I wish my teacher knew...

Through out this year, I've always been thinking about how to get into my students' heads. Not in a creepy, psychoanalytical way, but just simply trying to work out if my teaching input has borne any fruit in their minds. Kids don't usually volunteer feedback on what they have learnt, but occasionally, I get some really spontaneous, honest feedback about my teaching, like "THIS LESSON IS BORING." or "Miss Tan, I think you're a really nice teacher, but can you, like, be a bit more ACTIVE?" 

So in between designing feedback-on-learning exercises with my kids, and posing craftily phrased questions to elicit the truth when I investigate wrong-doings in class, I thought it would be really nice to build an atmosphere where the children were more open to sharing their thoughts with me. Sharing anything they wished I knew. I chanced upon a Facebook post a few weeks ago where a teacher asked his students to write down one thing they wished he knew. He got back some really good responses, and in the process, managed to get to know his students a lot better. 

I did this exercise with my Grade 4s. I highly recommend doing this with your students. Parents can even do this with their children. I think, as adults, we sometimes think that children think the way we do, and because they seem so happy and carefree, the only things that are on their mind are immediate self-gratification/food/ice-cream/toys. Here are a few responses I got that really touched me. 

1. "I am short..." 

You know when teachers have certain routines in class like lining up? We do it because it's neat and orderly. But where these kids stand in the line also has implications to them, and sometimes always being in the front because you're small just makes you feel that much more exposed and insecure. I never knew this student felt that way, and now I understand why she's always running back to the line. Also, it's amazing that she's so kind-hearted.

2. "Help my friend..." 

I teach a really competitive class. Sometimes I am appalled when I see how the rat race already starts from such a young age.  So I was pleasantly surprised when I received this note from my student whom I assigned to be a buddy to a new child who joined my class. This new student is from a different country and he's having trouble keeping up.  I give him extra help but he's always smiling and seems to participate enthusiastically in class, so I had no idea that he felt that way.

3. Just generally pouring out secrets... 

I had no idea that this kid felt this way. I didn't know she was a middle-child, and wants more attention. This student obviously cares a lot for her parents, and probably doesn't know how to express it to them. Also, it's interesting to watch your students approach adolescence and explore relationships.

4. Family issues... 

This student is one of the quieter ones in my class. It must be hard trying to lead a normal life and understanding family commitments and parents' limitations. 

5. Looking out for his brother... 

This is my favourite. When I received it, I nearly cried in class. So a set of triplets got transferred to my school from a different country. Two of them ended up in the same class, while another one ended up alone in another class. The oldest brother out of the three wrote this about the one who ended up alone in another class. 

6. Being noticed 

When you're constantly surrounded by children who want your attention, it's easy sometimes to miss out the quieter ones. I know I'm guilty of that and I'm going to make sure I never do that again. This student tries so hard! 

So for teachers/parents who want to carry this out, just a few things to bear in mind: 

1. Leave this an open exercise, though you might want to give a few examples of what they would like to think of. E.g. a secret you want to share, something that is bothering you, something you wish your teacher could do in class etc. 

2.  Tell them that you will not judge them on their responses and this is an exercise to help you get to know them better. 

3. Give the children ample space and time to think about what they want to write. 

4. When you get responses that need a follow-up, make sure you do that. A child knowing that you're there to provide a listening ear will feel so much better, even if there isn't anything you can do for him/her. 

5. When the students feel more comfortable, and to build a caring environment in the class, you could ask them if they would like their responses to be shared and discussed. I find this helps a lot for children who feel bullied/picked on. 

Talk moves - Facilitating good discussions in class for elementary school kids

I'm now way into the teaching year (the Singapore school year starts in January).  I haven't been the most consistent in blogging about my teaching experiments - it's been so hectic! 

Recently, one thing that has piqued my interest is getting kids to have really meaningful class discussions, where students think and engage more deeply with what each other are saying. I realise that most class discussions consists of the me fielding the questions and having this two-way conversation with the class, but the students aren't talking to each other. 

