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Decoding Literacy Practices in a FutureSchool@Singapore Classroom

24th International Conference for Learning

Dr Sally Ng

Ms Hsiao-Yun Chan

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Education in Singapore - “Established” reputation

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The “Good”

The “Ugly”

  • A high PISA scoring nation
  • A top education system (McKinsey report)
  • Singapore Maths textbooks popular worldwide
  • Educators in Singapore among the youngest, highest paid and qualified
  • High-stakes testing at age 12 (Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE))
  • Longest average working hours for teachers (Teaching and Learning International Survey (Talis))
  • Pervasive private tuition /“enrichment” culture

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Education in Singapore - Creating a new narrative

“Strong Foundation, Future Learning”

“21st Century Competencies (21CC)”

“Digital Literacies”

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Building the Foundation

(1997 - 2001)

Seeding Innovation

(2002 -2007)

Strengthening & Scaling

(2008-2015)

Deepening Learning, Sharpening Practices

(2015 and beyond)

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“Enter” the Singapore classroom...

  • English Language classroom in a FutureSchool@Singapore
  • 40 secondary 1 (Grade 7) students per class
  • 1:1 Computing

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Samsung Series 7 Slate PC that the 2012 secondary 1 cohort owned

Charging stations

Fingerprint Recognition System outside each classroom

Writing with stylus

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Writing with keyboard

Pen & paper writing

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Teacher monitoring system

Teacher controlling all screens

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Research

  • Field of New Literacy Studies (Barton, 2007) - Study of Literacy Events
  • Micro-classroom ethnography (Green & Bloome, 1997)
  • Activity Theory (Engeström, 1987)

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  • Digital Writing: Drafting phase
  • Digital Writing: Peer-assessment phase

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Literacy Events (highlighted in this presentation)

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Literacy Event 1 - Drafting

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Codes

Details

Goal

Develop coherent content for a narrative essay

Objects

Writing plan

Subjects

Students

Tools

MS OneNote, networked one-to-one computing

Rules/Norms

Timed piece; use the digital template provided by the teacher

Community

Teacher, Google Search, previous lesson resources

Division of labour

Individual

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Teacher explaining the tool...

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Extract 1

T: Actually I want to use Google Docs but decided to try this (OneNote) instead because it allows me to put it in draft 1 and draft 2 very neatly. It is better than Google Docs that way you see.

R: Google Docs has that versioning thing.

T: But er you can see ((pointing out the individual tabs in the OneNote document where he labelled plan, draft and final))

R: As if it is a physical file?

T: Yeah correct I wanted to try out. I was struggling lah between the two. Coz Google is already set up, but I thought I will try (OneNote) and see what happens.

R: They seem quite comfortable with OneNote. They have training before?

T: Yes.

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Technical Difficulties...

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Extract 3

S1: My Skydrive is not working

T: Why is your Skydrive not working?

S2: Then you save it to MLG (the school portal)

T: No, no it will be too difficult then. If you know how to share it to Skydrive, can you do it now.

((the students who knew how to share to Skydrive started teaching their classmates))

Extract 2

T: ((T walked to group 5 to talk to them)) What is that you all do. Why is it that you can?

S2: I put it into my notebook. I just drag it.

T: How?

((S2 demonstrated and then R showed the class what KN showed him))

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Extract 4

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Where are your other drafts? S2, you have to share you work with others so that they can give you feedback too.

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You have a flair for writing no doubt and creative in many ways. But that can also work against you. Interesting how you have chosen to write this story in the first perspective, not entirely wrong but one would be expecting the third perspective. The dialogues were very natural and that is good. I like how you developed the the whole idea of losing and finding courage again. Well done.

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Literacy Event 2 - Peer-assessment

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Codes

Details

Goal

Improvement in composition writing

Objects

Improved composition based on peer feedback

Subjects

Students

Tools

Google Docs, networked one-to-one computing

Rules/Norms

Word limit, Linear drafts, Rubrics

Community

Students, teacher, Google Search

Division of labour

Pair work

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Peer Comments (peer assessment)

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Extract 5

Good storyline! :) Mm I think you might need to check your grammar! You have made some careless mistakes but it is a good story! When you have direct speech (“blah blah,” he said), you must make sure ‘he said’ or whoever said it is just behind the speech.

Understand? :) Okay that’s all! Good job! *applause*

A class of 40 students, each at different stages of writing during the two weeks the students were doing peer commenting… despite the teacher’s effort to ensure everyone progressed the same way

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Insights into the Singapore education ecology in the digital age

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  1. New pedagogies for 21st century learning

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Adapted from Fullan & Langworthy (2014, p. 44)

SAMR (Puentedura, 2010)

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2) Student agency in a pervasive networked learning environment

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  • More Self-directed and Collaborative Learning
  • More creative endeavours
  • More “hanging out” and “messing around” (Ito et al., 2010)

Overall effect of “nudging” the entire ecology to push the boundaries of learning with ICT and foster the learning of 21CC.

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3) Pen-and-paper assessment vs nurturing 21CC through ICT

  • Assessment matters because of washback (backwash) -- what is tested is (or tends to be) taught.
  • Teachers aware of tension between 21CC learning goals and pen-and-paper summative (national) exams.
  • Evidence of attempts to reconcile the two.
  • Student agency should not be ignored.

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Significance, Limitations & Recommendations

  • Situated representation - NOT generalisable across entire Singapore education system.
  • Useful to understand alignment, and gaps between plans and implementation.
  • Shows how frontline educators and students have as much to play in moulding the “Singapore model” as the policy makers.

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Source: http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/how-technology-opens-new-windows-of-learning

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If you are interested to find out more about this classroom, read the chapter titled “Slate-enabled literacy practices in a FutureSchool@Singapore classroom”, which focuses on mobile literacies.

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Available from 18 July 2017

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The end

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