Reflections by Ian

Our lessons with our chosen VWO has come to an end, and it is encouraging to find that the students appreciate us having them, and actually do look forward to our lessons. It is true that students will be noisy at times and uncooperative, but there is no need to be too harsh with them. All that needs to be done is engage them in the lessons. We find that the students of mainly Primary 5 and 6 origin are more interested in hands-on activities, especially those involving fire. They ask us to heat stuff like eggs, chemicals just for the fun of it. Perhaps this is because they do not get to do this at home, so they grasp the opportunity to conduct these experiments.
We learn from each other, seize the opportunities that come our way, add just a little bit of over-excitement and some exertion. The result is a well-sculpted masterpiece of experience and new knowledge, plus a recipe that can be passed down from student to student. We encourage them to pass on what they have learnt to the others in their normal classes. In this way, the information might be passed on quickly and efficiently, much like a chain email. However, this calls for a thirst for knowledge, and a hunger for creativity.
The students have learnt much from us about how advanced science is carried out, and we trust that our lessons will come in useful one day in their little lives. Even as they cross the barrier and step into secondary school, they would be a step ahead of their peers. We besiege them not to boast about their knowledge, but help the rest of their peers along instead. We have learned much about how to be efficient teachers, as well as a revelation of how we used to be in primary school from an outside view. I can say that working with these small lives will be something hard to forget, because heart and soul has been put into these short hours of interaction. We have reached them, and they, us.
Principle of Reciprocity (Timothy Stanton, 1992) - I serve you in order that I may learn from you, You accept my service in order that you may teach me.

Ian~

The 1st lesson overview plus... my view...

We had our first RE-SL session with selected students of Yew Tee Primary School. We encountered several difficulties but for our 1st time I feel we did a decent job.

We travelled to Yew Tee Primary School with our teacher mentor Mr Ng Kai Yong, but due to unforeseen events we arrived at 2.20 pm, before our estimated arrival time of 2 pm. We hastily set up the apparutus and fortunately managed to set up before the primary 5s, our first batch of students arrived at 2.30. We got underway.

We introduced ourselves and our motives, namely to give back to society by teaching the primary school children. But just before we began the lesson, the overhead projector failed. Apparantly the AV equipment could not respond to our dismay. After repeatedly trying to get the laptop (Tian Yi's), we called the IT technician there. We got the projector working with the IT technician's help and got started to prevent further time-delaying.

Moving on we taught the Primary 5s about the periodic table and itsbasic concepts, before enticing them with some live chemistry experiments and getting their interest. Rounding of we gave a little quiz to help refresh the information of the Primary 5s. I do feel that we got the very curious Primary 5s interested and that they were very attentive and interested in our presentation. I felt better about this project after the 1-hour session with the primary 5s.

Then Tian Yi started to feel very tired of teaching. He was our main speaker in the session with the primary 5s. Therefore he decided that we speak up a little more. But when the Primary 6s, our second batch of students, came in Tian Yi apparantly forgot his fatigue (mental or physical?) andcarried on with the speaking, although I did the experiments insteadof Tian Yi for the primary 6s. The second session went better than the first, with less distractions.

Overall given that this was our first sessions, and that we did not know the students, we did interact well, more so with the rather enthusiastic primary 5s than the primary 6s.Teaching was definitely a "easier said than done" thing and although we had a few mishaps here and there, we pulled through and I feel this project can be a success.

The Transcript of our Interview

Yo. This is the overview of the interview we had with the Yew Tee Primary Principal

After we enter the principal’s office, Tian Yi gets the ball rolling by giving an introduction of the group members and how we want to collaborate with the school.

When Tian Yi comes to the part of the learning journey that we are going to hold at the discovery centre or science centre if possible, the principal asks whether the discovery centre is suitable venue for a learning journey. The group replies that we have not acquired permission but are trying to do so, and the Learning Journey has high probability of being carried out if no unforeseen circumstances occur.

Next, after Tian Yi explained about what RE-SL was, he also told the principal that he and Ian had experience from last year’s RE program and that this project will go more smoothly.

After this, the principal asked us the location of our homes, for whatever reason that we don’t know.

Then, as the discussion proceeded the principal said that the Wednesdays are quite suitable, so tian yi goes on to say that a reason for us embarking on this project is due to the fact that the primary school science is split into three parts, namely chemistry, physics and biology.

Then, the principal says that the science teachers and others who are linked to the sciences could give us recommendations on how to improve or make the project more exciting. The principal next asked about last year’s Learning Journey experience and what he hopes to achieve in the project. Our responses were mainly leadership, how to communicate with different age groups, how to learn planning well etc. Then, after the sharing of experience, the principal starts asking Ian about his primary school and how he feels about the school. Ian suggests that the PE module take a change as there are no specific modules set for PE.

Just then, a science teacher comes in and asks for the modules that we are going to offer. Tian Yi tells the teacher that students would be conducting experiments and observation. There will be an inquiry about the materials that we will bring to showcase to the students and the working space we need is just roughly the size of one classroom. When the explanation for the experiments is being given it will be in a class but for the experiment it will be divided into four groups to facilitate better understanding of the modules that the students will embark on. The targeted ones are those who are generally better in sciences and YTPS has a science elite group.

The time taken to get to YTPS is 45 minutes and the Learning Journey transport matters have to be settled as inconvenient for students to get there themselves and due to the school having remedial on Wednesday the time has to be altered a little. After the project, the secondary objective can be to introduce RI as a potential school to try to encourage the primary school children to try to pick RI as one of their options when opting for a school. There will be a presentation at the beginning and the end of the course and the issue of certificates has yet to be decided, but is a possible option. A quiz will be given at the end of the modules to see what memory retention the students can get from the lessons and experiments and the prizes will be set at a later date. There will be permission slips issued to the primary school children who are interested as the time of the lessons can be late and the parents are to be informed. When the approval has been given the first presentation will be to try to draw students to come and sign up for the modules. The course will not be in the syllabus and is extra knowledge and therefore students are not required to acquire these facts beforehand.

Introduction to our plan!

Hello here! We are a group of students from RI secondary 3 doing a Research Education Project which involves learning through service to the community. This is also known as RES-L, which stands for Research Education Service Learning. We have decided to embark on this project as we wanted to give back to our society which we have benefited from. We made the project in the form of lessons, which is targeted at primary school students. We are aware of the incomfortable abrupt change from the single Science to Biology, Chemistry and Physics in secondary schools, and we want to do our best to alleviate that change. We feel this sudden change cause panic in the student's minds, and we want to show them that actually the subjects are fun too. We focused on the subject Chemistry, and it is more optical. We believe this can capture the student's attention better than theories which are generally more complexed. The main aim of this project is to allow the students to see the interesting side of the Sciences, so that they will be more receptive to them. I shall be posting about the meeting with the principle in the next post. So look out! The link below links to the proposal and timeline which we will be following. Please visit for a overview of our project.

Signing off~~