My 3rd Reflection – Our sharing on Math initiatives

25 September 2010

After a week of surfing the net to gather information on the current initiatives in Singapore Primary Mathematics Curriculum and reading up on the initiatives, my coursemates, Rini, Anom and I met again at Anom’s place to share our findings. We used the cooperative learning strategy “jigsaw” to learn more about the initiatives. Each of us would read up and learn more about the initiatives that had been allocated to us and then meet up again as a group to share what we have learnt with one another. In this way, we could better internalise our understanding of the current initiatives and the philosophies behind them.

 I have learnt about TSLN,I&E, NE, SEED,TLLM  that were shared by Rini and Anom. I had read up on IT Masterplan and the PERI report and here are some of the things I have learnt about the 2 initiatives.

IT Masterplan 1 - (1997 – 2002) - use IT in education in order to build an information-rich community and to stay ahead, to equip our students with the necessary skills and dispositions to stimulate creativity and thinking skills that will prepare them better for the future.

IT Masterplan 2 - ( 2003 – 2008) - greater interactivity and engagement in the learning process;  strengthening the integration of ICT into the curriculum, establishing baseline ICT standards for students, and seeding innovative use of ICT among schools.

IT Masterplan 3- (2009 -2014) - a continuum of the vision of the first and second Masterplans i.e. to enrich and transform the learning environments of students and to

equip students with the critical competencies and dispositions to succeed in a knowledge economy.  

PERI -Primary Education Review and Implementation and the 5 examples of  pedagogies are- learning by inquiry ,learning by interacting, learning by doing learning in and of the real world, learning by reflection. I think it is important that we know the different initiatives in our education system and the philosophies behind them so that we can align our lessons according to them. Thus, we will have a good grasp of effective pedagogical approaches, plan effective lessons, develop skills and inculcate values in our pupils.