Less Teaching, More Learning?

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Fri, 14 May 2010 06:38:54 GMT

daisyt — Fri, 14 May 2010 06:38:54 GMT

mrswongtuition:

When my mum tried to help me with my Maths problems, she was also stuck. What did she do? She looked through my textbook for explanations, relearn the model method and taught me. Once, she was really stuck and couldn't solve the question. What did she do? She went to call her friends, she went to ask neighbours, she went all out to search for the answer. This is the attitude I learnt from my mum. Never give up, never be afraid to ask, never be shy to say that you have problems as long as you find as solution.

Oh ... so I was quite a normal mum ... hahah. I did that when dd was in primary. Slowly, it reduce and now not at all in Sec 2. She knows where to get help and how to ask for help. I think its a blessing for her and me.

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Fri, 14 May 2010 06:31:50 GMT

daisyt — Fri, 14 May 2010 06:31:50 GMT

Donkey Kong:
Visited kid school the other day. Noticed the teachers like to make them shift tables/chairs often to form groups to discuss. :shock: After that, they will have to shift them back to the original positions.

Now I know roughly \"teach less learn more\" means. They expect the kids to discuss among themselves to come out with some answers or solutions for the problems. Encourage them to talk a lot in class. :lol:

I feel this system is good for higher level and those schools with longer contact hours. Teachers will have to spend a lot of time collecting answers (i.e. waiting for shy students to response, some jokes crack, etc.), supervising the shifting of furnitures, etc. :?

I guess they do not learn as much in school as we did in the old days. given the limited half day sessions. :?

What is your view? :celebrate:

I don't see anything wrong with shifting of furniture. If not, ask teacher to swift or engage helper?

In order to discuss, they have to talk. Before they talk, they have to think. It is a challenge they have to face, how to deal with non productive, nonsense classmates. I feel that in this kind of teaching, the main objective is not collecting answers. Its more on the process of getting the answers. Regardless the answer is YES or NO, we should ask ourselves, \"Why yes?\" \"Why No?\". I agree, some basic things have to be taught but certain things, cannot be taught. If we can start our children to think more, to have an active learning attitude and approach at young, when they reach Sec, it will be a breeze for them and the parents.

Kids nowadays are learning more \"technically\". Soft skill as if how to handle a team, how to deal with situation, how to carry out a project, how and where to search for information, how and where to seek help, how to handle setbacks and failure .... can try to start early too.

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Fri, 14 May 2010 05:04:45 GMT

pinkapple — Fri, 14 May 2010 05:04:45 GMT

mrswongtuition:
...

I've encountered this before & even resorted to viewing the school's CCTV, only to find that the child himself misplaced it in another part of school.
...

wah. so kua-zhang ah...

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Fri, 14 May 2010 05:02:13 GMT

pinkapple — Fri, 14 May 2010 05:02:13 GMT

Donkey Kong:
Visited kid school the other day. Noticed the teachers like to make them shift tables/chairs often to form groups to discuss. :shock: After that, they will have to shift them back to the original positions.

...

so u don't like it that ya kid have to do manual labour har?

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Fri, 14 May 2010 04:55:46 GMT

sunflower — Fri, 14 May 2010 04:55:46 GMT

Donkey Kong:
Visited kid school the other day. Noticed the teachers like to make them shift tables/chairs often to form groups to discuss. :shock: After that, they will have to shift them back to the original positions.

Now I know roughly \"teach less learn more\" means. They expect the kids to discuss among themselves to come out with some answers or solutions for the problems. Encourage them to talk a lot in class. :lol:

I feel this system is good for higher level and those schools with longer contact hours. Teachers will have to spend a lot of time collecting answers (i.e. waiting for shy students to response, some jokes crack, etc.), supervising the shifting of furnitures, etc. :?

I guess they do not learn as much in school as we did in the old days. given the limited half day sessions. :?

What is your view? :celebrate:

There are many ways to implement teach less, learn more, and what you've just described is but only one of them, and is more suitable for mid to upper primary level onwards.

There are other ways of doing the teach less, learn more methodology in the lower primary level, which I shall not elaborate here. That's why I say teacher training is important for this methodology to be effective, and the need to overhaul the whole educational landscape if we're really serious about getting the students to learn more, not just for exam purposes.

