Education Studies

AED10E - Social Context of Education in Singapore

This module was undertaken in Year 1 Semester 1, enabling us to explore education policies and social issues regarding Singapore's education system. This module adopts a flipped-classroom concept where we work in small groups of 3 or 4s to come out with a 1.5 hour seminar for the class, based on our topic.

My group presented on the topic, Every School A Good School, where we explored the society's perceptions of this and the different definitions of the vision from different stakeholders.

Activity: Exploring the Point of View of Primary 6 Students

Activity: Exploring the Point of View of Parents

Activity: Exploring the Point of View of Teacher

Activity: Exploring the Point of View of MOE

AED10A - Education Psychology I: Theories & Applications for Learning & Teaching

This module was undertaken in Year 1 Semester 2, which teaches us different psychological concepts discovered by people like Piaget and Vygotsky. This allows us to better understand our learners and their learning processes, enabling us to better plan lessons according to different learning profiles. In this module, we explored many different techniques that can help us plan better lessons in the future. Personally, I enjoyed this module very much.

At the end of the module, we were expected to do up a lesson plan and a group presentation on a topic of our choice. My group decided to work on Anger Management amongst Children. Due to COVID-19, we faced many difficulties interviewing our interviewees and ultimately, our presentation had to be shifted online. Nonetheless, I think we did a great job and had fruitful takeaways from this module.

AED10A - Education Psychology I: Theories & Applications for Learning & Teaching

This module was undertaken in Year 1 Semester 2, which teaches us different psychological concepts discovered by people like Piaget and Vygotsky. This allows us to better understand our learners and their learning processes, enabling us to better plan lessons according to different learning profiles. In this module, we explored many different techniques that can help us plan better lessons in the future. Personally, I enjoyed this module very much.

At the end of the module, we were expected to do up a lesson plan and a group presentation on a topic of our choice. My group decided to work on Anger Management amongst Children. Due to COVID-19, we faced many difficulties interviewing our interviewees and ultimately, our presentation had to be shifted online. Nonetheless, I think we did a great job and had fruitful takeaways from this module.

AED20A - Teaching & Managing Learners at the Primary Level

This module was undertaken in Year 2 Semester 1. From this module, we learnt more about classroom management and catering to the needs of diverse learners in our classroom. This module also teaches us to create safe, inclusive and supportive learning environments for our students. We also had the opportunity to develop our own personalized classroom management and behavioural plan.

This module is extremely useful in preparing us for the Teaching Assistantship in Year 2, as well as the Teaching Practicums in Year 3 and 4. While I was on my Teaching Assistantship, I saw how different teachers implemented different classroom management and behavioural plans. Despite the differences, one similarity that lies in all would be their classroom management and behavioural plans were effectively communicated to their students and they are able to understand and follow the rules set by the teachers. This highlighted to me the importance of setting such expectations and communicating them effectively to the class.

AED20C - Technologies for Meaningful Learning

This module was undertaken in Year 2 Semester 1, where we learnt about incorporating technology into our lessons. In the module, we were introduced to the Design Map which aid in the planning of our lesson. The Design Map helps to plan out the process of using technologies in class, reminding teachers include the 4 important aspects of such lessons: Activate Learning, Promote Thinking & Discussion, Facilitate Demonstration of Learning and Monitor & Provide Feedback. One of my biggest takeaway from this module is to always consider the convenience of students when using technologies, as they may face difficulties switching from one platform to another. Hence, as much as possible, it would be ideal to embed platforms onto SLS, especially when multiple platforms are involved, as it is the platform that students are the most familiar with. The attached is an example of how I made use the Design Map to plan a lesson for Primary 3 students:

AED20B - Educational Psychology II: Theories and Applications for Learning and Teaching

This module was undertaken in Year 2 Semester 2, where we learnt to understand more about learners and how their environment affecrs their learning. This module also used a Problem-based Learning approach where we were provided with real-life examples of different student profiles, enabling us to make connections between these examples and the theories we have learnt. This allows for more a more authentic setting and better prepares us for when we met with similar situations in the future.

AED20D - Assessing Learning and Performance

This module was undertaken in Year 2 Semester 2. In this module, we learnt about the basic principles of educational assessment as well as strategies to monitor, appraise and evaluate learners’ content knowledge, progress and performance achievement. From this, we learnt how formative and summative assessments work and how could we include such different assessment methods in our classes. We were also taught to identify the different types of assessments, such as Assessment for Learning, Assessment as Learning and Assessment of Learning. From these, we are now able to better understand our roles as teachers and explore the different methods of assessment suitable for different learning tasks/assignments.

In addition, we also learnt about the different motivation styles of learners, as well as the methods to tackle test anxiety. Learners' motivation styles are closely related to how they learn. Hence, this is important for the planning of lessons and the identification of learners' helplessness in class.

AED30D - Supporting Diversity at the Primary Level

This module was undertaken in Year 3 Semester 2, where learners' diverse backgrounds, needs, and abilities are illustrated to us. We were also taught to understand and value differences, creating an inclusive classroom for our students. With differences, differentiated instructions also come into place in order to better meet students' learning needs. Through this module, we also learnt how to educate students on differences and enable them to be more accepting of those who are different from them.