UCSB Day 7 - 8

Day 7
Alright! Time check now. It’s 10:34pm now and we have to wake up early tomorrow again. We just got the flights settled for the thanksgiving week. if i am not mistaken, we are going in this order: Santa Barbara>Los Angeles>New York>Las Vegas>San Francisco>Los Angeles>Santa Barbara. Transportation alone’s gonna cost about S$900.

Anyway, today’s day two at Dos Pueblos High School. We cycled there! It was COLD with the the breeze when cycling. So glad that i have my gloves on. We reached in about 45mins at about 715am. Was planning to stand outside the class and wait for the next period but luckily the TA came along and i conveniently went in too. Today’s lesson was much better as there was some content teaching i suppose. while the students did their work (worksheet), I can walk around and help address any problem that they have. But i am ashamed to say that i misread one question and told the student the incorrect answer. However, i will like to mention in my defence that i have explained the concept behind doing the questions correctly so they were taught the right stuffs.

Day 8
Having settled the morning classes arrangements (that i will join the lesson at the 2nd period), we get to travel to school more leisurely. Nonetheless, woke up earlier than i am “supposed to” all cuz of the circus in my tummy. =.=

Today’s a great day and i got to see so much.

Engineer Academy:
DPHS has a very unique programme known as the Engineering Academy. This unique programme is so unconventional that the teachers faced a hard time registering the programme as an official and recognised course. Unlike the other course which are one-off (much like our university modules), students who are in the engineering academy will be required to stay through a 3 years programme to be able to gain full credits for the following three subjects: 1. Engineering Elective, 2. Art & Sculpturing. 3. Physics. With that, a valid question will be the implication of students who fall out of the programme (which reminded me of our Integrated Programme actually). In relation to that, depending on the year the sudent drop out, they will be recognised up to the labelled number (see above) according to the years they are in the programme (not exactly sure how to word that). So a student who drop out in year two will receive credits for engineering elective and art & sculpturing.

The programme will be entirely project based and of which require the students to make various products through their course. Grading will come in various forms. Since the curriculum is multidisciplinary in nature, there are also different modes of assessments. As one of the main aim is to ensure that students gain certain level of mastery through their course of work, teachers will help ensure that students have the required skill sets before “allowing” them to proceed on. The reason for the inverted commas is due to the fact that students will not be able to proceed with the course without mastering the previous skill set anyway. Emily (that’s the name of our guide i thinkk. Let’s assume it as such) mentioned that the kids are so motivated that they just come back during lunch breaks or stay till midnight just to catch up on their work anyway so there wasn’t much of a problem in terms of catching up for slower students.

The mentioning of slower students brings me to this one point that i really respect the teachers and students for. Apparently, the whole programme was designed to promote collaboration. In came this concept of a “village” where the students work as one to help one another. Faster students will help out by making more parts (such as soldered LEDs) which can help the slower students save some time. Say the slower student lack a few soldered green LEDs, he can then go “take some greens from the village”. What’s more, this programme is apparently supported by so many people ranging from retired mechanics to private production firms which help create the circuit boards required for the programming. Parent support group came together to set up a DPEAF which are able to gather 3 million required to earn the additional 3 million state grant. There’s a saying that goes like “it takes a village to raise a child” and here we got it (Gawd it~ lol, the way they will say this two words here). So I am really impressed by this collaborative spirit exhibited from this programme and i think (and hope) that we can encourage such encouraging environment in our system back home too. 

Photo Gallery:

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oh, they had a rock student band playing today during lunch…

***

Biology lesson:
After attending my CT’s lessons, I joined a biology IB class after lunch. Again, i am ashamed to say that i cannot recall much (if any) about the Calvin cycle (other than it’s one of the most complicated system that i have to memorise then). Upon stepping into the classroom, i start to appreciate why the others (of the 5 of us that came) mention that they like the homeroom system. As compared to my CT’s, that classroom’s very much more (yes i know, i am kinda emphasizing here) decorated. Here are a few photos:

Students of this class are more like those students back home (at least the academically involved ones). They asked in class for the type of question that will be asked, the answers that should be given if certain questions are asked. But similar to most of the other lessons that i have attended, i realised that even for the heavily content based biology, the content covered in a class is relatively little. Time is again allowed for students to try out questions during class time (this time i was rather afraid to walk around to help the students since i am not too sure about the topic content). This made me think about our curriculum… We usually do a lot of content loading during lesson time and still, teachers rush to complete syllabus. So is it a case of us taking too much for us to chew on or are they taking too little?

