30/10/12 session

Group members: Liz, Adrianna, KB, Yjaylol, Wove

Topic:
1) Identify and define a problem or a question about classroom practices, which you would want to investigate more (what problem or question does your group want to specifically explore?).  The problem should be important in both Korea and Singapore, and it should be related to classroom practices.
2) Discuss the reasons, consequences, relevant conditions, pedagogical interventions, etc. about the selected problem or question.

The session focus follows up with the previous session. As we have discussed on the topic “group work” during the previous session, Liz mention on how to form groups in a classroom settings. Kb mentions that usually in Korea, students are grouped according to number or where they sit. Adrianna agrees with KB and that teachers often get students to turn around and just form a group with the peers around them. Yjaylol follow on by saying that sometimes they group the class into the ‘boys’ group and ‘girls’ group. Wove then mentions that in Singapore, usually groupings are arranged according to their learning abilities with the stronger peers guiding the weaker peers. Different ability learners are present in each group which eliminates the possibility of them having low self-esteem. The teacher usually plans the groupings beforehand and their seats are allocated according to their grouping. Groupings may change every 3 to 4 months or each year depending on the respective teacher. Kb further question on how ability is measured in Singapore, Liz explained that it is usually measured by the student’s grades which lead to another question on what if no data of students are present. Wove thinks that it will be based on the teacher’s judgement for such cases and primary 1 is taken by the senior/experienced teachers.

Liz continues the discussion by mentioning if there is any pedagogical direction for group work and if these theories are relevant to group work in primary school. The group then decided that a possible problem is how can group work be carried out in the primary school classroom? Adrianna and Yjaylol think that students should be grouped according to their learning abilities and a variety kind of practices is needed to do group work with young children. As time was running out, the discussion became the homework of the session and a further discussion will continue in the following week.