Wednesday, June 22, 2011

MyJune Holiday Reading

As a way to contribute to my own professional development, I will like to share about a book I had read during this holiday entitled: “The Leader who had no title” by Robin Sharma. I am interested in reading his book as I find Robin Sharma an authentic leader who realized his own success through close examination of his inner motivations. Only when he chose to redefine his core values, brining them in line with what he knew to be right, did he start to understand the secrets of true happiness and success. Hence, I too believe that in order to be happy and successful, I first need to know myself. Thus, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) had helped provided me with some understanding of my own personality.

In his book, Sharma mentioned two types of leadership. The most familiar one is those with title such as president or CEO. The second type is the power of each individual to drive positive change wherever they are. He asserted that “Those who grasp that reality understand that their core belief will affect others, therefore those beliefs must be intentionally considered and applied.”

He offered an example of a woman named Anna who was a housekeeper of a hotel, but believed that “.. I have the best jobs in the world.” She sees herself as a good willed ambassador for the hotel, deeply important and essential to the smooth running of the organization. Another example cited is Burt who installed carpets and takes pride in doing what he did and leading others to their best by staying true to what he knew was excellence.Burt raised the bar of those who knew him.

I think what very much attracted me to this book was such illustrations of role models, who demonstrated my desired quantities (although almost certainly at a different level). Hence, knowing my own personality, it is also now possible for me to be aware and learn of the significant difference – in the manner in which I would approach a particular situation or a principle that I hold dear. Of course, with the goal of being inspired by such a leader’s example, and not to try to duplicate everything that was achieved or represented.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Take Advantage of new beginnings

I feel privileged that in education, I get to experience several beginnings (Term 1, 2, 3, 4) each year. The beginning of each term brings new possibilities. So the start of each term offers incredible opportunity to do better than before. Because of such breaks, I think that I can let go of what was not successful before and rededicate myself to the goals of my profession – educating and molding the future. After the break, we are refreshed and enriched. So as Term 3 and 4 gets underway in two weeks time, I will spend a few moments looking for opportunities to take a fresh start at my approach to ICT implementation in the school. I hope to release myself from decisions made that did not work as well as I had hope. I hope not to lose track of the lessons learnt from them, and more importantly to let go of any disappointments attached to them. Make the new term that just begun the one in which to improve upon and the sort of difference I have always hoped for.

Knowing my limits

I believe everyone knows that there are both things that we can control and things that are beyond our control. It is important to know such difference. Sometimes in our eagerness to advance an idea, we waste valuable energy trying to transform things that are impervious to change. Like it or not, there are those who wont be brought on board an endeavor no matter how persuasively we do it. Some of them are so committed and convinced to their causes they already supported (direct teaching) that it is impossible to interest them in things (such as ICT) with a different focus (self-directed and collaborative learning).

To me, what is critical is to make a resolution that I will need to let certain things go and stop frustrating myself to devote useless energy to something that cannot be changed. By doing this, I will now have much more energy, time and enthusiasm to spend on things that I can make a positive difference.

In the following weeks, I hope to continue identifying through reflections other specific objectives in my professional teaching that would be exciting to achieve and work towards achieving that goal for the rest of the year.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Communication, Reasoning and Connections – Is it necessary for mathematics classroom?

This is a professional learning week. Together with four other teachers, I attended the Mathematics Teachers Conference 2011 at NIE, entitled “Communication, Reasoning and Connections”. This theme is found in our Singapore mathematical intended curriculum framework under processes. I am most glad to see that the conference had selected such a theme as I too believed that our school curriculum likewise should have elements which focused on these processes. These processes are important to our students and are worth the time and attention of teachers. Below are some of my reflections on the theme.

Reasoning

Reasoning offers powerful ways of developing and expressing insights about a range of events. Students who reason and think analytically tend to note pattern structures, regularities and symbolic objects.

As a mathematics teacher, I strongly believe that reasoning is essential to better understand mathematics. By developing ideas, exploring of phenomena and justifying solutions instead of just solving the content, students could then recognize and expect that mathematics make sense. Hence, such skills can be introduced to all mathematics content areas and across levels. Moreover, all students already bring to school a certain level of reasoning and we should build on these considerable reasoning skills and help students learn what mathematical reasoning entails. In our Primary schools, the students are exposed and used the different heuristic skills.

Connections

In the workshops I attended, both speakers mentioned that students too often perceived mathematics as isolated facts and procedures. They highlighted that this issue was likely brought about through the school implemented curriculum. I agree but I also believed that the textbooks also played a part. They also asserted that students should recognize and use connections among mathematical ideas. But do teachers themselves able to make such connections such as between numbers, algebra and geometry as they are not of everyday experiences. As a classroom teacher, I think that the connections should be instead made so as to build mathematical conceptual understanding. Concept mapping is an example of enabling connections. With conceptual understanding, students will then be able to recognize and apply mathematics in connection to what is known to the unknown world.

Communication

Communicating mathematical thinking and reasoning is important for developing understanding. It is a way of sharing and clarifying ideas. There is a need to emphasis the importance of communication is due to the fact that students do not speak of mathematics other than in the mathematics class. How often I get upset when students are unable to articulate mathematical terms properly, often using word like “this”, “that thing”. Moreover, I think that it is through the communication process that makes the students think and not just “adsorb” what the teacher says. As students are challenged to think and reason about mathematics and communicate their thinking, they will then learn to be clear in both verbal and in written form.