After the lesson, i stayed back and talk to the teacher (who is also the Dept head for science i think). I was informed that the Advance Programme (AP) Syllabus used to have a higher content rigor than that of the International Baccalaureate (IB) which have a higher form of recognition and focus more on application and experimental techniques. They are however changing the state standard (AP) to be more similar to that of the IB and subsequently make it a national standard. Taking the Calvin’s cycle as an example, much like a “black box”, the IB syllabus require students to know what goes in and come out but not the elaborated intermediates. Looking back and thinking about my experiences, indeed, i DO NOT remember any of intermediates! Furthermore, with the ease of access to information through handheld devices, do we really need to load our brains with these terms? Of course knowing is good but can the time and effort be better spent on other areas such as application skills, data analysis skills or experimental skills?

In fact, i thought aloud about how our stakeholders themselves actually demand for lessons structured for exam-preparation instead of gaining knowledge to the teacher and we both agreed that unless the mode of assessment changes, stakeholders will continue to be concerned about performance at high stakes examinations and this will in turn shift the focus of the class lesson. With that much high stakes exams in Singapore, it is almost like telling the people to be indeed be very very very concerned about…… how you do in exams. Results are produced, but at the expense of creativity, innovation, application skills.

General Discussion:
In this section, I will like to mention some very worthy points mentioned when we (the five of us) share and talk about our experiences and opinions after the lessons. As it’s 12am now, I shall just leave it as point form:

• respect for the class
• positive, encouraging attitude among students and between teacher and students
• possible reasons:
• students are given the opportunities to decide and choose the course of action for themselves. This help make them more mature individuals and when reminded that their actions are incorrect, they acknowledge and apologise
• started from young, all the way from elementary school, students cheer on one another
  (e.g. when a student reach the top of a progress chart that monitors the student behaviour, class will cheer and that individual will encourage others by saying that they will get it one day too)
• acknowledge differences and diversity in abilities of student and helping students appreciate that.
  (e.g. special needs student being all cool and saying that it’s ok for his slower progression since everyone is different)
• different education progression
• Singapore system of having JC, Poly and ITE vs US’ Grade 9-12
• personally, i found the Singapore system good since it is able to cater students of different needs. vocational studies for more technical students and this will reduce the attrition rates of the system. Perhaps an additional point to think about is whether we end up counselling students to be overly pragmatic: telling them to go for things that they perform better instead of what they actually like. Many go to ITE just so they get some certificate qualification but that may not be what they truly needed. Good point is that it help them in their eventual application of job but that again, may not be what he/she wanted.
• parking lot
• just thought this was rather useful. Picked up by Zhi Wen during his observation, basically, it involves keeping a column on the board so keep unanswered questions raised during lesson. It may be questions that the teacher is unable to answer or address at the moment. In most of this scenarios, i will just give my reasoned answer and ask the kid to check it up and get back to me. But since i didn’t keep a note of it, i will not get back to the kid and usually, the kid will not return with an answer as well.

OK! There were much more but i guess they slipped off my rattan basket brain. Shall prep for bed. Early morning tomorrow today since we are joining their professional learning team.

***and i got to start working on my journals soon***

UCSB Day 6

Today’s the first day at school!!! A great mixed of excitement and anxiousness. Woke up at 545am and had a bit of Fruit Loops and hot barley for breakfast. Got changed and readied for lesson. Peggy came and off we go to Dos Pueblos High School.
Looks cool huh!

Did not take photos of the infrastructure as I am really not sure if there are anything that I am not allowed to take. The outlook of the school looks a lot older than most of our schools. Most of their buildings are single level as compared to our multi-storeyed buildings. We went to visit the VP who later showed us around the place. While the exterior of the buildings looked run down, some rooms feature ICT such as interactive boards and most had televisions and projectors. They had some other interesting rooms as well such as a media production room where students can film programmes against a blue screen (which is green in colour) and that film will be aired on wednesday 10+ am. They do also have a swimming complex, a football field, theatre, different computer labs in which one takes apart broken computers, etc. We met numerous teachers along the way and were welcomed rather enthusiastically. Dos Pueblos is famous for their engineering department and we will get to tour the place on Wednesday. :)