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Thu, 13 May 2010 10:27:00 GMT

Donkey Kong — Thu, 13 May 2010 10:27:00 GMT

Visited kid school the other day. Noticed the teachers like to make them shift tables/chairs often to form groups to discuss. :shock: After that, they will have to shift them back to the original positions.

Now I know roughly \"teach less learn more\" means. They expect the kids to discuss among themselves to come out with some answers or solutions for the problems. Encourage them to talk a lot in class. :lol:

I feel this system is good for higher level and those schools with longer contact hours. Teachers will have to spend a lot of time collecting answers (i.e. waiting for shy students to response, some jokes crack, etc.), supervising the shifting of furnitures, etc. :?

I guess they do not learn as much in school as we did in the old days. given the limited half day sessions. :?

What is your view? :celebrate:

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Thu, 13 May 2010 08:43:10 GMT

gajidouma — Thu, 13 May 2010 08:43:10 GMT

sunflower:
It's actually very easy to say teach less, learn more, but to truly implement it takes up a lot of time in the classroom. The whole education system would have to be revamped: the syllabus, class size, teacher training, school set-up and resources etc etc. We may even have to do away with the PSLE and implement a whole new and different set of system for assessment.

Under the current immense pressure of students having to take the PSLE and the syllabus requirements, teach less, learn more is easier said than done. Many interpreted it the wrong way and I would say it's not quite suitable for our current system.

I do see some positive changes recently in the teaching at the lower primary level. But reality sets in in the upper primary level and most teachers are compelled to just throw idealism out of the window.

Take the words right out of my mouth... the intention is good... but... come to implementation.. it can be a different story. I don't deny the move is in the right direction. However, it may not be appropriate to start from too young the age at least given the reason stated above and the readiness of a child. Just my gut feeling.

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Thu, 13 May 2010 01:53:57 GMT

nani — Thu, 13 May 2010 01:53:57 GMT

Me too have encountered before and querie with the teacher, in the end have to go to the classroom and search and found it in the cupboard where teacher placed and locked.

Am not trying to fuss about it, but would appreciate if teachers can admit their mistakes too as how we accept them as humans . What happen is, as children (maybe not all) they tends to fear and not dare to argue/reason even they truly know that they have submitted.

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Wed, 12 May 2010 13:26:14 GMT

mrswongtuition — Wed, 12 May 2010 13:26:14 GMT

nani:
mrswongtuition:
Teachers are humans too.

Exactly! That's why I can't understand why the can't admit their mistake :x

Citing an example of misplaced files or worksheets..teacher insist that they do not have it with them and make the poor child searching high & low!! Our house is so small, the school is so big, when THEY misplace they insist the child go home and find :? :stupid:

I've encountered this before & even resorted to viewing the school's CCTV, only to find that the child himself misplaced it in another part of school.

The parents actually complained to the principal, that's why we took out CCTV tapes to view.

Another incident, I invited the parent to my table in staffroom to check. My table is very neat & I do no bring work home.

If it's genuinely my mistake, I will call parents to apologise, but parents also need to take a step back to think objectively before they put all the blame on teachers.

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Wed, 12 May 2010 04:08:17 GMT

nani — Wed, 12 May 2010 04:08:17 GMT

mrswongtuition:
Teachers are humans too.

Exactly! That's why I can't understand why the can't admit their mistake :x

Citing an example of misplaced files or worksheets..teacher insist that they do not have it with them and make the poor child searching high & low!! Our house is so small, the school is so big, when THEY misplace they insist the child go home and find :? :stupid:

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Wed, 12 May 2010 03:15:14 GMT

EstherTan — Wed, 12 May 2010 03:15:14 GMT

mrswongtuition:
Yes, I'm currently teaching in a secondary school.

Honestly, Primary school teachers are more stretched than us.
Most of them have to teach at least 3 subjects (English, Maths, Science, Social Studies, PE)!

In Secondary school, we mostly focus on 1 or 2 subjects. If manpower permits, schools always try to give teachers their core subject, which means they only teach 1 subject, and maybe CME too.

Education is part of growing up. As parents, we expect the teachers to settle all the academic parts of education. However, we need to be realistic if our children need more individual attention which is hardly achievable in a school setting.

