Chronicles of Ms Ross

The 1st semester of 2023 marked a return to normalcy with most of the SMM restrictions lifted and various school programmes resuming to pre Covid scale. As I look back, it has been a busy semester albeit a fulfilling one.  My colleagues and I were able to plan and bring our students on various field trips.  For Geography, Sec 1 students visited dairy farm and learnt more about the tropical rainforest while Sec 2 students had a chance to interview the residents at Bangkit market to find out more about their quality of life.  For History, the Sec 2 students visited the Fort Factory and went through a role play of being a POW to have a better understanding of life during the Japanese Occupation. I believe these learning experiences from GI and HI allow the students to see the relevance of Humanities in real-life and make learning more meaningful and memorable.  For Sec 3 Geography, though the new syllabus seem rather daunting initially, I'm glad that the Geography team ...

I have certainly learnt much from the department meeting and staff contact time sharing and it made me reflect about my journey thus far in creating a positive classroom culture for my students.  3 key takeaways What is unsaid may tell more than what is said.  During the training by Ada, we did a role play on how to counsel a troubled student. This activity reminded me on the importance of being sensitive and observant during conservations with students as oftentimes non verbal cues and information that is withheld may give greater insights into the struggles that students are facing.  Every teacher and every class if different, there is no one size fit all method. Be yourself and find your own style and identity. In my early teaching years, I had focused on building good rapport with students but some were treating me more as a friend and kindness was taken for granted. My mentor back then asked me to put on a stern face and pretend to be angry whenever I enter a class. ...

Time flies and it is already the 2nd half of 2022 😆 Though I'm currently taking a hiatus from work, it was a refreshing experience to be back in school for an afternoon of learning. I particularly enjoyed the sharing by Cryst on Inquiry Based Learning. While it is certainly not a new approach, the sharing was insightful and allowed me to revisit certain key concepts and gain new ideas to implement in future lessons. Connect  While the learning pyramid theory has been around for a long time, inquiry based learning reiterates the same benefits of learning by doing. It is best for learners to discover facts and relationship, and they would better remember concepts and knowledge discovered on their own. At the same time, inquiry based learning promotes student agency whereby students are given certain autonomy to research on their preferred area to satisfy their curiosity and broaden their knowledge beyond learning for exam. Extend  While inquiry based learning is currently the k...

Term 3 was no doubt one of the most busy period of the year, I remember spending many afternoons in school grading GI, HI, setting/vetting of papers, revision packages etc... Nevertheless as I look back there were a few things that struck me and made me reflect on my role as an educator. Mental health The River Valley High School incident was definitely shocking and heartbreaking to many.  It hit close to home as it was my alma mater and it saddens me that such a tragedy took place. As a parent and teacher, it also made me realise the importance of education beyond the academics. As much as we do our best to prepare our students to excel in their studies, the time we have with them also allows us to mould them into a better person and we must not neglect the intangible aspect of education.  It also reminded me to be more alert and aware of the struggles that some of my form class students are going through in this crunch time as O-levels approach, to check in regularly with th...

In an unexpected turn of events, Singapore entered a month of Heightened Alert where dining in wasn't allowed and schools turn to home based learning. During this period of time, there were news articles highlighting the plight of old hawkers whose business suffered greatly as they did not embrace technology and join the delivery platforms. Likewise, technology has become an essential part of education and we have to learn to use it well to make learning meaningful. My first HBL  Having missed HBL last year, I was quite curious to experience HBL after hearing much about it. Nevertheless at the start I felt a little lost as I've not even hosted a zoom meeting before 😅Am thankful for colleagues who gave me a crash course and shared helpful tips. I mainly made use of tools like SLS, Zoom and Loom (a video recording app) for my lessons. While zoom allowed real time interaction with the students and they could ask questions on the spot, some students seem too shy to speak up or wer...

The sharing from Shu Ping was insightful and gave me new perspectives about our GI package and the various learning experience. When we designed the learning package for the Sec 3s, we seem to have neglected the fact that GI is not completely new to the students. They have gone through GI in Sec1 and 2 and do have some ideas about hypothesis formation. Moving forward we could improve by tapping on their prior knowledge learnt in lower secondary. Another aspect for consideration in the future would be the digitalization of data sharing using platforms like google docs which would be more seamless with the students having their own devices.  Shu Ping also shared about the various types of learning experience from a geography perspective. One realization was that the LE: Practice was not referring to drill and practice of exam questions. Instead, it refers to getting students to think like a geographer and take on the role of the government for instance and consider what the governme...