I don't know how many of you have experienced this, but sometimes, my class discussions turn heated and I'm there trying to prevent the class from descending into anarchy. It puzzles me that my students get angry with each other for having differing opinions, often not attempting to clarify their thoughts and convince the other person to come over to their camp. Instead, it turns into a competition where they try to see who can drag their 'NOs' the longest and loudest. Also, in addition to academic excellence and sharing knowledge with the children, it's important to teach them skills that help them critically think through ideas and communicate effectively. I find that often, my kids would not speak up or defend their ideas overzealously to 'save face'. I’m working on teaching them that it’s ideas to be discussed respectfully, not the person.

So I’ve started trying to enhance student talk for learning by teaching my kids to use these deliberate sentence starters and options called ‘talk moves’ when we are carrying out discussions. They are pretty simple and I wondered why I hadn’t thought of doing these with my kids ages ago.  So there's a variety of talk moves out there but here's a list of those that I've started with whole class discussions and I've found to work: 

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Talk moves

1. Repeat/Rephrase: Getting your students to ask someone else to repeat/rephrase their answer if they can't hear it or do not understand it. You can also get students to repeat/rephrase someone's answer to check if they are paying attention. 

2. Add on: Students may volunteer to elaborate on what someone else has said. 

3. Agree and why: Students should have an opinion on what their friends have shared. They may agree but more importantly, they have to state why. 

4. Disagree and why: Pretty much the same as above. They may disagree and state why. 

(I saw an interesting video where as a student was sharing, other students were taught to do a sign for if they agreed with their friends answer and if they disagreed. I tried this with my class and found it really useful as a tool for whole-class formative assessment. You could find out at a glance who agreed and who disagreed and made it easier to facilitate the discussion.)

5. Connection: Students may volunteer an idea that is connected/related to what their friend had shared.

6. Change my answer: Finally, after the whole discussion, students may decide that they want to change their answer. As a formative assessment tool, you could also make up a sign they could do to show that they would like to change their answer. 

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Of course, these talk moves can also be used when students break up into their groups for group discussions. 

There's a really good website here that explains 'talk moves' as well and that provides the ground rules for discussion. I modified and went through these ground rules for 'speakers' and 'listeners' and how classroom discussions should be carried out respectfully before even going through the talk moves. I was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked. Here's the link: Productive Talk in the Classroom

I've also created a powerpoint that explains the talk moves to the kids and the sentence stems they should use. It's written in kid-friendly language. =) Here it is: Talk moves powerpoint for kids 

Enjoy! 

Reasons to Laugh

It's been so long since I've written, but I haven't forgotten this blog! This year has been especially hectic teaching the first class of 9 year olds, since they're all so unusually precocious. In the spirit of Teacher's Day, and having more time to muse about and be amused by my students, I'd like to share about why school is so much fun for me. 

Here are some of the top moments of school with my 8-9 year olds. There are too many, so there will have to be a part 2. 

Number 5: Rhymes

I taught my kids about poetry a couple of months ago, and how we usually use rhyming words. So I challenged them to write their own poem, and make them rhyme. Ten minutes into the activity, excitement had evolved into belligerence. A tiny boy with humongous eyes and a crew cut was glaring in the direction of an equally pint-sized girl who was also throwing daggers at him. 

Girl: HEY! Stop making fun of my name! 

Boy: I'm not! I'm telling you what someone else said about your last name. 

They called you Marina Bay Sands. (Her last name was Bay.)

Girl: YEAH. Stop it or I'm going to tell Miss Tan! 

Boy: Why are you so mean?! I didn't even say anything when you called me Lucas the Mucus. 

As you can imagine, it was really hard for me to keep a straight face as I emphasised the importance of respecting each other. 

Number 4: Philosophical musings

The kids have to reflect upon their learning after every Science chapter. This one was on Fungi and Bacteria. Clearly this kid was in a philosophical mood. 

