Using tech to dispel the fear of learning
Forgotten how to calculate the area of a trapezium? Fret not. Because Senior Teacher Mr Charles Yip at Tampines Secondary School has a simple and catchy melody to which he sings, “Half the sum of the parallel sides, and times the height between them.”
Using music to help students remember mathematical formulas is something Mr Yip, who has been teaching for 20 years, has been doing for a while. He used to make up these tunes himself, and also used songs found on YouTube. More recently, however, he’s been tapping on Artificial Intelligence (AI), specifically, the Generative AI (Gen AI) tool Suno, to craft these jingles. And that’s just one way technology is helping him make his Mathematics lessons more engaging.
Mr Yip teaching his Maths class.
“I always question myself: why can’t the students remember or understand the concepts?” he says. Very often, he realised, it was simply because these concepts were not presented in ways that were interesting and accessible to them. For some, there is also the very real obstacle of fear.
Take algebra, for example. “Some students approach this topic with an unfounded fear, maybe because it’s a more abstract concept. If I tell them the next topic I am teaching is algebra, they will say ‘it’s so difficult’, even though they have not encountered it before.”
To dispel this fear, he decided this year to use the framework of an adventure story to introduce students to algebraic expressions. He used Gen AI tools, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude to come up with the plot of students getting lost in a jungle while trying to reach a mysterious city. To get directions to their destination, they had to tap on their understanding of algebra to answer questions.
Mr Yip used Adobe’s Firefly AI tool to generate the accompanying illustrations for this story. To craft the questions, he drew from lessons that other teachers had shared on the Community Gallery in the Singapore Student Learning Space (SLS), MOE’s online teaching and learning platform for students and teachers.
Students could get digital badges when they scored enough points, and even get on the Leaderboard. “Those with a higher readiness were excited about being on the Leaderboard,” he observes. For students that needed more guidance, “I had the time to assist them one by one and help them cross certain hurdles in terms of concepts.”
The results were encouraging. His students’ completion rate for this gamified lesson was higher than any other SLS lesson he has introduced to date. They also asked if they could have more lessons of a similar nature – a sure sign that they enjoyed their jungle adventure-based algebra lesson and were motivated to learn more.
For him, technological tools like Gen AI are like invaluable assistants “whom I can bounce ideas with 24/7, so I can have more options and continue to have this sense of novelty for my students.” For students who find Mathematics challenging, “the most important thing for them is to build up their confidence,” he says. “I want them to really love this subject. That is the whole idea behind creating such lessons for them.”
Nurturing life skills with software
Ms Lee facilitating her students in observing spatial patterns using MOE-EduGIS.
When Ms Doris Lee was an undergraduate, she found geographic information systems (GIS) too technical and abstract. GIS is a computer software that helps collect, store and visualise spatial data and relationships. She did not think GIS was a key skill to impart to her students and avoided using it as a beginner teacher.
It wasn’t until her stint at MOE HQ in 2015, when she had to co-lead the development and deployment of MOE-EduGIS (an online digital map platform for MOE teachers), that she uncovered the usefulness of GIS. “I had to overcome my own apprehension. And I had to understand why teachers didn’t like using GIS, find ways to create buy-in for them to leverage on technology and help them integrate it with their lessons.”
The key was getting teachers to realise how the digital maps could help students understand the real-world relevance of Geography, and open doors for more post-education and career opportunities. She linked industry partners up with schools, so students could see how GIS was used in areas such as urban planning.
Besides connecting students to the wider world, EduGIS has also enabled this Senior Teacher at Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School to make her lessons more rooted in their everyday experiences. For instance, she enters their postal codes into the online app so she can show her classes where each student stays relative to their classmates.
“I want to create inclusive classrooms, so I don’t only talk about Yishun [where Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary is located], because not every student lives in the vicinity,” she explains. Such mapping activities also enable her to group students for projects by where they stay, and spark curiosity about one another’s neighbourhoods. “It gives them a way to get to know their classmates better, and form friendships. Students also co-create maps to share their memories of the neighbourhoods, and this kick starts conversations about shared experiences and evokes a sense of belonging.”
