A Study on Learning Mathematics with a Buddy and a Qualitative Meta-synthesis on the Effectiveness of Peer Instruction in Past Studies (2008/09 - 2012/13)
Linda Tan, Yaw-Chee Ping Yeun
(Singapore Polytechnic Journal of Teaching Practice Award 2015)
This paper discusses the effectiveness of peer involvement in the learning process. There are two parts to this paper. The first part presents an action research project on collaborative learning using buddy method. The second part of this paper consolidates, compares and contrasts seven collaborative learning projects (the first part inclusive) done by colleagues in the School of Mathematics and Science in five years (2008/09 – 2012/13). The findings from these projects that involved over a thousand students from four different schools in Singapore Polytechnic (SP) were synthesized. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations to guide instructors who are keen in adopting teaching strategies that involve peer instruction.
Flipping an Engineering Mathematics Classroom
Lee Hwee Theng, Sharon Quek, Alvin Ng
(The 9th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education)
As technology becomes ubiquitous in our lives and information becomes readily available via internet other than the classrooms, the practice of face-to-face lectures becomes less valid in educational settings. Educators are more aware of the deficiencies of such lectures, whose main aim is to transmit information, and are trying to shift towards instructional strategies that will encourage student engagement and active learning. One of these strategies is the Flipped Classroom pedagogy. The essence of this pedagogy is to move direct instruction online and out of classroom, creating space to promote discourse and problem-solving in the classroom. In effect, it requires a rethink of when resources to provide guidance and support to learners should be provided. Do learners need such support when they are passively listening to a lecture or when they are attempting to solve problems using the new concepts learnt? In the Flipped Classroom model, it is believed that it should be the latter.
In Singapore Polytechnic, the School of Mathematics & Science “flipped” an entire engineering mathematics module and piloted it on selected diploma courses. Lesson packages were developed and deployed via the polytechnic’s learning management system. Each of these packages consisted of short online video lectures, lesson plan, in-class activities, class quiz and tutorial problem sets. Students are tasked to view pre-assigned online video lectures on a weekly basis before attending tutorial sessions. In the classroom, they checked their understanding through quizzes, discussed and collaborated on activities with their peers, and problem-solved the tutorial set. For evaluation, data was collected in the forms of student surveys, student interviews, lecturer perceptions and assessment score analysis. The summative assessment scores did not consistently show significant differences between the “flipped” and the traditional groups, however there was a significant increase in mean scores of student perceptions of mathematics lessons that serve to measure student engagement and self-directed learning attitudes before and after “flipping”. Both student interviews and lecturer perceptions revealed that the new pedagogy is a welcomed change to how mathematics lessons are conducted. With the largely positive findings, the school intends to scale up to extend the pedagogy to more mathematics modules. Future directions of the project can include exploration of ways to evaluate the pedagogy from the perspective of lecturers and not just learners. The school can also consider sharing its experience and expertise to help other schools and institutions adopt this pedagogical model, whenever and wherever appropriate.
Impact of Regular Formative Assessment on Students' Intrinsic Motivation
Tang U-Liang
(Singapore Polytechnic Journal of Teaching Practice Award 2015)
We investigate the impact of attaching a grade to regular assessment on student motivation in learning mathematics. In our study, a series of Socrative[1] quizzes were administered to students as a means for them to conduct self-assessment on their own learning. These results of this test did not contribute to their final grade and consisted of questions of varying levels of difficulty. Conventional wisdom has it that because these tests were ungraded, students would not treat these work seriously as they would graded work. However, the findings of this study disputes this belief. We found that for good students, they treated this test seriously and in fact indicated that they would not enjoy the test if it contributed to their overall.
[1] Socrative is an online quizzing platform. It can be accessed at www.socrative.com. It is available as an app on mobile devices making it an ideal tool to conduct snap quizzes and surveys.
Piloting Learning Analytics in the Mathematics Classroom via LearningANTS
Edna Chan, Lai Say Beng, May Lim, Soh Ying Ying, Tan-Yeoh Ah Choo
(Singapore Polytechnic Journal of Teaching Practice Award 2015)
Students at Singapore Polytechnic (SP) have diverse mathematical aptitude. Academically-weak students need much hand-holding while those who are academically-strong may get bored if not inspired. As such, there is a limit to the extent lecturers can offer effective help to students in a class. This paper presents the School of Mathematics & Science (MS) experience on piloting learning analytics in the Mathematics classroom via an online differentiated learning system called LearningANTS. Appropriate assessments are incorporated in this system to assess how well learning has taken place. The system then deploys individualized future learning paths for each student, based on the student’s learning history to meet pre-specified learning objectives. With readily available information from the student reports generated by LearningANTS, lecturers can provide timely intervention and offer effective help to students. A pilot run was carried out in AY1415S2 with 96 first-year students in SP reading the Bridging Mathematics 1 (MS011Q) module[2]. The findings of our research, solicited from a student survey and lecturers’ observations were generally positive. By addressing the key issues identified in our research, we can improve the design of the system and refine our strategies to benefit a bigger cohort of students in the future.
[2] This is a bridging module designed to help Institute of Technical Education (ITE) upgraders better cope with the rigor and demands of their first-year Engineering Mathematics I (EM I) module at SP.