Number 3: Advice

This particularly precocious girl in my class who has a really adult way of speaking approached me with a complaint letter. It was about two girls who made fun of her favourite cake. The last line really made me laugh. 

Number 2: Being schooled again

During one of the snack times, I was sitting at the teacher's table in class while my students were taking advantage of the 15 minute break to catch up with whatever breaking social news had happened in the last half an hour. 

Suddenly, I felt someone staring at me from the side of my table. I glanced to my right to see the tiny boy with humongous eyes and a crew cut (see Number 5: Rhymes) looking at me with hopeful eyes. 

Boy: Miss Tan…can I tell you something?" (He was so excited he was all breathy and couldn't stop fidgeting)

Me: Yes, what is it? 

Boy: Do you know this thing called…gravity? (It took him awhile to pronounce the word)

Me: Yes.

Boy: Do you know why even though there is gravity on Earth, the moon doesn't crash onto Earth? 

(At this point, I thought he was trying to tell me a joke, because the kids love telling me random funny things. So I asked him why.

He took a deep breath before launching into his little speech.) 

Boy: BECAUSE, right, there is this thing called CEN-TREE-FOO-GAL force. So, right, it, like, keeps trying to go straight (At this point, he whips out a very dirty, tiny ball of blutack and a string and starts illustrating his point.), but the gravity from the Earth is, like, trying to pull it back. But it doesn't ever crash into the Earth, but it just REE-VOLVES around it. 

Random kid at the back: MISS TAN, IS HE TELLING YOU ABOUT CENTIPEDE FORCE?! 

Number 1: Infidelity

I don't know what this kid has been watching at home. 

That's it for now. Teaching these kids is very challenging, but they always keep me on my toes and entertained. =) 

New Year, New Term: First Impressions

So it's back to school after a nice long 3 week break away. I'm now back with a completely new class. This bunch of students are quite a lot different from my kids last year. For one, they are all in the first class and they're in Primary 3 (9 year olds), which means they've just graduated from a lot of hand-holding in Primary 2. 

Now that I've had 6 months of qualified teaching under my belt, I thought I kinda got the hang of it. I was right and wrong at the same time. 

Last year, my kids were really quite passive and were very effectively conditioned to just be well-behaved. Plus they were also in Primary 4, so they had a year's worth inculcation of sky-high expectations on how to be good by their previous teacher. This lot, on the other hand, are a lot more opinionated and because they're really quite bright, give me a lot of suggestions and thoughts. Sometimes they're really good ("Miss Tan, why don't you appoint two people to help you carry your books? Our teacher did that last year." What a great idea! Thank you!) and sometimes, they're just plain funny ("Miss Tan, I don't think you should kill the ants on the floor…my aunty is a Buddhist. She says it's evil to kill things. We should love all living things."  I didn't know how to respond to that). 

All in all, they're really sweet and I think my classroom management skills are somewhat transferable to this bunch. Also, because they're the first class, I expected no trouble from them. I was wrong.  There's this one particular girl in my class who seems to really hate me. 

I was actually quite taken aback when I told her off one day in front of the class and what I got in return was a venomous glare, rolling of eyes and furious muttering under her breath. This has happened a few times mainly because she has consistently refused to complete her work in the stipulated time and instead, spends time doodling and writing letters. So I dished out the old, tried and tested 'warnings and consequences' trick, where I would give her 3 warnings and if she still didn't comply I'd have to tell her off (consequences). After which, I pulled her aside and explained nicely why she had to complete her work in time etc. You can imagine what I got back in return. A sullen glare. 

It's been a real bee in my bonnet because I cannot, for the life of me, understand why she displays such vitriolic behaviour towards me. Coincidentally, she's a third of a triplet and her sister is also in my class, but is the exact opposite. I called her mum today, after receiving a note from her to call her, and found out a few things that this girl said to her: 

She doesn't like school because: 

1) She thinks I hate her. (That really hit me in the gut.)

