Technological Development
MOE aims to embrace the changing technology with the changing attitudes of students and the environment they live in. Progressing from MP 1,2 and 3 from years 1997, 2003 and 2009 respectively, MOE aims to ensure that it remains technologically relevant in equipping students with the necessary IT skills to progress into the world.
Pedagogical skills
Teaching methodologies must progress with the societal advancement as students become more technologically engaged and development cognitive skills through problem-based learning rather than factual memorisation. Teacher adopt the role of facilitators more than spoon-feeding information to the students.
Q2. As i had completed my Secondary / JC education before the arrival of MP 1 in 1997, i would not have had the exposure its mechanics. However, we were exposed to basic computer education in our secondary and JC era where Internet was still something not widely explored by students. We were exposed to MS office using words, excel and PowerPoint in our projects.
Q3. Underpinning the MP 3 is the concept of self-directed learning whereby i see myself increasingly becoming more of a facilitator in education. This role requires me to direct students using a new set of pedagogical aid like analysis, inquiry, evaluation, discussion and forum platform. Such self-directed learning enables students to challenge the ideas of their teachers as well as that of their fellow students. Hence, my role broaden to elevate their thinking skills to a new paradigm through problem-based learning whereby experimenting the range of answers actually provides a catalyst for new ideas and concepts.
Being ahead is what Singapore strives at. Being relevant no longer means content knowledge, it involves the use of IT as well. More IT savvy students get employed earlier and with higher compensation packages, making Singapore a desirable place for research based multinational firms and the popular financial hub. To Singapore, our only resource is our talent pool hence the need to have ICT Masterplan to equip our future talents with desirable IT skills in the highly competitive world. While we are the facilitators, we are learners ourselves too. We facilitate student learning in the online platforms, we also learn from the students, whether this particular technology is effective in the learning process and if it isn’t, feedback to the school and supplement the e-learning with classroom teaching.
ReplyDeleteYes thats true sometimes as hard as we drive ICT to the schools and homes, its the mindset of the students and parents at large if they want to embrace it.As ICT has infiltrated to almost all sectors of the economy; be it medicine, law, music, arts, accounts etc, its hard to ignore it. Its a matter of time when the students would be rudely shocked when they go out to work only to realise that they should have put emphasis of ICT during school times. They have to juggle with content knowledge as well as ICT. Poor them and poor me...
ReplyDeleteHang Chai-
ReplyDeletePrem and I was secondary students in the era where there is no internet. We learnt it along the way, be it in the university or when working.
It is quite a natural way of us to learn it when we need it (ie, to use it). This could be 1 thing to consider. If the exam is paper based(as per Prem has mentioned) and the syllabus does not include any IT related, it reduces the "need" factor and students are less likely to embrace it for studying. Whereas in other areas, students will learn about facebook, play games, etc by themselves without any teacher to teach them. That because they know they want it and need it.