As a parent, I won't be surprise if my boy can't thrive in school. Yes, he learns fast, but he is distracted and may not pay attention in class. Even if the teacher can teach very well, my son is not listening in class, do you think he will learn alot from the teacher?

...

At the end of the day, which is more important? Your child hearing about your grumbling about his school/teachers or your child feeling your support in his/her studies?

I think parents need to take a breather and think through carefully too.
How you react to the large volume of homework and the difficulty level of the work given will affect your child's mentality towards schoolwork.

When my mum tried to help me with my Maths problems, she was also stuck. What did she do? She looked through my textbook for explanations, relearn the model method and taught me. Once, she was really stuck and couldn't solve the question. What did she do? She went to call her friends, she went to ask neighbours, she went all out to search for the answer. This is the attitude I learnt from my mum. Never give up, never be afraid to ask, never be shy to say that you have problems as long as you find as solution.

Teachers are humans too. We try our best, but it may not seem like it to parents. Think about it, if you are in the teachers' shoes, will you be able to do a better job than them?

:celebrate:

I think that adequately sums a lot of things up for teachers (I think you might have forgotten to mention the admin work that needs to be completed and CCAs, workshops and LJs to run!)

I think we also need to keep in mind that there are different sorts of people, with different characters and different levels of commitment and communication. As much as we would like to pretend teachers are the people whom we can rely on and impart everything our kids should know, let's be realistic and acknowledge that the world is no where near that. And this includes everything from our own workplaces, families, government and in any place where humans exist.

It's up to us if we want the best for our children, to guide and provide the advice that they need to make the right decisions. The faster we can teach our kids that life isn't fair and how to overcome it, the better people they will be. It was mentioned on this forum before, but many of the younger generation (Especially locals) tend to have a very heck-care attitude because everything is too cushy and things are taken for granted. The same reason why people who have inadequacies (wealth etc) will work their damn hardest to improve and achieve.

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Tue, 11 May 2010 15:49:51 GMT

mrswongtuition — Tue, 11 May 2010 15:49:51 GMT

DesertWind:
mrswongtuition:

How you react to the large volume of homework and the difficulty level of the work given will affect your child's mentality towards schoolwork.

When my mum tried to help me with my Maths problems, she was also stuck. What did she do? She looked through my textbook for explanations, relearn the model method and taught me. Once, she was really stuck and couldn't solve the question. What did she do? She went to call her friends, she went to ask neighbours, she went all out to search for the answer. This is the attitude I learnt from my mum. Never give up, never be afraid to ask, never be shy to say that you have problems as long as you find as solution.

Thanks! I like what you said in bold and I hope to learn from your mum to impart the \"never give up trying\" attitude to my son in due time!

:celebrate:

Thanks

Kids mirror our actions and learn from our opinions.
Hope our kids will mirror the right actions and learn from the good opinions!

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Tue, 11 May 2010 13:32:08 GMT

DesertWind — Tue, 11 May 2010 13:32:08 GMT

mrswongtuition:

How you react to the large volume of homework and the difficulty level of the work given will affect your child's mentality towards schoolwork.

When my mum tried to help me with my Maths problems, she was also stuck. What did she do? She looked through my textbook for explanations, relearn the model method and taught me. Once, she was really stuck and couldn't solve the question. What did she do? She went to call her friends, she went to ask neighbours, she went all out to search for the answer. This is the attitude I learnt from my mum. Never give up, never be afraid to ask, never be shy to say that you have problems as long as you find as solution.

Thanks! I like what you said in bold and I hope to learn from your mum to impart the \"never give up trying\" attitude to my son in due time!

:celebrate:

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Tue, 11 May 2010 12:31:01 GMT

mrswongtuition — Tue, 11 May 2010 12:31:01 GMT

Yes, I’m currently teaching in a secondary school.

Honestly, Primary school teachers are more stretched than us.
Most of them have to teach at least 3 subjects (English, Maths, Science, Social Studies, PE)!

In Secondary school, we mostly focus on 1 or 2 subjects. If manpower permits, schools always try to give teachers their core subject, which means they only teach 1 subject, and maybe CME too.

Education is part of growing up. As parents, we expect the teachers to settle all the academic parts of education. However, we need to be realistic if our children need more individual attention which is hardly achievable in a school setting.