EduGIS also allows for the comparison of past and present maps of the same geographical area, and the layering of data such as population size and amenities. These capabilities create many opportunities for investigative geography. In 2023, a team of her students demonstrated at the Singapore Geospatial Festival how they used EduGIS to analyse the demographic profile of a Yishun neighbourhood in relation to the connectivity of its cycling path network, then propose where new cycling infrastructure could be built. By studying existing patterns and proposing new ways to better meet the needs of residents, students practice inventive thinking – an important 21st century competency skill.
When students use GIS to observe patterns, they are more able to see the application of The First Law of Geography, which is “everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things”. EdTech tools also help students take greater ownership of their learning, which helps them better understand and retain knowledge.
“I always challenge my students to think critically in my Geography lessons,” says Ms Lee. For example, what can they infer about redevelopment plans for a neighbourhood based on the age of its public housing flats? Where would they choose to set up a business based on the demographics and layout of a town? “I always tell my students, we don’t need to have the answers – asking questions is more important. And when they start asking questions, we can have a very rich discussion about different topics.”
How teacher collaboration unlocks the potential of tech
Ms Lau guiding her students in the use of AI tools during Chinese lessons.
Corporation Primary School’s Senior Teacher Ms Lau Sze Hui has been teaching Chinese to upper primary students for 10 years. In this time, the variety and capabilities of EdTech tools have grown by leaps and bounds; among other things, there are now more interactive learning formats, and feedback can be generated immediately.
But for Ms Lau, the biggest gamechanger is how pedagogy is now guiding the use of technology. “In the past, the use of technology was usually a standalone activity, and students were not so engaged,” she observes.
These days, however, designing EdTech lessons means referencing certain Key Applications of Technology (KATs) so that EdTech is effectively integrated to support lesson objectives. Ms Lau shares these objectives with her students before they start an activity, so they all understand what they are working towards. “This helps promote active learning, which leads to more enthusiastic students.”
Ms Lau has also joined interest groups to bone up on EdTech. One of them is the Networked Learning Communities (NLCs). And one of her most valuable takeaways from the Master Teachers who advise NLCs is that understanding that technology is the means to achieve pedagogy’s ends. “It’s important for teachers to engage in professional development and collaborative learning as often as we can, because EdTech evolves very fast,” she stresses.
Ms Lau regularly shares her EdTech success stories on Online Networked Learning Communities (ONLCs) such as Singapore Learning Designers Circle (SgLDC), hoping to inspire more teachers to try out such lessons themselves. She believes that everyone learns from experience and experiments. “Get feedback from your students about these lessons, and find a group of teachers willing to try out new tools and exchange ideas with you,” she advises.
In Corporation Primary, she is the point person for EdTech. This means she leads regular EdTech demonstrations and hands-on sessions for her colleagues. “This approach is very much appreciated, because they feel they need the time to really sit down and try out these tools with guidance and scaffolding,” she shares.
Ms Lau (2nd from right) leading her colleagues in a hands-on session on EdTech tools.
For her colleagues who are interested to learn more, Ms Lau also conducts one-on-one sessions on EdTech tools, puts together user guides, and opens up her classroom so they can observe how she uses EdTech. Regular discussions among the school’s Key Personnel keep everyone engaged in thinking about how to deploy EdTech to further goals such as differentiated learning, she adds.
SLS is another platform where teachers can work together. “Teachers, both within the same school and from different schools, can collaborate to create shared resources through SLS. I have done both, and further customised these resources to suit my students’ learning needs. This saves a lot of time,” she elaborates.
The lack of time, after all, is a big obstacle for many teachers when it comes to using EdTech, she acknowledges. But she advises teachers to keep at it because practice makes perfect. “Try to align the EdTech learning activities and resources to your work, to re-evaluate the use of current physical resources so you can achieve better outcomes without doing more,” she adds. Beyond that, the sky’s the limit. Being open to technology “is all a mindset”.
