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.