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Readability of the integrated texts of Singapore secondary Chinese language syllabus
No full textThe Secondary Chinese language curriculum in Singapore is divided into five courses to tailor to students’ language proficiencies. The courses, in descending proficiency, are Higher Chinese, Express Chinese, Normal Academic Chinese, Chinese B, and Basic Chinese. The 2021 Singapore Chinese Language syllabus uses an integrated design, where the five courses are differentiated yet unified under the same design. Readability is a measure of text difficulty. This paper compares the readability of 2021 and 2011 textbooks. The Singapore Centre for Chinese Language’s teaching resource platform and Soh’s (2000) Chinese as Second Language Readability Formula were used for the comparison of readability and analysis of differences in difficulty between different courses. It was found that differences between levels of Chinese curricula have changed in the 2021 teaching materials, with increased difficulty of Higher and Express Chinese, widened gap between Express and Normal Academic Chinese, and Basic Chinese and Chinese B put at the same difficulty level. It was also found that the Chinese as Second Language Readability Formula can easily and objectively determine the difficulty of Chinese texts and is a practical method that textbook writers and teachers can easily apply to select texts. It is thus a meaningful tool that optimises Chinese language teaching
The ‘mound-hollow’ model for solving integer addition and subtraction problems
No full textUnderstanding integer operations is a fundamental yet challenging concept for elementary students, often requiring effective visual models to support their comprehension. Despite various instructional models, many students continue to struggle with integer addition and subtraction, particularly when negative numbers are involved. Addressing this gap, this study explores the potential of the mound-hollow model to facilitate students’ understanding of integer addition and subtraction concepts intuitively. This study aimed to examine how three sixth-grade students utilized the mound-hollow model to solve integer addition and subtraction problems. Data were collected from students' written tests and individual interviews conducted after a teaching experiment involving 25 sixth graders in Indonesia. The findings indicate that the mound-hollow model provides a meaningful analogy for solving addition problems of types x+(-y) and (-x)+y (where x>y and x,y are natural numbers) and subtraction problems of types x-(-y) and (-x)-y. All three students successfully employed the model to solve the addition problems by neutralizing every mound-hollow pair and to solve the subtraction problems by creating mound-hollow pairs. Additionally, students demonstrated the ability to justify their solutions and correct errors through the mound-hollow representation. The use of a single mound or hollow to represent larger integers enhanced students’ proficiency in solving integer operations and reinforced their understanding of the relationship between addition and subtraction, such as x-(-y)=x+y and (-x)-y=(-x)+(-y). These findings highlight the effectiveness of the mound-hollow model as an alternative instructional tool for teaching integer operations, providing students with an intuitive framework to construct abstract mathematical concepts. The implications of this study contribute to mathematics education by offering insights into the design of visual models that support conceptual understanding in integer arithmetic.Published versio
Integrating the values of social harmony and criticality: Perspectives from Singapore’s approach to character and citizenship education
No full textToday, values education remains fundamental to the purposes of education particularly in response to global unrest, rising intolerance, and youths who are increasingly civic engaged in social justice. In this paper, we focus on values pedagogy in the context of Singapore’s Character and Citizenship Education (CCE). The first part of this paper surveys the literature on character education and citizenship education and explores how historically, each has emphasized different values. The paper then focuses on Singapore’s approach to CCE. At policy and curricula levels, shifts from the late twentieth century have encouraged the cultivation of both moral and civic values through CCE. The second part examines how Singapore teachers have sought to facilitate values pedagogy at three levels in the classroom – awareness of moral values and social-global issues, critical analysis of values and social-global issues, and active citizenship engagements in society and the world. We distil findings from a national survey of 585 Singapore secondary teachers which is the first nation-wide survey on Singapore secondary school teachers’ values pedagogy. We conclude by discussing the challenges of an integrated approach to CCE particularly in negotiating the tensions between the values of social harmony and criticality.Accepted versionOER 08/21 SCS
Exploring primary science teachers' conceptions and practices of formative assessment and feedback
No full textThis study sought to understand primary science teachers’ assessment and feedback practices in Singapore following the landmark Primary Education Review and Implementation Report (PERI) in 2011. Current knowledge concerning assessment and feedback in Singapore schools is based on large-scale quantitative studies or discipline specific case studies. The study instead is situated within other changes in teacher knowledge dimensions and professional development through the introduction of the Singapore Teaching Practice in 2017 and the express delineation of teacher assessment literacy competencies through the SkillsFuture for Educators (SFEd) initiative. The study used a conceptual framework built upon two models of assessment literacy from Abell and Siegel (2011) and Xu and Brown (2016) to examine teachers’ assessment and feedback practices at two levels: their conceptions of formative assessment and feedback in the context of science teaching, and