Thoughts on WebQuest

Creating WebQuest are an excellent way to help beginning teachers in many areas. I realise now that in teaching a particular topic, we can use WebQuest to zero in on an important section of the topic, or even get students to learn and gather information outside of their syllabus. I would think that this could be the key to creating a thinking classroom in school.

In the process of creating the WebQuest, I had to muster all past knowledge and experiences from the ICT module where I had to create a Problem Based Learning lesson using PowerPoint. I must admit that a lot of skills learnt from that module have long turned rusty.

In putting this WebQuest together, situations that would arise in school are being addressed here as well. I especially think that having to generate a rubric for the WebQuest project assessment gives me a lot of insight of what a teacher should be looking for in an outstanding piece of work and one that is not up to par.

In this particular WebQuest on river management, drawing a focus on using dams, my group decided that students should investigate the different people that would be affected by the building of a dam. We have drawn up a task sheet to guide students in their individual analysis and facilitate their group discussion.

Our objective is to let students understand the plight of the different stakeholders and come to a conclusive decision on whether building dams would be more beneficial or detrimental. Having a more open ended project, the students would have to come up with their own arguments on why the dam should or should not be built.

I feel that this technique of using WebQuest to teach does live up to the “Teach Less Learn More” scheme that the government is promoting. It is good that students would be able to see that information and education is at a click of a mouse. Hopefully, this would inspire them to seek out more information on the topics they have learnt and have more than one perspective of Geography.

Fieldwork Package Reflection

We were having a bit of a problem deciding what to do for our fieldtrip package. We considered going to Labrador Park to conduct fieldwork for students, but that idea fell through as we had not much focus on what we wanted to have students learn there.

In the end we settled with Sentosa, where the students can learn about tourism, something that is intangible, something that has always been around us but we don’t see it unless we really look.

Instead of making the fieldtrip one which students just walk around and take notes after the teacher, we decided to make it a little more interesting and incorporate the need to search for the different destinations on the island itself. The pre-activity allows students to piece a jumbled up map of Sentosa up and find on the map the locations in which they are to gather their data.

We wanted to incorporate a myriad of skills for the students to practice; we would have them interviewing visitors of Sentosa near the Merlion, which is a significant Singapore icon. At Siloso, they would be attending to the management of tourists, using their observation skills and also getting them to learn to be investigators by sketching and taking photographs of the area and so on. There is another activity that would take them to Palawan Beach where they would investigate the changes in land use of old Sentosa with the Sentosa of today.

There were other ideas that we wanted to include in our fieldwork package. We did think of trying to make the whole trip like an adventure hunt or race, where students have to use a map and compass to find out where their destinations are by providing them with bearings. This was to aid them in their map reading. However, we thought that we would be losing our focus on tourism if we digress in other areas.

Considering that this fieldwork should be completed within a span of at most 3 hours, we decided against too many activities and factors like the race or adventure hunt idea. But this would be an excellent way to incorporate all type of geography knowledge if we did not have to stick to a particular topic. In fact it would be appropriate if the activities were to be carried out during a Geography Camp.

I think that after piecing this fieldwork together, I realise now that it takes a lot of planning in order to get a meaningful fieldwork up. But I feel that this is one of the best ways to learn geography, as students can see for themselves that geography is relevant to the world around them and that a topic like Tourism can be found at their doorstep.

Micro-Teaching on Physical Weathering

It is really too bad to hear from Mr. Yee that Weathering is out of the Secondary School syllabus. To us it was an important part of Geography in terms of land forms and also affecting buildings etc..

My lesson was focused on Physical / Mechanical Weathering, namely the different types of weathering, i.e.

1. Frost Shattering by freeze-thaw action
2. Thermal Expansion and Contracton
3. Pressure Release
4. Salt Crystal Growth
5. Action by Organisms

The lesson objectives were:

1. Learn the definition of Weathering
2. To know what the main types of Weathering are
3. To learn and identify different types of Physical Weathering

I started the lesson with a brief review on the Rock Cycle with a diagram, after which I used a video to give the class a general idea of what the results of Physical Weathering were, in terms of landforms etc. (I was corrected by Mr. Yee that the Grand Canyon is a place that was formed by erosional processes. But I was correct to say that it is a place where the climate is suitable for dominant Physical Weathering).

I realised that I was going too fast in the lesson as I only had 40mins and alot of theories to cover. The class felt that I was a little rushed with the explanations. I should have simply focused on 2 or 3 theories instead of 5.

For the description of freeze-thaw action, I managed to get a website that showed an animation of the process which the class felt was very useful in understanding the concept of this particular weathering. The use of many pictorial examples allowed them to get used to identifying the different types of physical weathering.

The class activity also involved identifying physical weathering processes that have taken place in a certain landscape. Each group was given a different picture of a certain weathering process and a description of the climate, location and geology of the area in which the picture was taken. They were then supposed to identify the weathering process by looking for evidence from the picture and infer from the information provided.

The feedback that I got from the class was that the lesson was interesting and that I managed to capture their attention with the use of videos, animation and pictures. They found that I was well prepared and well-versed in the area that I was teaching, being able to answer impromptu questions during the lesson.

The worksheets that I gave out, could have been more detailed as they did not have enough time to copy the information from the PowerPoint slides.

On the whole I enjoyed the lesson, however it is a pity that I would not be able to teach Weathering in such detail and depth to Secondary students.

Touring The Yeliou Beach in Taipei County

Pre Micro-teaching Thoughts

My micro-teaching topics would be on Rocks and Weathering. There are many areas to cover in this topic, and I find it hard to focus on 1 thing that I want the class to know/learn.

I think that to pen down the objectives of a lesson is one of the hardest things to do. Blabbering on about something is certainly easier than having a particular outcome for the lesson.

I would likely head to the MOE syllabus to make sure that the lesson would be useful to the rest of the class. Perhaps the lesson should be padded with a little more information to match the intellectual level of the group that I would be dealing with.

The tools that were introduced to us in the teaching of geography i.e. cartoons, video clips, pictures etc., I would definitely consider applying.

Grand Canyon @ Deer Creek

 
This formation was carved out by Deer Creek 

"What's the BIG IDEA?": Thoughts on Concept Teaching

The "big idea" concept was certainly a breath of fresh air. I found that it was a very refreshing way to teach geography.

Most students think that learning geography means memorising information and find it boring. However, with concept teaching I can finally show them that geography is not a dead subject, that theories can be applied and memorisation is a bare minimum. Once the concept is understood, there is no need to regurtitate information, but answer questions with understanding instead.

Concept teaching does require the teacher to know the work inside out in order to weasel out that key concept. We have to first uncover the "Big Idea", which has to have connectedness and is transferable to students, as well as productive.

The Inductive Enquiry approach is an excellent way to get students thinking and for them to construct their own knowledge. In doing so, they learn faster and remember better. Afterall, as babies, we learnt by discovery and that seems to be the best way about it.

Scaffolding the learning for students is important, firstly by topical facts, then abstract concepts and finally overarching frameworks which cuts across a variety of topics. Helping students with seeing the big picture might help them relate geography to their lives and activities around them. Teaching them how to think and find patterns in learning geography is tantamount to teaching them to fish.