QLK 501 Communication Skills for Teachers

Reflections on  the Communication Skills for Teachers’ course

My communicative strengths include being very expressive and uses a variety of tone. I do well in relating to children as my facial expressions, body gestures as well as tone and pitch are engaging, especially to young children.  In addition, my articulation is also clear and easily understood. I am able to communicate my point of view effectively to my teacher and peers.  For example, I voice out my opinions and queries during the class and participate actively in class discussions.

This course has benefited me greatly in terms of pronunciation. While I cannot say that I have perfect grasp of pronunciation, the course has raised my awareness of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation and is used as a standardized representation of the sounds of spoken language. Furthermore, the introduction of resources such as http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ and http://www.goodenglish.org.sg/ has improved my pronunciation and communication skills. The chapter on written communication has also helped my letter and e-mail writing ability, which is essential for my teaching career. Previously, I was uncertain on salutations and complimentary closes. However, this course has taught me which salutation and complimentary closes to use and when as appropriate to the context. I also learnt that certain clichéd phrases such as “Any inconvenience causes is deeply regretted” may sound artificial and do not help to make my writing effective. As I used to end off my e-mails with such phrases, I have since refrained from using such phrases. Additionally, I am more aware of ways to soften the tone of message such as phrasing a request as a question and use suitable modals such as ‘would’ or ‘could’ instead of ‘should’.

I would like to further hone my skills in terms of pronunciation and word stress. To do so, I plan to tap on online resources such as the websites listed previously and through more practice with the help of my peers and family. 

BLOG 3 (without ESE)

For your third post, share about the following:

·         Has any of the Masterplans impacted you as a student/teacher (if any)?

Both Masterplan 1 and 2 has impacted me as a student. I recalled teachers using multi-media resources to support learning and teaching subjects such as Science. There was a lot of improvement in the school’s infrastructure to support ICT. For examples, more computer laboratories were set up and teachers started to integrate ICT into the curriculum. One particular Mathematics lesson which utilized ICT struck me. As students, we were assigned a certain topic which we had to use computer software to teach our peers. The process was novel and interesting. It also fostered a sense of responsibility within me as I felt responsible to teach my friends and at the same time, learn from them.

As I reached Secondary school, the pervasiveness of ICT within the school learning culture was more evident. There was a greater level of teacher-student and student-student interactions. For instance, my teachers encouraged us to blog our reflections regarding the lesson and key take-away. This enabled me to consolidate my learning and the feedback provided by my teachers also allowed me to monitor my own learning progress and areas of weaknesses where I had to work on.

·         How do you think the current Masterplan 3 may affect your role(s) as a beginning teacher?

I think that the current Masterplan 3 would change the teaching environment for teachers and the learning culture for students. ICT would definitely bring on its own challenges such as developing personal competencies in IT skills and other related knowledge. However, there are many benefits that come along with the incorporation of ICT within the teaching pedagogy and assessment. I feel that there would be a more varied pool of teaching resources and strategies to choice from in order to tailor teaching procedures to the learning needs and abilities of students. In addition, with ICT, I feel that teachers would be better able to actively involve and engage students as it is more interactive and attention-grabbing. Furthermore, the development of self-directed learning would increase students’ ownership of their own learning. Lastly, the sharing platforms for teachers to exchange ideas and resources would be helpful especially to a beginning teacher where we can tap upon the expertise of our colleagues and be inspired to come up with our own teaching strategies.  

BLOG 2 (without ESE)

For your second post, share about the

following:

·         Why do you think it is important for MOE to develop the 3 Masterplans for ICT in education?

I feel that the implementation and incorporation of ICT within the education curriculum and system requires time, effort and resources. Hence, it is highly impossible to achieve such goal outcomes with a single masterplan.

Masterplan 1 laid the foundation for schools to utilize ICT and provide the basic ICT infrastructure that is necessary for the development and use of ICT in education. Teachers were also trained to attain basic competencies in the purposeful use of ICT for teaching.