their enactment of feedback in the context of their classrooms. Additionally, the study sought to identify the macro, meso and micro level contextual factors influencing teachers’ assessment and feedback practices.The findings offer critical insights into how local science teachers teach and assess students’ learning as they respond to assessment reform. Qualitative content analysis identified four main themes of conceptions of formative assessment and feedback: Teacher and student accountability, improvements to performance and learning, discipline-specific processes, and customisation for different learners. It was found that teachers held themselves accountable for planning and using formative assessment and feedback to assess students’ understanding and provide feedback. However, they also held students accountable as active participants in the assessment process; students needed to know where they were going, where they were, and how to move to the next stage.Despite this, teachers placed less emphasis on practices that involved students in the assessment processes such as peer and self-assessment. While teachers viewed assessment and feedback as essential for learning, they also held convergent views of assessment that fulfilled examination requirements. Teachers expressed the need for formative assessment to provide information for the differentiation of instruction. This was based on students’ abilities and the customisation of feedback approaches for different profiles of students. At the second level, the study presents an in-depth analysis of teachers’ classroom assessment and feedback practices through dual lenses: the researchers’ observations and the teachers’ reflections on lessons. The researchers’ observations identified teachers’ pedagogical approaches, lesson organisation and classroom feedback episodes. Using a video-based recall and reflection, their classroom feedback episodes were characterised
based on the focus, content, and function of feedback. The findings showed that while the three case study teachers had common conceptions about formative assessment and feedback, they associated these conceptions with different practices in their classroom enactment resulting in different extents of coherence between conceptions and practice. Additionally, the analysis identified factors at the macro, meso and micro levels that contextualised their practice. At the macro level, a key factor was the backwash effects of summative and performance-focused assessment practices, particularly, the Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE) in Singapore. The findings showed that while teachers’ conceptions showed that they valued formative assessment, their classroom feedback practices were focused on helping students achieve during summative assessments even though they were not teaching graduating cohorts.At the meso level, the factors included the organisation of the school-based science curriculum comprising the teaching and assessment guidelines, the supplementary resources and the assessment schedule set by the school and subject departments. The findings showed differences in the way the three teachers sequenced their teaching to embed formative assessment and opportunities for feedback in their teaching despite using a common scheme of work with department-designed supplementary materials.At the micro level, two factors influenced teachers’ practice: teachers’ knowledge of science teaching pedagogies, formative assessment strategies and feedback literacy and learner profiles. While the inquiry-based approach to teaching science has been advocated by the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the primary science syllabus, the enactment of inquiry-based pedagogies by teachers was inconsistent. Additionally, there was a lack of common understanding of how to embed formative assessment and feedback practices in the teaching of science across the three teachers. While the use of classroom questioning was a common elicitation strategy used by the teachers, the interpretation and use of information gathered through these elicitations to provide feedback for students and to improve subsequent instruction was varied. At the micro level, it was found that teachers’ choices of elicitation strategies, feedback focus, content and function were further strongly influenced by the profile of learners in the classroom.The study presents insights into the complexities of enactment of assessment change in science classrooms. Among other implications, it underscores the need to strengthen science teachers’ knowledge of classroom assessment centred on disciplinary substance – the epistemic underpinnings, conceptual organisation and social processes that define what assessing learning means in the context of a discipline. School-based science curriculum organisation need to include a system of formative assessment and feedback practices that are coherent with the goals of science education supported by discipline specific pedagogy and tools. Professional development for assessment literacy must move beyond domain-general, one-size-fits all models to include assessment knowledge dimensions specific to the subject discipline. Additionally, professional development programmes need include sustained, collaborative and practice-embedded opportunities for teachers to apply and reflect on their assessment knowledge the context of their classrooms. Future research in this area can leverage such programmes by adopting a design-based approach to study the impact of assessment literacy professional development for science teachers
Digital portfolio and partnerships: Enablers for the development of reflective practitioners and empowerment of teacher learning
