Lesson study in singapore schools PRIMARY Mathematics
1. Lesson study in singapore schoolsPRIMARY Mathematics Yeap Ban Har National Institute of Education Nanyang Technological University Singapore www.lessonstudyinsingapore.blogspot.com
2. Experiencing Research Lesson Part 1 Background Research Lesson in an In-service Course on Problem-Solving Heuristics. Photo Credit: Princess Elizabeth Primary School
3. “At greatest risk are jobs that can be expressed in programmable rules – blue collar, clerical, and similar work that requires moderate skills and used to pay middle-class wages.”
4. How the demand for skills has changedEconomy-wide measures of routine and non-routine task input (USA) Mean task input as percentiles of the 1960 task distribution (Levy and Murnane) Source: Levy & Murnane 2005
5. Source: BBC News 2004 Teachers as critical factors in an education system
6. A good education system depends on high quality teachers who constantly seek to improve their practice, supported by school leaders and administrators, and resources from departments and agencies within MOE. Photo: National Institute of Education Minister of Education Singapore 2009
13. Pre-service teachers experiencing a paradigm-changing workshop experience. National Institute of Education Pre-service teachers trying out strategies taught in real classroom during praticum.
15. Lesson study is a study of, well, lessons. PCF TanjongPagar Through careful, thorough and reflective research into a lesson within a unit or a unit of lessons – including the planning, teaching, observing, discussing and revising the lesson or lessons – participants gained knowledge and insights into content, pedagogy or a synthesis of the two. It is an opportunity to learn. It is also an opportunity to sharpen teachers’ eyes to observe student learning. Lesson study is a professional development tool that takes place within the field – the classroom.
17. Lesson StudyThe Singapore Journey National Institute of Education Curriculum, Teaching & Learning CRPP funded project in Cedar Primary School Workshops by foreign experts such as Catherine Lewis, Akihiko Takahashi and Patsy Wang Mathematics & Mathematics Education Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation HRD Project In-service courses Lesson Study in Primary Mathematics: Concepts & Design Lesson Study in Primary Mathematics: Implementation
18. Lesson StudyThe Singapore Journey Symposiums & Conferences WALS Conferences in Dec 2007, Dec 2008 and Dec 2009 Tsukuba University – NIE Symposium on Lesson Study in Primary Mathematics Aug 2007 AME – NIE Symposium on Lesson Study in Mathematics June 2008 APEC-Tsukuba International Conferences in 2008 and 2010 Lesson Study in Mathematics Workshop by Akihiko Takahashi. Photo Credit: Cedar Primary School
19. Lesson StudyThe Singapore Journey Lesson Study in Schools (Mathematics) Pre-Primary NIE-MOE-PCF Project Primary In-service Courses School-Initiated Lesson Study Cluster-Initiated Lesson Study Secondary School-Initiated Lesson Study Photo: CHIJ Our Lady of Good Counsel
22. 1. Research Themes Team Kuo Chuan Presbyterian Lesson Study is used to study various topics. This example is from the first in-service course on lesson study in primary mathematics. Example: To inculcate a spirit for lifelong learning and to strive for quality and excellence in the learning of mathematics.
23. 1. Research Themes Haig Girls’ School Examples from three teams from the second in-service course in primary mathematics. Example: To develop critical thinking in mathematics through questioning.
24. 1. Research Themes Ang Mo Kio Primary School Example: To develop enthusiastic and creative problem solvers through effective lessons
25. 1. Research Themes North Vista Primary School Example: To help pupils develop conceptual understanding
27. 2. Lesson Planning One team prepared a lesson plan that included the use of a worksheet comprising of three problems that provided opportunity to use systematic listing. During the lesson planning session with the instructor, the team realized that the problems did not provide a systematic variation. Team Maris Stella
28. “If you had not been with us, we would not have realized that the choice of the problems would make such a difference.” Team Maris Stella
29. Variation 1: A shop sells bicycles for adults and children. The adult bicycles come in two colour choices: black and white. The children bicycle comes in three colour choices: red, blue and green. Mr Tan wants to buy one bicycle for himself and another one for his son. How many colour choices does he have to buy both bicycles?
30. Variation 2: A shop sells bicycles for adults and children. The adult bicycles come in two colour choices: black and white. The children bicycle comes in four colour choices: red, blue, green and purple. Mr Tan wants to buy one bicycle for himself and another one for his son. How many colour choices does he have to buy both bicycles?
31. Variation 3 A shop sells bicycles for adults and children. The adults and children can choose from any colours: red, yellow, green, blue and purple. Mr Tan wants to buy one for himself and one for his son. How many colour choices does he have to buy both bicycles?
38. 3. POSTLESSON DISCUSSION “The post-lesson discussion really enables us to gel as a group. … Initially, we thought that this would be an awkward moment but as it became clear that the critique was more obout the lesson than the teacher, the environment became one of open communication.” Team North Vista
39. 3. POSTLESSON DISCUSSION Case sharing allowed other team members to learn. In this case a student made a mistake – indicating that 7 twelves is greater than 7 tenths.. Team North Vista
40. 3. POSTLESSON DISCUSSION Peer teaching which happen over a very short period of time allowed the students who made the mistake overcome his initial difficulties. The peer used the fraction wall the teacher provided. Team North Vista
45. I. PERI REPORT The PERI Report calls for Engaged Pedagogies and enhanced Professional Development of teachers. Wellington Primary School
46. 2. MOE Initiatives Ministry of Education hopes to empower teachers to “share and explore new pedagogies as well as to model desired mindsets” (2004). Ang Mo Kio Primary School
47. 3. RESEARCH North Vista Primary School While formal workshop-style professional development courses are useful in raising teachers’ awareness towards certain reforms, …
48. Northlight School …professional development that provides opportunities to carry out the reforms in actual classrooms provides a richer learning experience (Jarwoski & Wood, 1999).
49. 4. The Potential Wellington Primary School To learn about engaged Engaged Pedagogies, …the use of games…
That brings us to benchmarking the quality of education and that, naturally, is much harder than looking at the quantitative output of education systems. Levy and Murnane show how the composition of the US work force has changed and I want to show one slides because it provides such a great introduction to our work on PISA. What they show is that, between 1970 and 2000, work involving routine manual input, the jobs of the typical factory worker, was down significantly. Non-routine manual work, things we do with our hands, but in ways that are not so easily put into formal algorithms, was down too, albeit with much less change over recent years – and that is easy to understand because you cannot easily computerise the bus driver or outsource your hairdresser. All that is not surprising, but here is where the interesting story begins: Among the skill categories represented here, routine cognitive input, that is cognitive work that you can easily put into the form of algorithms and scripts saw the sharpest decline in demand over the last couple of decades, with a decline by almost 8% in the share of jobs. So those middle class white collar jobs that involve the application of routine knowledge, are most at threat today. And that is where schools still put a lot of their focus and what we value in multiple choice accountability systems.The point that Levy and Murnane make is, that the skills that are easiest to teach and test are also the skills that are easiest to digitise, automatise and offshore. If that is all what we do in school, we are putting our youngsters right up for competition with computers, because those are the things computers can do better than humans, and our kids are going to loose out before they even started. Where are the winners in this process? These are those who engage in expert thinking – the new literacy of the 21st century, up 8% - and complex communication, up almost 14%.We have tried to use these message that emerge from the analysis of skill demands as an important starting point for conceptualising our assessments.