As a parent, I won’t be surprise if my boy can’t thrive in school. Yes, he learns fast, but he is distracted and may not pay attention in class. Even if the teacher can teach very well, my son is not listening in class, do you think he will learn alot from the teacher?

When we plan to have my boy, we already know that we need to put in effort to spend time revising with him. Our parents may not have done that because they did not have the knowledge or were too busy struggling to make ends meet. However, my dad gave me moral support by staying up with me when I’m doing my revision (I prefer to study at night when everyone is asleep because it’s quiet).

At the end of the day, which is more important? Your child hearing about your grumbling about his school/teachers or your child feeling your support in his/her studies?

I think parents need to take a breather and think through carefully too.
How you react to the large volume of homework and the difficulty level of the work given will affect your child’s mentality towards schoolwork.

When my mum tried to help me with my Maths problems, she was also stuck. What did she do? She looked through my textbook for explanations, relearn the model method and taught me. Once, she was really stuck and couldn’t solve the question. What did she do? She went to call her friends, she went to ask neighbours, she went all out to search for the answer. This is the attitude I learnt from my mum. Never give up, never be afraid to ask, never be shy to say that you have problems as long as you find as solution.

Teachers are humans too. We try our best, but it may not seem like it to parents. Think about it, if you are in the teachers’ shoes, will you be able to do a better job than them?

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Tue, 11 May 2010 11:24:07 GMT

Donkey Kong — Tue, 11 May 2010 11:24:07 GMT

School bag too heavy....

Not referring to the show by Cynthia Koh, but kid's teachers ask them to bring so many worksheets files plus books to school. :x May break their little spines.....

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Sat, 08 May 2010 14:31:07 GMT

caroline3sg — Sat, 08 May 2010 14:31:07 GMT

Especially P6, tonnes of papers, I see them I headache. I insisted my girl to to file properly as she herself knew which comes first, not me.

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Sat, 08 May 2010 14:29:11 GMT

caroline3sg — Sat, 08 May 2010 14:29:11 GMT

I think files keeping by teachers is for lower primary. By the time they reach higher primary, there are lots of worksheets and mock papers to file. I don’t think the teacher would want to file. Moreover the students would be more mature to take care of their own papers.

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Sat, 08 May 2010 14:26:01 GMT

caroline3sg — Sat, 08 May 2010 14:26:01 GMT

It is very siong for those handling first kid because we do not know sch requirements. Luckily for my first child, file were kept at home. So now 2nd child’s files are only returned at the 11th hour, I based on previous experience / requirements to teach/revise.

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Sat, 08 May 2010 14:22:25 GMT

caroline3sg — Sat, 08 May 2010 14:22:25 GMT

[quote]Example, tomoro maths exam, tonight, poor kid is supposed to finish up the Chinese correction. Where got time to revise maths?

Chinese correction a lot for comprehension..... very siong.... [/quote]If like that, I insist my child to do maths revision. I would say \"who is more concerned about your exams? Who give birth to you? If teacher scold you, ask her call me!\"

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Fri, 07 May 2010 10:36:47 GMT

Donkey Kong — Fri, 07 May 2010 10:36:47 GMT

ChiefKiasu:
Donkey Kong:
Before exams, teachers then returned all the worksheets...

Ask them do corrections, until they cry....

Why like dat? early early don't give.
Donkey Kong, I'm confused. You implied that you are/were a teacher yourself in another thread. I do not understand why you do not believe in the notion of getting your students prepared for examinations.

Taught at various level before. Just don't know why the teachers at pri sch like to keep files till late late then return.
:?

Example, tomoro maths exam, tonight, poor kid is supposed to finish up the Chinese correction. Where got time to revise maths? :stupid:
Chinese correction a lot for comprehension..... very siong.... :shock:

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Fri, 07 May 2010 07:35:17 GMT

joconde — Fri, 07 May 2010 07:35:17 GMT

For my kids’ sch, the problem isn’t that bad for lower pri. It’s at upper pri that things get messy.

Different teacher has different style. Some teachers keep all worksheets and return only near exam. That’s fine with me since i dun really rely that much on sch material for revision. The worst thing is when teachers give out tonnes of worksheets but never manage them. Some worksheets are never done until end of the term, some half-done, some half-marked, etc, until i completely lost track and dunno which to file at home and which to bring to sch.