No full textDigital Portfolios have been widely used in teacher education for different professional learning purposes (i.e., learning, assessment, and employment). With advancements in technology, teachers can now chart and make their professional learning visible by curating and presenting their professional portfolios in digital formats. There is a growing recognition that teachers’ professional beliefs, reflection, and inquiry are important elements in teachers’ professional development, and digital portfolios can serve as a useful vehicle for this purpose. For the professional development of our student teachers, the strong and synergistic partnership with schools and the Ministry of Education is pivotal. This chapter will focus on the design of the digital portfolio and partnerships as enablers for the professional development of our student teachers as reflective practitioners engaged in evidence-based teaching at the National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University (NTU).</p
Designing school libraries of the future
No full textThis brief was based on the project DEV 02/20 LCE: Designing School Libraries of the Future
Temperature-dependent structural and morphological engineering of nickel nitride via nitrogen plasma processing for efficient electrocatalysis
No full textPlasma-based surface modulation has gained attention in preparing electrode materials for high-performance electrocatalysis, but most methods involve multiple steps, typically a wet chemical synthesis followed by plasma treatment, limiting their further scalability. Solely plasma-driven surface structure control of electrocatalysts remains challenging due to the unclear dynamic factors during the plasma discharge, which extend beyond the known values of the initial set of plasma discharge parameters. Herein, we develop a cooling-mediated plasma strategy, enabling one-step modulation of the structure/phase of the metal electrocatalyst directly on its surface. With nickel as the substrate, a controlled surface thermal field during nitrogen plasma processing yields a distinct morphology and facet exposure of the resultant nitrides, attributed to the differential distribution of reactive N-species and varied surface dynamics of Ni, as verified by in situ plasma diagnostics and numerical simulations. Based on electrocatalytic performance testing and density functional theory (DFT) simulations, plasma-tailored nano-structures, under controlled surface temperature of the electrocatalyst through the use of a cooling component, deliver improved hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activities. Our strategy offers a cost-effective approach for structural engineering in electrocatalysis
Reconstructing diversity in lesson study: Shaping teachers’ beliefs about teaching diverse students in Singapore
No full textStudent diversity not only brings about opportunities for creative teaching but also challenges for ensuring educational equity and the provision of high-quality teaching for all students from diverse backgrounds, especially those presently underserved by the educational system. The main goal of the study is to explore how a group of teachers enacted their beliefs of diversity in teaching and how their beliefs were shaped by a particular professional learning community—lesson study. This qualitative study is situated in two elementary schools (School A and School B) serving low-income neighborhoods in Singapore. We used multiple methods, including in-depth individual interviews, observations, and analysis of written reflections, to probe what the participant teachers thought about social diversity and its implications for teaching. It was found that: (1) teachers’ beliefs of diversity influenced their teaching strategies for working with students from diverse backgrounds; (2) Lesson study (as among other forms of professional learning communities) could shape teachers’ beliefs of diversity and eventually change their teaching practices. Certain mechanisms embedded in lesson study, such as examining student work with inputs from knowledgeable others can be further unpacked to sensitise teachers’ recognition of student differences in teaching. This study adds in-depth understanding on how lesson study could be employed for teacher professional learning and equity in education.</p
Supporting developmental language disorder: A Singaporean perspective
No full textDevelopmental Language Disorder (DLD) is one of the most common neurodevelopmental conditions around the world with a prevalence estimate of 7-8%. However, it attracts relatively less public attention and is described as a ‘hidden’ condition. In fact, a brief search of online newspapers in Singapore found far fewer articles related to DLD than other neurodevelopmental conditions. To address this information gap, we synthesised information relevant to three questions about DLD in Singapore: (1) Why provide support for DLD? (2) What supports are available for DLD? (3) What could the future of DLD look like? Here, international studies on the academic and socio-emotional mental health outcomes of children with DLD are considered. Local information on supporting concerns for oral language, academic and socio-emotional mental health concerns are also summarised here. Lastly, we argue that many helping hands working in collaboration assists in securing a brighter future for this overlooked neurodevelopmental condition in Singapore and around the world
Beyond good AI: The need for sound learning theories in AIED
No full textThe open access publication is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10758-025-09843-9I nudge reevaluation of the idea that artificial intelligence for education (AIED) is merely about using artificial intelligence (AI) tools to automate understanding and responding to learning processes. Instead, I advocate for a human-centered approach to AIED that emphasizes the importance of personal connections, relationship-building, and scaffolding that goes beyond simplifying tasks to push students in their critical thinking. This approach calls for curating multimodal data from ecologically valid learning settings to train AIED systems, and maintaining flexibility in expectations around rational learner behavior when analyzing data from such systems. Given that the definition of good AIED is often discipline-specific and influenced by the underlying pedagogical models of student learning, the article calls on learning sciences researchers to integrate their complementary yet often competing theoretical lenses in rigorously studying AI-supported learning phenomena at scale.NIE-SUG 5-23 T