2) She doesn't have many friends in this new class. 

3) She feels stressed out that she's in a 'smart' class and won't get a chance to lead.

4) She feels stressed that her younger sister seems to be doing better than her, and bossing her around.

Also, she appears to have 'Middle child syndrome', where she feels inferior to her other siblings. Since all 3 are pretty bright, you can imagine what a competitive household it must be. Thus, my pointing her out in class really must have embarrassed her and coupled with all these extraneous factors, such as family background and disposition, caused her to react this way. I guess, at the end of the day, she wasn't really trying to be rude to me. It was just her coping mechanism for dealing with stress and embarrassment. 

I should have seen that coming - I actually felt really bad that I hadn't managed to figure this kid out and help make her first week in school better. All that Social and Developmental Psychology study about birth order and class dynamics is starting to make sense now that I'm seeing it in action. Time to change tactics with this kid, looks like this class is going to be a little bit more complicated than I thought it would be. So now that I understand the root of this problem, I'll try to give her more leadership roles, have a chat with her about what I can do to make her feel more comfortable, and give her more chance to interact with her old friends so that she can ease into this new class. Also, I'll stop singling her out when she's not fully complying with my instructions - I'll have to choose my battles more carefully. 

Next entry, I'll put up some pictures of my kids' work on adjectives and talk about the 'Yarning' game that I played with them to bond the class together. 

Being Schooled

There are some lessons you never learn in teacher training.

Muddling through NIE and rehashing contemporary, fashionable education ideas about teaching being a two-way process in my essays, I'm only beginning to understand what a professor of mine in  Bristol once said to me.

I asked him how he got from studying engineering to teaching then to training teachers and finally to becoming an educational cognitive neuroscientist. As he related his story, he had this faraway thoughtful look of wistfulness, sadness, pride and amusement when he touched on his teaching career. Then he paused and said, "Yeah. Teaching. Knocked a few edges off me."

Then we went back to talking about my dissertation artificial agents.

In the last 6 months, I've certainly had some edges knocked off me.

Here's a lesson in pain and resilience:

There was a kid in my class who has an impressive track record of crime since he was 7. It ranges from housebreaking and theft to arson and violence. His family background isn't the most stellar, with both parents in jail. He had absolutely no interest in studying and in Term 3, he was in school only 18 days out of 40. Also, he's a brilliant kid and a fast learner, but because of his chronic absenteeism, he had fallen behind very badly and couldn't follow the pace of lessons whenever he returned to school.

So he gave me some problems in class, and for the first few months, I was always nervous of this kid, because I didn't know quite how to relate to him. For one, he didn't seem to care that much for rules or routines in class, and probably saw through my discipline attempts - that I was pretty hopeless at being tyrannical. Here are some reasons why I will always remember this kid.

1. One day after banishing him to the back of the class because he had lied about doing his homework, I called him to me after I gave the others seat work. I asked him why he thought I was angry and he muttered under his breath, not looking at me and being really pissed off, "Because I didn't do my homework." To which I told him it wasn't because he hadn't done his homework, I knew he couldn't do it, I was disappointed because he had lied. I told him simply that I knew he was a better person than that.

I didn't know what an effect my words could have on this kid. He lifted his eyes to stare at me, and in that moment, that hardened look I saw so often in his eyes gave way to tears.

2. I heard from the social worker that his mum had gone into jail. His dad had gone in about a year earlier. His aunt was now looking after him and his sister. A day after his mum had gone in, during snack time, I noticed he didn't have anything to eat and during recess again, he sat by himself on the bench, not talking to anyone. I asked him to show me his wallet, so I could check if he had any money on him. He took out a brand new wallet and opened it.

There was nothing inside - no money, no ez-link card - except for a tiny, carefully preserved picture of his father.

