IGNITING JOY OF LEARNING through deck.Toys

MR MICHAEL SIM MOH NGIAT, TEACHER

MS ARCHANA D/O RETHENAM LOGANATHAN, TEACHER

MDM LIM SEO LING, TEACHER

KEMING PRIMARY SCHOOL

Transforming your Lessons in Class!

Would you like to find out more about how we could transform students’ learning through the use Deck.Toys app? In this digital gaming era, learning would be more stimulating through interactive online lessons in the format of a game. In Deck.Toys, many games are readily available through community sharing for you to adopt and create your own content template.

Through the use of Deck.Toys, teachers are able to modify existing resources to suit their students’ needs. Teachers are no longer constrained by existing resources when creating interactive lessons. With Deck.Toys, they can also identify learning gaps of their students through the classroom reports.

The answering of questions is no longer mundane. Students will find it exciting to complete these tasks in Deck.Toys as they work towards their final destination. In the process, they meet the intended learning outcomes. Students generally enjoy the competitive nature of the platform and are motivated by the challenge and the points system of the interactive lessons in Deck.Toys. Each deck is indeed an adventure to conquer!

An insight into the Lessons Carried out in Keming Primary School

Lesson Design

We have rolled out three different lesson packages across different levels using Deck.Toys, a common, free-to-use ICT tool, to ignite the joy of learning in Mathematics and Tamil Language. We managed to create interactive lessons which empowered students to learn the concepts, be problem-solvers, and validate their learning.

Each lesson is structured as follows:

Learning Outcomes: What students will learn by the end of the lesson.
Lesson Overview: We use design maps to plan our lesson and incorporate Deck.Toys strategically in the lesson. In the first lesson, you will be able to view from a student’s perspective on how the deck works.
Evidences of Students’ Learning (Refer to the next segment for further explanation.)
Students’ Feedback (Refer to the next segment for further explanation.)

Evidences of Students’ Learning

Similar to the SLS monitor page, Deck.Toys offers ‘Classroom Report’ in their database for a week for free accounts. You can download and use this report to check on your students’ learning.

We were able to capture students’ learning gaps through the platform. When the students returned to their physical classrooms, teachers took the opportunities to address any misconceptions or common errors identified in the ‘Classroom Report’.

To make the report meaningful, you could craft and include open-ended or reflective questions to check for students’ understanding of the concepts.

Lesson 1: P2 Mathematics Lesson (By Michael Sim)

Learning Outcomes

The lesson was designed for students to review what they had learned about Picture Graphs. At the end of the review lesson, students would be able to self-validate whether they are able to:

read and interpret picture graphs with scales,
compare two or more types of items given in the picture graph, and
find the sum and difference of two types of items in the picture graph.

Lesson Overview

P2 Mathematics teachers assigned a review package in SLS incorporating a game using Deck.Toys called ‘Escape the Picture Graph Island’ to seven classes of Primary 2 students during the blended learning in 2020.

Check the poster view of the deck in Deck.Toys to see all the tasks in the lesson. You can zoom in to see all the details of the deck before assigning it to your students. You can go over to: https://deck.toys/a/mJBn1N7wY to access the deck.

To see the lesson that we assigned to the students, go to the Community Gallery in SLS: https://vle.learning.moe.edu.sg/community-gallery/lesson/view/0fc6cb6e-51a5-4fe2-adc7-46c5e56457b7

Walkthrough, Evidences of Students’ Learning and Students’

Feedback

The students had to go through a series of activities which allowed them to learn and recap the lessons, and test their understanding. See the video walkthrough of the deck to see what a student will experience through the deck.

Through the analysis of the ‘Classroom Report’, we were able to know that students were able to use the correct scale to multiply the total number of books found by John (7 x 3 = 21) and May (2 x 3 = 6). A common mistake made by students was that they did not read the question properly and added all the number of treasure books found by the four explorers.

Through the feedback captured in SLS, we found that students were glad to have a different way in revising their lesson on Picture Graph through Deck.Toys. Most of them were also able to complete the activities on their own. (See the ‘Students’ Feedback in SLS’).

Click here to see the "Walkthrough of the Deck".

Lesson 2: P1 Mathematics Lesson (By Seo Ling)

Learning Outcomes

We incorporated Deck.Toys in our SLS lesson to teach the students on the topic of Time. By the end of the whole lesson unit, students should be able to:

Tell time to the hour and half hour.