Masterplan 2 aimed for the effective and widespread use of ICT in facilitating teaching procedures. In addition, ICT enables the tailoring of teaching strategies which supports the needs and abilities of students, enhancing lifelong learning. Furthermore, schools were given ownership in ICT implementation as well as an emphasis on research in ICT in education. Therefore, masterplan 2 fortified the integration of ICT into the curriculum and assessment as well as encouraged the innovative use of ICT within schools.   

Masterplan 3 provides the continuity from the previous two masterplans to create a learning culture that equips students with the necessary skills to meet the demands of today’s global competitive technological era.

In my opinion, the three masterplans for ICT in education has led to tremendous changes within the education system in terms of curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and learning. There is growing emphasis on building a school culture that is ICT-enriched. The professional learning and development of teachers is also supported to enhance teachers’ ICT competencies and effective use of various teaching strategies to match student learning needs and abilities. This is important as there are individual variations in learning preferences and being multi-modality, ICT is better able to cater to various senses and grab the attention of students as compared to tradition methods which may be less appealing to the technological-savvy generation.  The use of ICT enables teachers to actively engage learners and foster self-directed and collaborative learning among students. Lastly, I feel that ICT provides the convenience and accessibility to learn anywhere, lifting constrains of a classroom and the rigidity of school timetable.      

BLOG 1 (without ESE)

·         Reflect and post on the blog about how ICT was used by your former teachers.

·         Highlight only one particular lesson conducted. Include the following information:

o    School Name & class

o    Profile of class (e.g., student abilities)

o    Subject

o    What ICT tools were used?

o    Describe how ICT was used for teaching & learning

·         Generally, how did the teachers in the school use ICT for teaching and learning?

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When I was in Secondary 4 Loyalty, C.H.I.J ST. Nicholas Girls’ School, my Mathematics teacher used conduct really engaging and interactive lessons which sparks off the class’s passion for Mathematics. Our class consists of a group of heterogeneous student with varying performance level. For instance, there are pupils who obtained Gold for the Singapore Mathematical Olympiad as well as retained students.

Our teacher made use of ICT tools like power-point slides to teach a certain concept e.g., area integration. Her slides consist of animations and sound effects that were attention-grabbing as well as entertaining. Next, the class will be divided into teams of mixed Mathematical ability. As a team, the group will collaborate to facilitate learning and work individually on worksheets. Group members will help to check each other’s worksheet against the answer provided by the teacher. Team scores are graded according to how much of the topic was covered and the correctness of our answers on the worksheets. The top three teams with the highest score at the end would be given time off from one lesson. We were allowed to use other ICT tools like emails and windows messenger to communicate to group members and discuss any queries.

I feel that the method which my Mathematics teacher used was very useful in empowering the students to feel in control of their own learning as well as instill a sense of responsibility to check each others’ work. It also enables active involvement and participation on the student’s part as one contributes towards the team score. Furthermore, it was a platform for group members to bond and foster a cooperative class spirit. Collaborative learning was enhanced when the team learns as a group and helps each other out through communicating via the new media such as window messenger. As many of us spend a large portion of our time in front of our computers, it is very convenient to discuss the questions and clarify the concepts through such mediums. In addition, the online discussion can be reviewed and thus, we were able to note which ‘part’ of our discussion were correct or wrong and think of alternative solutions. The reviewing of answers also made us more aware of our common mistakes and to avoid repeating them in future. Thus, we were better able to consolidate the information and knowledge imparted by our teacher and apply it across situations. Explaining how we solve a given problem and the rationale behind why we used a particular strategy allowed us to further clarify our reasoning and increase understanding of the concept.

In general, the teachers in the school use ICT to create a fun and interactive learning environment which engages the students and make learning meaningful and interesting. ICT also inculcates responsibility-taking and social communication skills like collaboration. The use of computers provides a convenient and efficient way to interact between teacher and students as well as within students themselves. The use of Internet search tools such as wikipedia and online dictionary also provide a wide array of information. In addition, ICT also enables multi-sensory teaching which caters to different learning abilities and preferences of the student. Teachers also had a subject-specific forum which acts as a platform to allow teachers to share resources and teaching strategies. The online forum also function as a way to obtain social support and enhances relationship among the teachers.