Reflections: Week 5 (Lesson on 30th Aug)

The key to writing good reflections is not in the length... MUST NOT WRITE AS LONG AS THE PREVIOUS ENTRY!!! I was shocked!!! Can become a 1000-word essay!!!

Ok, now for lesson 5...

C-mapping Tool was presented. Personally, I do not like to make use of concept map as a student because I find it more of a hassle. I would link the ideas up as I read and study. But I cannot deny its value in helping students link large amounts of abstract concepts together in a big picture. It may not be useful to me, but it still helped millions of students all over the world to study better. That would mean I have to learn to use make mind-maps effectively, so that I can suggest this as a plausible method to help my students link the many chemistry concepts together, especially Mole concept. That was the hardest most abstract concept I tried to figure out for the whole of sec 3 before finally understanding it in Sec 4. One more useful tool to equip myself with. THanks, dudes!!

On the other hand, the lesson proper, we were introduced to some fine ICT resources and half-completed a lesson plan on Periodic Table Group Properties. Wasn't easy. Dr Tan was squeezing ideas out of us on how ICT should be used for higher level thinking skills like analysis, synthesis, evaluation and the best we could come up with was C-mapping Tool and online quiz. Sometimes, certain lessons may not be suitable for ICT to come in for higher level thinking skills, but still as teachers, we need to strive to build on that area in our teaching... Good training, got us really thinking too. Teachers need to be able to look at each topic from many angles and think so much more in order to get the thinking out of students... Need to internalize this process now and practise it during practicum... This course has really challenged me to think out of the box and put away the traditional teaching methods of the past that I was used to... ginger that's old is not always hot in this case... time for overhaul of the old mindset.