Lesson Overview

P1 Mathematics teachers introduced a lesson from Deck.Toys called 'A Journey in Time' to seven classes of Primary 1 students as a flipped classroom during the PSLE marking period in 2020. Students were tested on their understanding via flash cards, and were also instructed to match answers to check on their understanding. The graphic representations helped to cater to weaker students who might have difficulty understanding the lesson. Students found the lesson using Deck.Toys interesting and most of them were able to complete the activities independently.

You can go over to: https://deck.toys/a/m16w2Kylc to access the Deck.

Assessment for Learning and Evidences of Students’

Learning

We could check our students’ learnings through the Deck.Toys database on the ‘Classroom Report’. We were able to capture students’ learning gaps through the platform. When the students returned back to their physical classrooms, teachers took the opportunity to address any misconceptions they had.

As the students were from Primary 1, activities were intentionally designed to make the lessons interesting and engaging. First, the Primary 1 students would learn the different clock faces with the corresponding times through the flash cards task. Videos were also included to provide more scaffolding and guidance for students. To test their understanding, they would then complete a simple line matching activity to match the correct times to the clock faces. Multiple choices were used to check on the students’ understanding and mazes were used to capture their attention.

Feedback from Students

Using SLS Interactive tool and polls, we gathered feedback on the students’ learning through their self-evaluation. Generally, students enjoyed the game, but some students found it challenging to access the website on their own without their parents’ guidance.

Students liked the games incorporated inside Deck.Toys as they were competitive in nature. The points system showed them how well they did and gave them a sense of accomplishment when they saw the scores. In addition, there were students who would redo the lessons to ensure that they beat their previous score.

Lesson 3: P5 Tamil Language Lesson (By Archana)

Learning Outcomes

The lesson was designed for students to revise the homonyms and proverbs which students had learnt in Semester 1. At the end of the lesson, students will be able to:

recall the proverbs learnt in their 5A textbook,
distinguish the homonyms based on their meanings, and
use the homonyms appropriately in sentences.

Lesson Overview

This lesson was carried out during the full Home-Based Learning period. As such, the platform used should allow students to learn, recap and then put their understanding to test effectively. Therefore, taking these factors into consideration, Deck.Toys was chosen as the ICT Tool to carry out this lesson. You can go over to: https://go.gov.sg/kemingtamildeck to access the Deck.

Teaching & Learning using Deck.Toys

Students had to go through a series of activities which allowed them to learn and recap the lesson and test their understanding of the lesson. For example, students were tasked to view the flashcards which taught them the meaning of the homonyms. After which, students had to complete a quiz on homonyms (answering every question correctly) before moving on to the next segment.

If students answered the questions wrongly, they would not be able to proceed with the rest of the activities. As such, students would have to revisit the flashcards and learn the definitions again before re-attempting the quiz. Hence, this reinforces students‘ learning, and provides opportunities for students to be engaged in self-directed learning.

Feedback from Students

Features of Deck.Toys

What are the features of Deck.Toys which you can use to set meaningful tasks?

Some key features of Deck.Toys are:

Flash cards
Choices
Match
Lines
Maze
Memory

Check out the video below for more explanation. You can access the video via this link: http://bit.do/DeckToysFeatures.

Hands-on Activity: Creating Your First Deck

Method 1: Building your Deck from scratch using Wizard

To create your first deck In Deck.Toys, you can use the wizard as a guide or build a customised Deck with your own background and create your own template.

In this tutorial, we will be guiding you to build your first Deck using the wizard. By the end of this tutorial, you will be able to:

create a Deck
create a Class, and
assign the Deck to your Class

Once you have assigned the Deck to your class, you will be able to customize your URL or use the default one, and embed the Deck into SLS. To learn how to embed Deck.Toys into SLS, do visit the SLS Community Gallery: P2 Mathematics Lesson - Chap 16 Picture Graphs with Scales (Online Game) or visit the following link: https://vle.learning.moe.edu.sg/community-gallery/lesson/view/0fc6cb6e-51a5-4fe2-adc7-46c5e56457b7

To see the video on how to create the Deck, click here.

Method 2: Use existing Decks from the Deck Gallery

Another method to create a Deck is to use an existing deck from the Deck Gallery, and the process is similar to using a lesson package from the SLS Community Gallery. In Deck.Toys, there is a wide range of existing Decks across different levels and subjects in the Deck for you to test and assign to your class without breaking a sweat!

In this tutorial, we will be guiding you to use an existing Deck. By the end of this tutorial, you will learn how to:

navigate the Deck Gallery,
make a copy of an existing Deck, and
assign the deck to your Class.

You may also modify the original Deck before assigning it to your class to better customise to your students’ learning needs and profiles.

Have fun! Hope you enjoy the tutorials that we have prepared here!