Teaching with laptops

Since moving to Singapore, Rach and I have both been teaching in a full laptop environment. Each kid in our Grade 9 and Grade 11 classes have laptops which are linked to the wireless network. The laptops have sure altered the way we both teach. Rachel is now a convert to you tube and enjoys finding geeky videos for Geography. I now use a variety of blogs and school ICT stuff to make the learning a bit more interesting.

For both of us it has been an excellent opportunity for developing our craft as teachers and will be a nice string to our CV's when we eventually move on. I have recently presented a bit of research on the effectiveness of laptops. The conference was for all of the Singapore schools and it was a great chance to network, and to also begin the path towards maybe beginning my masters.

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Laptops In The Classroom

View more presentations from Andrew McCarthy.

A weekend workshop in Bangkok

A few week ago we headed to Bangkok for a weekend of curriculum training for the International Baccalaureate. Both Rachel and I are now teaching a middle years class ( Grade 6 - 10) so spent three days in a workshop learning about Humanities / Social Studies, assessments and or sorts of other dull teaching material. This is about as close as we will ever get to a business trip so we made the most of it.

Our workshop classroom at the New International School of Thailand, boring.

We stayed in a great hotel in central Bangkok in the district of Sukhumvit, about a 10 min walk from the school where the course was run. The hotel was amazing value compared to the some of the hotels that was stayed in whilst in Europe.

Our hotel suite, huge lounge, kitchen and the king size bedroom.

We enjoyed the chance to network with some other teachers from around Asia. We met teachers who work in Beijing at a rather prestigious international school, the Western Academy of Beijing. http://www.wab.edu/ We also befriended people from Laos, Thailand and Indonesia. The growth of international schools in Asia is exponential at the moment especially in India and China with more multinational companies setting up in those parts of the world.

Lumpini market and food courts, the girls are out shopping.

We didn't get a huge chance to tour the city but did escape on Saturday night to the night markets in Lumpini. On the same afternoon, 30,000 red shirt anti government protestors where heading into central Bangkok a year after the riots when the airport was closed for week. We managed to get across town on the subway system which is brand new and very efficient. From what we heard Bangkok is not quite the wild west of Asia that it used to be. Still plently of interesting stuff that contrast against sterile Singapore. Think we might head back for a long weekend soon to do some shopping and check out the temples and attractions.

Back to the coalface

Holidays seem like a long forgotten memory now. We have been back in Singapore for nearly two months, and are well back into the swing of teaching and living on the equator.

Our local MRT/Subway station, about 5min walk.

The school year runs from August to June in most international schools, so August represents a fresh start with a new group of student to remember. This year it took me about four weeks until I could confidently remember all of the students names. I still have trouble remembered the names such as Jong In, Sang Hoon, Sang Mo, Hye Jin, Hoang Duy. After a while, I can put a face to a name but my brain is still in a western mindset. Give me a list of Jessica, Emma, Jane and Emily and it would take a week. I am teaching Economics, Humanities and Business Management this year. Humanities is my first junior class overseas. They are about 5th form, the remainder of my classes are 6th or 7th form NZ equilvients.

Other than school we have caught up with lots of people. An orienteering mate Darren was in town running a competition called the Hillary Challenge for Singapore schools. Was great to catch up and see a bit of outdoors stuff. The Minstry of Education in Singapore contracts the NZ Outdoor Pursuits Centre and Darren to run the competion. It is limited to local schools, otherwise the international schools would have a large presence.

I also competing in my first race in Singapore. It was a 5km race around the Formula One circuit which was closed to traffic. I managed a cheeky win, from a field of 4000 people. Pity none of them could really run, as it was a great course andfully closed to all traffic. I ran 16.45 which is slow by NZ standards but somehow fast by Singapore standards. I am always looking for a few more races to enter. I keep missing the cut offs for the big races. The Standard and Chartered Marathon/Half Marathon has closed entries at their limit of 50,000 competiors. Need to plan ahead when the races are so popular and not scheduled until Dec ! guttered

International Schools

We have been thinking a lot about the contrast between teaching back home in NZ and our new environment in the ‘international’ schools system.

Our school ISS, (International School of Singapore) tends to be classified like many other schools in Singapore as international, because it offers a curriculum that is foreign to the local Singapore national curriculum and that it draws students from a range of nationalities. Our school offers a curriculum called the International Baccalaureate, which includes a Diploma programme in the last two years. Students study six subjects for two years and sit one final exam in May. This is the largest contrast from the NZ system, which I perceived as too heavily focused and potentially driven by external examinations and assessment specifications. The curriculum is global in nature and prescribed by a group that originated in France in the 1970’s from memory. The benefit of the International Baccalaureate is that students can easily change schools and fit into new classes with ease. This is important for some of the transient students who follow their parent’s careers around the world. One Malaysian student arrived in my class in January. He was born in Malaysia but has since travelled the world, and arrived at our school from Stockholm in Sweden last year. He still had the same Economics textbook I use and slotted into class with ease.

Other bigger schools in Singapore such as United World College of South Asia (UWC) offer the British IGSE and A Levels, the Australian School of Singapore offers the New South Wales Curriculum, and is beginning to introduce the International Baccalaureate over the next couple of years. The size of schools here are far larger than most in NZ and perhaps something more similar to the US system. UWC has around 2700, and the Australian School is about 3000. Tanglin Trust, The American School and Overseas Family School all have over 2000 students, from Grade 1 – Grade 13. Our school has around 700 students and is perhaps slightly smaller than our old schools Queen Margaret and St Mary’s College in Wellington.

Our school is a very multicultural place with students from around forty different countries and staff from nearly every continent. This is a large and significant point of difference from the other, so called international schools in Singapore. The Canadian School is nearly exclusively for Canadian nationals and the American passport holders gain priority but not guaranteed access to the American School. I think most of our student’s parents value the multicultural aspects of our school. If you life in a foreign country, wouldn’t you like your sons or daughters to mix with students from other nations? It seems that many foreigners spend their lives in the expat enclaves of Singapore’s condominiums.

The pressure on quality education here is amazing. All of the big schools, UWC, OFS and the American School have long waiting lists, despite the recession. Maybe the scene will be different in 2010 but at the moment, the Straits Times still publishes articles deploring people who pay the SDG $250,000 for a guaranteed place at any of these schools. For around $80,000 you will get a place on the waiting list.

The education of people, is perhaps Singapore’s most important process. The county has no natural resources and still imports water from Malaysia and yet it can place itself among the top 20 wealthiest nations in the world. The change for Rach and me has been fun so far. We have probably learnt and gleaned more experience than we would have in New Zealand in another 5 years at our old jobs. In a while we will look forward to coming home and working in New Zealand schools but at the moment change is as good as a holiday.