Case Study for ICT Integration in Spore Classrooms: How student-centred was the lesson?

• Teacher roles: (Score 8)

The teacher guide the student through structured experiences by creating a scenario for her student to role play. Categories such as problem, causes, effects, and solutions were provided as a framework for students’ internet research and presentation. The rest of the class were given general instuctions on how to use the Inspiration software and possible categories for organizing the information so that they can take down notes in a form of a mind map.

The teacher incoporated social interaction in the lesson by having an online discussion. She monitored the student discussion to ensure that learning is occuring. She facilitate the discusssion by providing example on how to pose a question and providing comprehensive answer.

The teacher also provide decision–making template for students to rank the issues so that they can compare different perspectives before deciding on their own conclusions.

However, there was no model for the process of using Inspiration software for note-taking and categorizing the points. Hence after the first lesson, the student only managed to note down word for word the points the presenters were making. Most of the information in the mind map templates was disorganized. Due to this, the students did not see the purpose of the template as they could not make informed decisions. The options given were simply ticked instead of ranked.

• Student roles: (Score: 8)

The student undergo structured experience designed by teacher. The presenting group will work as a team to research and present the issues of environmental degradation based on the categories provided. The rest of the class have to take down the main presentation points in a form of a mind map using Inspiration software.

The class then asked questions to the presenters through an online discussion forum. The student then decide on an issue using the decision-template provided before polled their decision online.

• Curriculum characteristics: (Score 8)

Student were cast an intellectual challenge in a form of a problem/project for them to solve. The use of IT were widely used to support and enhance the student research as well as presentation and social interaction among students. The online discussion also served as a medium to create more opportunities to develop understanding and expose to higher-order thinking skills.

• Learning goals: (Score: 8)

Doing research can promote independent work as student were in charge to make correlation to construct understanding to the subject matter. With communication channels such on-line discussion, student can share, critiqued, brainstormed and dialogued their ideas with teachers and peers.

Students can get feedback to reaffirm their understanding. They can reflect and record their views during the information-gathering process. Hence these promote cooperative and collaboration learning as well as communication skills.

Next, students are able to develop decision-making skills as they have to compare different perspectives before drawing out relationship and decide on making their own conclusions.

Lastly, the online discussion geared students to think logically and develop problem-solving skills. This skill can be applied and further developed into problem-solving skills and the development of higher-order thinking skills such as critical thinking.

• Types of activities: (Score: 9)

The activity involved a group projects research and presentation followed by an online discussion and an online poll

• Assessment strategies: (Score: 7)

No written test provided in this lesson. However the online forum, mind-map, presentation slides and the decision making template was taken as a rubric to check the level of understanding of the topic.

• Use of ICT: (Score: 7)

In groups, pupils conducted Internet research on their topic and put together a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation. The rest of the class uses the Inspiration software to construct the main points into a mind map. Next, the class will have an online discussion forum followed by an online poll.

Overall, I felt that this lesson has a student-centerness of an average value of 7.8. Daphne has designed a lesson which creates an environment where students take responsibility for their own learning. But she has to play a key role in creating an environment that promotes engaged learning. As a facilitator, she has to carefully design the learning task with the appropriate resources and teacher support (e.g. modeling, scaffolding, time provided for task) in mind. Though her students were technically proficient, but without her modeling and guidance, they were unable to benefit from on the full potential of the technology to clarify their thought process. Her students were also not able to take notes and categorize at the same time. It worked better when pupils took notes first and were given time to categorize their notes for the second lesson.