Nowadays my son bring to-and-fro a stack of worksheets almost the thickness of 2 workbooks becos we simply do not know if the teacher will use them or not.

On top of that, there are so many workbooks to bring and since teacher never specify which one they will use on which day, to play safe, my son just bring everything to sch everyday, so the sch bag is super heavy. In the worst case, the Eng subject alone can have 5 books. :!:

I think the teachers simply can’t be bothered to make life easier for our poor kids.

I also heard from my son that recently they were made to type out the compositions they have written into computers at school during english lesson. Takes 2 period to do that. Wonder why the teacher is doing that when she should be spending time more productively as PSLE is so near.

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Fri, 07 May 2010 06:52:38 GMT

buds — Fri, 07 May 2010 06:52:38 GMT

Nope it is not a norm, in my opinion.

While for some schools, it could be a school practice
on keeping and returning files policies… For my DDs’
school, assignments are returned periodically and
promptly for parents to check and have them all duly
signed… This way, parents can keep up with what the
school is currently covering and also we can be updated
on the abilities of our children… their strengths and their
weaknesses as well.

There are parents who DO NOT file the worksheets in the
respective folders given and teachers find it hard to revise
or go through the questions nearing assessment or exam time.
Some children’s worksheets do come back like soggy pratas and
a few others super torn and worst is lost or dunno where.

Our DDs’ teachers allow for the files to be kept at home until
the next time more completed and marked worksheets need to
be filed in. They will again bring the files back for parents’
perusal and revision.

On top of these tiring manual chores teachers have to do, they
also prepare past year’s exam papers for the students to practice
in class & also bring some home for the children to engage in further
revision. The papers are given 2wks to 3wks prior to the SA1 exams…

The teachers also go through the questions together in class & discuss
the more challenging questions (esp for Math… ) where all the children
are engaged in the thinking process of how the answers were derived.

My girls are in neighbourhood school.

Having said the above, NOT all teachers are like that. It is subjective
to the individual teacher’s style and passion… as it can be seen with
my P3 DD’s teachers. Math & MT teachers are more than fantastic but
the form teacher is utterly ridiculous, of pre-historic teaching days kind…
(read : dry & boring everything-whole-class-read-from-the-book kind)…
and has no inkling of creativity… hence burdening us parents with the
imperative need to re-teach every single thing again at home. Now,
THAT is exasperating. Form teacher some more! :x

In short, while it is possible some of them in this indudstry do spoil the soup…
it would be biased blanket statement to assume all teachers are like that. JMHO.

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Fri, 07 May 2010 06:23:37 GMT

kitty2 — Fri, 07 May 2010 06:23:37 GMT

caroline3sg:
Donkey Kong:
Before exams, teachers then returned all the worksheets...

Ask them do corrections, until they cry....

Why like dat? early early don't give.
Coming Mon 10/5 exam, got the files only on Wed 5/5 after I sent sms to form teacher. Files were supposed to be given 2 weeks before exams. :x Though my ideal is files to be kept at home, completed worksheets returned for parents' filing.

This seems to be the norm in every school huh :? Mine,some files not returned yet and exams are just next week :stupid:

Reply to Less Teaching, More Learning? on Fri, 07 May 2010 03:32:17 GMT

caroline3sg — Fri, 07 May 2010 03:32:17 GMT

janet_lee88:
My son brought home his subject files and I have no idea whatsoever how to revise with him at this late hour. Couldn't the teachers ask them to bring back earlier :x ??? What can we do at this time ? The poor kids are struggling with revision already.

My son also asked me to do filing for him.

For Maths, look for trend/type of questions got wrong = don't know or careless. Revise / drill from there.

For Eng, look for grammar which aspect don't know: singular/plural, past/present tense, continuous tense, adverb, adjectives or vocab: similies, idoms, proverbs, animals young, habitat or occupation. Other vocab, does teacher give a list for SA1?

compre: teach how to locate answer in passage, how to answer

compo: use same tense throughout, check spelling and sequence of story, conclusion

For Chinese, learn all characters and the similar stokes/words, how to use them.