Term 3 Week 6 Reflection

A datalogging experiment to investigate the cooling curve of naphthalene was done for the class of 3E1. A temperature sensor and a PDA were used to collect temperature data every minute. Before the start of the experiment, instructions were given to the pupils on the procedure of the experiment and how to use the PDA with the datalogging equipment. Pupils tabulate their readings in the practical worksheet before they commence on the experiment.

Learning Points/ Things to be improved

1. As some pupils are more apt visually, it would be better that an exact experimental setup was displayed on the teacher’s bench prior to the start of the experiment.
2. A mercury thermometer could have been used to verify the accuracy of the temperature sensor before the start of the experiment.
3. Some pupils found difficulties in following the procedure of the experiment. It would be good if the detail steps were video-taped and shown to the pupils before the start of the experiment to better support the learning of pupils.

Term 3 Week 5 Reflection

3E1 pupils did a SPA experiment on the 'Cooling Rate of Water in different containers'. The pupils used two different containers (styrofoam and glass beaker) to hold the same amount of boiling water and recorded the temperature at different time intervals. ( every one minute record one temperature). For the subsequent practical session, pupils would use a datalogger to record the temperature of napthalene as it cools down.

Learning Points

1. As the temperature of water drops rapidly after pouring from the electric kettle, pupils were instructed to set up the apparatus with the thermometer clamped on the retort stand before starting on the experiment.

2. Pupils were also instructed on drawing a table for collecting the temperature every minutes for a total of 5 minutes.

3. Pupils would familarise themselves with the use of electr0nic stopwatch before starting the recording of temperature drop.

Things to be improved further

As two containers are used in the experiment, it would be better for the temperature reading to be taken at the same time. At present, pupils were instructed to do separate recordings for two different containers. The reason is to allow pupils to observe the drop in temperature at the same time and understand which container is a poor conductor of heat.

Term 3 Week 4 Reflection

For the Sec 4E and 5NA pupils, a 2006 Science (Phy) Exam Paper on the 'Pendulum' Experiment was conducted. As a similar experiment was done previously, the focus of the exercise was not on performing the experiment but rather the processing of the data, graph plotting and answering the questions.

Therefore, pupils were instructed to only setup their apparatus individually and to collect only two sets of data. After the pupils had verified that there collecting reading were close to the teacher's results, they proceeded to process the data and to copy down the rest of the reading from the solution.

Pupils were given adequate time to plot the points and sketch the best fit straight-line. After the best fit straight line was sketched, the pupils proceeded to obtain the gradient of the line and subsequently to the answering of the question.

Things to be improved further

1. Pupils need to be given time to familarise themselves with the apparatus needed for the experiment - electronic stopwatch.

2. Pupils need to be sure of the precision of the instrument used and the subsequent precision and significance figures for the processed data.

3. For the precaution question on how pupils can improve the accuracy of their results, pupils are quite unconfident of this aspect.Having a ready-made guideline of practical skills list and precaution for different type of experiments would hellp pupils to answer this question more confidently. For the next practical session, pupils would be brief on the various forms of precautions to improve the accuracy of their measurement.

Term 3 Week 3 Reflection

There were three lessons in total whereby pupils had done Physics experiments.

For the 3E1 Pure Physics pupils, they had done an experiment to tackle school-based practical assessment (SPA) on Mechanics. They were given a practice task which aims to determine the centre of gravity of an irregularly shaped plane lamina which is part of the Skill 1 component. Skill 1 expects the pupils to follow procedures of the experiment and to perform the skills needed to attain a level of mastery.

To ensure that the pupils were engaged in the activity, a demonstration set was placed on the teacher's bench for the pupils to use it as a sample of how their experiment setup should be. Pupils were instructed to read and highlight important keys words in the practical worksheet. Timeline for each segment of the practical was also explicitly written on the whiteboard for pupils to pace themselves to complete the practical in time.

Practical Experiment for SPA classes (Skill 1 and 2) is 1h 30 min. As each lesson is about 50 mintues, there was only adequate time for pupils to complete the performing and following procedure segment and not to the other segments of the practical activity. Therefore, pupils were briefed on the expected timeline and to constantly keep track of the time. Pupils who have completed the task were specifically told not to dismantle the set and the teacher would walk around the laboratory to ensure that the setup was well done and the pupils have done the task to completion. Specific questions on how they setup the apparatus was asked and pupils would answer to show that they were able to perform a similar task subsequently.

At the end of the practical session, the debrief on the important steps and the common errors done by pupils were highlighted and pupils were asked to answer a series of questions in a 'Checklist' of the skills that they need to master.

As for the Sec 5NA and 4E1 Science (Physics) pupils, they were tasked to practice a 2007 GCE O Level Practical Assessment. The experiment should have taken them 45 minutes to complete. As a similar experiment on finding the refractive index of glass was done in a previous experiment, the focus during the lesson was more of the ability to score higher in following the procedure, collecting accurate data, tabulate their reading, plotting a best-fit curve and answering specific questions relating the the experiment.