I felt a lump rise in my throat as I asked him what he had for breakfast, and what he was going to have for lunch and dinner. He said his aunt would cook for him if she was home.

"What if she isn't home?" I asked.

"I drink water," was the reply.

Now, after the social workers' visits to the house, the aunt ensures that his meals are well taken care of.

3. His mum was pregnant when she went into jail. This kid was really worried because the doctor had told them that his baby brother wasn't going to be able to function mentally as well as other children. I suppose he didn't really know how to express this to me, because he told me when we had built a better relationship that his baby brother was going to be 'handicapped'. He always furrowed his brow and tear up whenever he told me about this. One day, as I was marking, he sidled over and asked shyly, "Miss Tan, is 24 October last week?"

I confirmed this and he smiled happily, "Oh. My baby brother born already." Then he skipped away. I've never met a kid who remembers dates like that.

4. As far I knew, this kid was completely unsentimental on the outside to his friends. He was one of the biggest troublemakers in school, but as time went by, I saw a side of him that makes me want to cry. There was a day where I made him stay back with me to go through his Science homework because his exams were coming up soon.

The next day, I found a tiny, crumpled up note shoved into my class letter box. It read:

"Thank you, Miss Tan, you help me Sience homework." 

5. During an FTGP lesson, we had the kids identify their love language, then write down one person in their lives that they wanted to show their love language to them.

This kid couldn't follow and probably didn't quite understand what was happening, but this was what he wrote.

Now that the year is up, I still think about this kid's notes to me. I think about how he carries his family's burdens, but still has innocent childish worries about others not playing with him. I think about how he wrote 'goli' in his exam paper, because he couldn't remember the English word for 'marble'.

Most of all, I think about how he thanked me and I really want to say to him,

Thank you for teaching me more about life. 

Teaching Experiment #4: The Silly Ingredient

When I was still doing my MEd. in the Psychology of Education and debunking neuromyths, we had a session discussing how BrainGym wasn't really "repatterning and rebalancing our brains" for better learning. However, simple exercises could aid in learning because it's associated with blood flow in the frontoparietal areas, regions which help in higher-order reasoning processes. For a full report on BrainGym, click here.

So what does the Silly Ingredient have anything to do with this, you might be wondering.

I was sitting in class one day after the exams (yes, revision went by in a blur, and exams have come and gone!), looking at my kids, who were needless to say, a bundle of energy encased in tiny human bodies. I had to go through the answers to them and ensure that some sort of learning did take place. So I brightly told the class we were on a mission to zoom through the exam paper and I really really really needed their help for that. As all eager-to-please 10 year olds do, they boisterously stepped up to the task of assisting their teacher.

Within 5 minutes, I had lost them. They were all dropping like flies.

In desperation, I recalled Energizers I had encountered in Cooperative Learning strategies. Then I remembered how physical movement and exercise could really get the blood in the brain flowing (Finally, the point!). So I made up some short, silly energizers you could play with the kids to wake them up and get them ready for the next 20 minutes of chalk-and-talk. Over the past few months, I've perfected some. Feel free to make your own up - the sillier, the better!


1. Call the Action
First, tag actions to your own set of words. Then simply call out the actions and the kids will have to show them as quickly as they can. To make it more confusing and to drive the kids nuts, I often call out the actions and show the wrong action to throw them off. For example:
a) I tagged 1 to showing 1 index finger, 2 to showing 2 index fingers, 3 to putting both index fingers on one's lip.
b) High 5 to putting one's hand up in the air, high 10 to put 2 hands up, high 15 (leave this to the kids' imaginations - my kids put up both hands and one foot), high 20 (this one is always funny)
c) Bunny ears (to show bunny ears behind their heads with their fingers)
d) Medusa (intertwine 3 fingers from each hand and wriggle them behind your head to simulate Medusa's hair)

2. Mix Your Seats 
I call out people with a defining characteristic and those who belong in that group has to jump up and change seats as I count down. Some categories I use are:
a) Those with long hair....change seats!
b) Those who wear glasses
c) Those who love peanut butter
d) Those who are scared of the dark

I also use this activity to get to know my kids better and find out things about them. Make up silly categories for your kids - they love those!

