Enhanced School Experience: Classroom Observation of ICT Use

Part 1: Specific Observations

School Name: Jing Shan Primary School
Class: 3-5

Profile:

Jan 2011 - This was my first time being a Primary Three form teacher. During the first briefing by the level head, I was told that the dynamics of my form class is such that the students are of mixed abilities namely the middle-ability and the low-ability. In terms of the academic performance ranking within the level, 3-5 belongs to the second lowest. While the majority of the students are locals, there are a few international students - 3 from China, 1 from Philippines and another from Myanmar. Being their English and Maths teacher, I anticipated that one of my biggest challenges would be communication where language is concerned. The delivery of lesson should be kept simple and easy enough for everyone to understand. In addition, adhering to the saying that "A picture speaks a thousand words", I keep in mind that visual teaching can help these students to understand a new concept better.

During an English lesson, while we were going through one of the STELLAR exercises, I introduced the students to the word "domino". The students had to form a "simile" sentence to describe how a building collapses. While some students could roughly explain what a "domino" is, there were several who seemed to be clueless. It was actually an impromptu thing from my part to introduce this word to them. Since there was still ample time left after we completed the exercise, I decided to show the class a YouTube video on falling dominoes, using the classroom PC.

Having a classroom PC to get access to the video and having a projector to project it on a big screen has definitely helped in the teaching and learning of the word, both for the teacher myself and the students respectively. Due to the availability of these ICT tools in the classroom, I was able to present a visually enhanced explanation of the word to the whole class, which in my opinion was very convenient. I could just adopt a verbal approach to put across the same message. However, there are students who may not be able to grasp it wholesomely. When the students were watching the video on falling dominoes on YouTube, I heard some "ohh", "ahh" and "wah" from them. I took that as an indication that they have understood what they have seen and what I was trying to teach them.

Although this may seem to be a minute example, I believe it has proven to a certain extent that ICT can possibly assist the teacher to provide a clearer explanation to students, especially for a class with mixed abilities and a language barrier.

Part 2: General Observation

Through a couple of sit-ins and random observation, I noticed that several teachers have utilised ICT tools in their lessons, especially for Maths and Science. I remembered a Primary Four form teacher was casually sharing her experience teaching Maths with her class. Her class academic performance is ranked the lowest in the level, therefore she adopts a more fun, visually appealing and interactive way to conduct her lessons. For an exercise on mental multiplication, she used an interactive software found in "www.matheletics.com". Her students were very much engrossed in answering the multiplication questions as it is presented in a form of a racing car game, whereby a correct answer allows "their car" to move ahead. She knows that her students tend to have a short attention span, hence the interactive software proved to be an effective way of conducting the particular lesson. In her own words, she concluded that she "sees so much possibilities for (her) class when it comes to online learning".