Term 3 Week 2 Reflection

For the lessons conducted for the week, the use of ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) enhanced the teaching and learning in a few ways.

During the lesson on the topic of pressure for 3E1, there was time left at the end of the lesson for the pupils to reflect on their learning and to bring up areas where they were unsure in the 'Forum' section of the Learning Management System (LMS).

This way, pupils can take time to consolidate their own learning and also to provide feedback to the teacher on their understanding. After pupils have written down their comments, the teacher can spend the next 5 minutes to look through the comments with the class and to highlight strength and weaknesses of the class as a whole. Possible Misconceptions can be addressed almost immediately or at the next lesson. The pictures of the 3E1 pupils engaged and their comments captured from the forum are shown below.

3E1 Pupils @ Work on the UMPC

Video of the 3E1 pupils in class using UMPC

As for the Sec 4A2 pupils, they were given a topical test on the topic of Practical Electricity. Each pupil would login to a online test and used the UMPC to attempt the questions online.

As for the Sec 4E1 and 5NA pupils, they were given time to write their reflection of the recently over Mid Year Exams.

4E1 Pupils @ Work on the UMPC

Questions such as:-

1. How did you think you have fared?
2. Your strength -which topics, your weakness -which topics?
3. How have you spend your june holidays?
4. Ways to improve your results.

An example of a pupil's entry as follows :-

"1. i think this time i did very badly for my science especially chemistry. i guess i did not revise enough and most of the topics need lots of practice like the electricity and we need to remember the formula in order to work the steps. if the formula is remembered wrongly, the whole steps would be wrong.

2. my strength is on the topic of heat transfer when the question is about the convection. the convection of the water is much easier to understand and easier to score as most of the question is about the same thus answering the question will be okay. Another strength is on the drawing of the loudness and pitch. My weakness is on the topic on the moments of a force. I am not too sure on the anti-clockwise and clockwise moment. Sometimes hard to determine which is the moment of the force on the clockwise and the anti-clockwise.

3. I spent my holidays mostly to complete my homework and going back to school for lessons. I only have a few days to revise every topics on different subjects so i did not have enough to look through everything. Some of the topics also forgotten so quite hard to catch up the work so i really have to work harder in order to score better and get a A1 instead of the C6 when combine both the chemistry and the physic.

4. I think i will need to practice more on the certain topics like my weakness on the moment of a force. i will approach teacher more to ask the doubts. "

The pupil's reflection allows both the pupil him/herself to benefit as it provides the platform for them to look through and write down their weaknesses and strength. At the same time, the teacher can take note of the common strength and weaknesses of the class to address those issues during lesson time.

AEM (Materials Science) @ Republic Poly - Day 1

Saranya and Rebekah hard @ work

A total of 20 pupils from 3E1 were selected to attend an advanced elective module on Materials Science facilitated by Republic Polytechnic.

The AEMs are one of the recommendations of the Polytechnic-School Review Committee (PSRC) to enrich the school curriculum with more applied learning options. Sembawang Secondary School is happy to work in partnership with Republic Polytechnic to offer an AEM on Materials Science.

Susan , Dina and Farhanah

These AEMs serve to provide our students with an understanding of the applications of Chemistry and Physics in their curriculum. During the AEM sessions, students would be introduced to a wide range of natural and synthetic materials and their different applications by relating to their unique structural properties. Advances in technologies such as replacing copper telephone wires with optical fibres, making smaller and better hand phones and computers will be explored.

Wan Heng, Ashiq, Shao Jie, Ahmad and Joel @ Presentation Time

Indrani, Saktheswari, Sivan, May Day and Chen Hong @ Presentation Time

The pedagogical approach taken is one that involves a problem-driven curriculum requiring students to seek evidence to support, refute or throw doubt on a hypothesis or proposed solution to a given problem scenario. This process helps students to develop an open but questioning mind, much valued in the science classroom.

Video Clip 1 of their presentation

Video Clip 2 of the facilitator sharing

Reflection - Learn @ One Deg North - The Climate Change Challenge @ Science Centre (28 May)

Learn@ is a technology-based educational event organised by the Ministry of Education (MOE) on an annual basis. It aims to take learning outside the classroom and encourages pupils to make linkages between what they observe during the learning experience and what they learn in class. Based on their field experience and research, teams of pupils will be tasked to complete web-based projects and submit them as competition entries.

Teams will participate in an online quiz one week prior to the actual day event. Each team member must answer a set of 20 Multiple-Choice Questions (MCQs) by logging in to http://www.icellwireless.net/learn/. The set of MCQs pertains to Land, Air and Water and must beanswered by the assigned team members, respectively.