3. The Best Freezer 
Basically, I get the kids to do a series of actions, where they have to concentrate on memorizing them. Teach the kids the actions in a rhythm so they can remember the series better. Then as they are doing them, I shout out "FREEZE!", and they have to freeze in the action, which is always very entertaining for their friends and me. Those who move get disqualified and stand in front with me to identify their unfortunate friends who aren't able to keep stock-still in the next round.

Another variation of this is me getting the kids to walk around the class and I would call out a particular category and those people who fall in it have to freeze. At this point, the kids usually get extremely noisy, so I incorporated this phrase, "You have to keep quiet because I'm calling...THOSE WHO SIT BY THE WINDOW!" After a couple of rounds, the kids learn that they have to scamper around while suppressing their laughter and excitement to an acceptable noise level, otherwise they won't be able to hear the group I'm calling out.


After 5-10 minutes of these energizers, the kids are normally on an adrenaline high. So to get them back to a more sedate state, I get them to sit down and close their eyes. Then I get them to take a deep breath, while I count down from 5 to 1 before they breathe out. This usually settles them down a little, leaving me with more perked-up kids and a longer time before their concentration flags again!

Teaching Experiment #3 Take-off, Touch-down and Mini whiteboards

I've been experimenting with how to make revision lessons less tedious and more engaging. It's pretty difficult to figure out what the general class' ability is if you can only ask one or two students a question at each time. In this post, I'm going to talk about the 'Take-off, Touch-down' strategy and mini whiteboards

Take-Off, Touch-down

I use this to test the learning temperature and preferences of the class. Basically, touch-down means to sit and take-off means to stand up. Though it sounds simple, the kids really enjoy this because it means they can move around and they like the airplane metaphor. 

I use this for True/False questions, to find out the likes and dislikes, if they understand or not understand - basically, for anything that only has 2 answers to.

Mini Whiteboards

So now, mini whiteboards are my new best friend for formative assessment in class. They are very easy to use, and the kids love them! Note that you should also use DRY-ERASE markers with them, as other markers tend to leave an ugly stain on them. A lot of my kids have their own whiteboard dusters, but for those who don't, I get them to use a small square of toilet paper, or if you want to be environmentally friendly, just any old piece of cloth will suffice.

Here's what I use my mini whiteboards for:

1. Pairwork
Today I got the kids to sit in pairs to do a grammar exercise on Present Perfect Tense . They numbered themselves 1 and 2. For each question, they got to discuss the answer and 1 and 2 took turns to write.
I would time them and give them about 20 seconds, then call out '1, 2, 3...FREEZE', whereupon they would show me their answers.

The kids love this probably because they can legally talk to their friends in class and there's some safe competition going on with their friends.

2. Groupwork
I use this in a few contexts. I usually get the kids to first number themselves and give each number a role (E.g. scribe, leader, material collector, noise controller).

a) Sometimes I get them to discuss a difficult Science application question (or any more difficult question that would help having more discussion), then have them discuss it among themselves and show their answers.

(I also used this in my Sink and Swim game that I blogged about awhile ago. Check out the post here.)

b) I've also found out that magnetic mini whiteboards are fantastic. When I was teaching the topic of light, I was trying to find out if the kids knew how to draw the lines showing the reflection of light into a person's eye. I found that it was really helpful that I got the kids to work in groups and draw them out, then put up all their magnetic whiteboards to point out the right ones and where the misconceptions are.

This also worked really well when I got the kids to brainstorm ideas then put them all up on the whiteboard to draw links and connections to ideas.

You can find magnetic mini whiteboards from Daiso, they come in different sizes!

My mini whiteboards and markers.

You can put them up if they're magnetic! Makes for a good teaching tool.