slowly at first, to write on their reflections on their classroom practices, newspaper articles that inspired them and personal responses to the changes in the Chinese Language Curriculum.

After some time, the one submission per week requirement that originally seemed challenging, became a joyous, even liberating, professional task. The additional fruit of reflective journaling was that teachers honed their writing skills as they clarified their thoughts. Teachers found their own voices.

Several teachers became so enthusiastic that they submitted multiple reflections pieces. The Head of Department personally responds to each of them. She too finds this innovation meaningful and empowering as it gave her a window into the teacher’s minds and hearts. This provides an additional avenue for her to communicate with her teachers professionally and to engage in frequent dialogue with colleagues.

The good news of this innovation was quickly shared with the school community.
It is hoped that this will inspire other teachers to start their personal journals, to develop reflective teaching practices, and make a small contribution to forging Thinking Schools, Learning Nation.

Top

Background

With the desire to develop in the pupils a spirit of initiative and dare to venture, as well as persuasive skills, the teachers from CHIJ St Nicholas Girls’ School mooted the idea of a Cluster-based I & E, R & D food competition.

Innovation & Enterprise

The task was Problem-Based; pupils were commissioned by a “company” to develop an innovative and healthy snack food that is economical to produce in terms of time and money. The pupils had to do R & D work and market their product to the judging panel. The competition was a resounding success, with St Nicholas winning the Grand Prize.

Inspired by their success, the team of four pupils was further challenged to mass produce and sell their product to raise funds for a Reading Camp for the children of the Malay Youth Literary Association.

Pupils learnt that they needed to recruit more people in their company as the project had become multi-faceted. They had to look into areas of finance, production, quality control, marketing and sales. With limited experience but lots of motivation, pupils very quickly learnt the skills of managing a company with limited capital. They wrote in to organizations to seek sponsorship for ingredients, and put their persuasive skills to test in recruiting more members and in securing venues for the sale of Oat Cube.

Partnerships with Community

The mass production phase took on a new dimension when help was enlisted from parents and senior citizens in the neighbourhood, to work alongside the pupils -cottage industry style. Hygiene and quality standards were closely monitored at all times during production, packing and storage.

The interaction between the senior citizens and the teenagers was a valuable experience as personal stories were shared and tips on how certain processes could be simplified or hastened were exchanged. Friendships between the young and old were forged.

Collaboration with Industry

Oat Cube was successfully marketed at a chain of Chocolate Boutiques in town over a week, during the December holidays.  The “sales” team learnt how to think on their feet, face rejection graciously and most importantly, the spirit of perseverance.

Learning & Reflection

Closely guided by the teacher-in-charge, pupils were led on a journey of reflection for each step they took and each obstacle they faced. Important skills in teamwork, oral communication, time and resource management, were honed. This project is true to our belief that authentic learning tasks help pupils internalize the learning of core life skills.