All teams must attend the event launch and participate in The Climate Challenge on 28 May 2008. Team members are required to use their registered mobile phones to unlock 9 Climate Challenges and race against other teams to complete a total of 9 Team Quests from designated Climate Challenge Stations. Teams will use the blog as a platform to discuss and prepare a proposal that outlines an activity, or a series of activities, that the team can implement in their school, to raise awareness of the consequences of climate change, and rally support from their class and schoolmates in an effort to mitigate the effects of climate change. They should package their proposal as the final entries in their blogs.

The photographs were taken on 28 May (Wed). The team from Sembawang Sec Sch comprises of 2E1 pupils Rekha, Elaine and Yun Ru. They went to the briefing session earlier at MOE HQ and knew what is expected on the actual day. Throughout the whole event, they were enthusiastic and were keen on doing well for this session.

Reflection Term 2 Week 9 - Checking of exam papers procedure

After each major test or examinations, subject teachers have to give out the pupils' scripts for the pupils to check to ensure that the answers are marked correctly and the marks are added accurately.

Pupils are often overly enthusiatic about obtaining marks which they think they deserve and pester the teachers for extra marks.

To ensure the smooth flow of the checking and allow the pupils an opportunity to seek extra marks/correction for marking, a procedure for checking is important.

Therefore, I have designed a standard list of procedure for checking of test/exam scripts and for the marks to be keyed into the school cockpit accurately.

Standard Procedure after test/exam scripts have been marked

1. Prepare a set of answer sheet
2. Key in the marks into the school cockpit and click 'Save and Calculate'
3. Print the school cockpit classlist with the marks which have been keyed into the system earlier
4. Bring this marklist along with the scripts
5. Write the procedure of collecting the scripts on to whiteboard and emphasize to the pupil the importance of following the steps
6. Items on the whiteboard as follows:-
7. Sign against the classlist when collecting the script to ensure that the mark on the script tallies with the mark on the list
8. Refrain from discussing with your classmates but spend the short duration to check your anwers on the scripts to the answer sheet and ensure that the answers have been marked accurately and marks added correctly
9. If there are questions about the marks allocation, write in pencil the question number on the cover page
10. I would look through the entire set of scripts to add/deduct marks if necessary.
11. Do not ask me for marks in the lesson itself
12. At the end of the whole checking, all question papers will be returned according to your index numbers.
13. If there are corrections to your marks after the checking, the new marklist will be printed and all amendments should be acknowledged by the pupils by signing against the new marks.

Having procedures in class and setting the expectations for the pupils would enhance the checking process and pupils understand their role in the whole exercise.

Reflection on Term 2 Wk 8

Revision tests were conducted for the 2E1, 5A1 and 5A2 classes.

Advantages:

The pupils are kept in tune with the subject matter and are encouraged to constantly revise and to check their own understanding. For those pupils who did not do as well as expected, they now know which areas they need to work on and the teacher also knows which pupils are doing alright and which pupils need additional support.

How the test is administered:

For immediate feedback for both the teacher and the pupil, peer marking is done after the test. Every pupil will know their scores and then will do corrections for the tests.

Revision Tests conducted:

2E1: Light, Electricity, Using Electricity
5A1: Electricity
5A2: Electricity

Green Audit PBL Presentation (2E1)

The verbal presentation was held during the 2 periods of the week to assess the pupils on their PBL projects. Majority of the pupils did a good job and presented their audit findings clearly and concisely.

PBL interdisciplinary project was meant to invoke their problem identification skills through various data collection at different areas in the school. After they have collected their data, they need to select their problem area and work on the resources to solve the problem. From the Internet, they can research on their interest area and come up with innovative ideas to solve the problems that they have identified. The following pictures show the problem area that one particular group has identified and the discussion points on transportation.

Through this project, the pupils gained more awareness of the need for each member of the school to do his/her part in environmental care. They also see the need to encourage their fellow school mates in keeping the environment polllution-free and litter-free.

Studying in a litter-free and clean environment would help to enhance the teaching and learning around the school.

2E1’s Practical Experiments – Testing for presence of Carbon Dioxide Gas

The 2E1 pupils were conducting a series of experiments to test for the presence of hydrogen gas and carbon doxide. In this particular lesson. The pupils were observing the effect of carbon dioxide on the limewater (calcium hydroxide).

The enthusiatic facial expressions of these pupils show that they were engaged and interested in what they were observing. After the observations, they would record their observations in their Chemistry workbooks.

Sec 5A1/2 Practical Experiment on 'Investigating the Refractive index of Glass' T2 W7

The practical session conducted with the Sec 5As needs a special mention. The lesson was on 'To investigate the refractive index of glass'. Through the few years of teaching this experiment, I noticed that many pupils find it tough to see the image of the pins through the glass block to determine the emergent ray. Therefore, a short video clip of the experiment was done to show the pupils the important steps to perform this experiment.

After watching this video demonstration, most pupils can perform the experiment with minimal assistance and managed to tabulate their values.

It is good to constantly reflect on present practices to fine tune and to further improve the teaching methods to help the pupils learn better.