As they work on a homeroom system, the teacher basically stays in the room and delivers the lesson while the students come in and out between periods. I first met my Cooperating Teacher (CT) at the photocopying room while touring the place. Based on my impression, he was one of (if not) the most nonchalant person with regards to our arrival. Usually most will smile and at least say a welcome but not this guy. When he was told that I will be popping by, his response was “whatever”. :O Gee… Strike one. After the tour, since my CT is the only one with full 6 periods (he is paid more so he says), i went to my class first. During class, it was fine. He will help me in my introduction to the class a little (which i had to repeat about four times for every lesson). As there was another person sitting in the class like i was from UCSB, I learnt quite a bit about the US system. Apparently, they are termed teacher-candidates who are required to meet certain requirements before being able to apply to be a teacher. She mentioned that she is a biology major in UCSB but she is required to serve a total of 60hours in schools before she can qualify for application to the teaching profession. As such, she is sitting in for the monday and friday class from morning till lunch with this Friday being the last day. I have came to learn also that the school offers positions such as being a teacher aid (assistant) to the Seniors of the cohort. Alright, some terms to get use to (i have yet to). Basically, elementary school takes students from Grade 1-6, middles school takes students from Grade 7-8/9 while high school takes students from Grade 9/10-12. Grade 9 are known as sophomores, Grade 11 are known as juniors while Grade 12 are known as seniors. So the Grade 12 (Secondary 4 equivalence) are allowed to take up these roles as teacher assistants to clear credits. Their job varies across teachers and based on the two that i came across, one of them marking some scripts while the other was sleeping.

My CT is a physics teacher so I sat in the physics classes. They have a variety of streams (as we will call them) for every subjects. In the case of physics, there are classes for ‘conceptual physics” which is catered for less mathematically inclined students and “physics” which basically has all of the mathematically components. I am not sure if it is the case of teacher’s expectation but it was told that the “conceptual physics” classes are generally a lot weaker and the difference is obvious when compared to the “physics” classes. The difference was apparently supposed to be so large that i can tell straight. However, I do not see that distinction that clearly. Perhaps it will be reflected in their work but i was not really able to tell from the class itself. As the teacher puts it, the students are less motivated. Indeed they may be so, I am NOT saying that my CT just let them be but I was just reflecting and cautioning myself about how we may discount students if we just think that they are just not motivated or (most damaging conception) not “motivatable”.

The students there are really a lot more vocal. In fact more so than what I have initially expected. What’s contrary to my expectations was that they are actually very considerable and respectful individuals. As much as they may be fun-loving etc, they are acknowledge the importance of upholding an environment that will allow others to learn. I think that this is very admirable. Students raise their hand and keep quiet till their called even when they may be overlooked by the teacher for a couple of times. Furthermore, students are willing to ask questions and not hold them in like Singapore students who most likely wait unless it’s a burning question (I am a Singaporean student yea).

And so the two main things that i took away today and of which i found was very worth looking into were:

• As mentioned, the education of students to respect their fellow peer and people around them. When others speak, listen. Be considerate enough to think for the people around you. There was this one case that a student put up his hand and upon acknowledge to name his problem, he mentioned that he will like to request for special arrangements as to his retest (which i will talk about later). With regard to that, my CT actually answered him and also reminded him that they could have done this out of lesson time so that they do not waste other students’ time. On an off, when students start to get rather chatty due to lack of work, they were asked to REFLECT and consider how that would have affected others in the class.
• That brings me to the next point of reflection. Before a quiz was returned, my CT actually gave out a reflection slip which guide the students to think about and consider how do they think they fared in the test, the content area covered, the hardest and the least hard questions. My CT did also provided his take on the manageability of the paper as well as how he expected the pupils to fare. In this particular test for example, he reasoned that the standard was manageable as there were a few students who are able to score full marks and a good portion who scored rather well. However, the spread of marks was great and that suggested the lack of effort in the underperforming group. I thought that such reasoning provided a logical and convincing (to me) point to inform the students to buck up. Off the class time, i feedbacked to my CT and asked if reflections were done often. As much as i thought that it was a good move, my CT brought up the point that since they were just 9th graders, they need lots of pushing are seldom reflective. Food for thought.

Another interesting point that i was thinking about was the importance of a system of standards. Each state has a set of regulation to follow in the education process. However, teachers are very much empowered to have their own style of grading and assessment. Some teachers will allow retests like my CT does. I think he doesn’t change the paper but he does collect the paper back after going through. The clause was that in order to put the name down on the retake list, the student is required to approach my CT during lunch and then go through the paper once more with him before they can have their name down. Not a bad idea but i was just thinking that students from other class would have lose out because of this retest system. I was also imagining that if this was allowed in Singapore, i will expect a large portion of students will immediately sign up for it even if they have scored close to full marks (well, i may be wrong). Then again, the average of the two tests will be taken so that will prevent some one who did not score full marks to attain full marks after retesting.

As to my CT, i got this rather cold feeling and that he is not very welcoming but well, it’s only the first day and he seemed kinda unwell too. He was also talking to the other teacher candidate about him having taken one more student previously but marked the person down as he did not think that the person was mature enough for the job yet. Sheesh… Strike two! Hope things are not as negative as i am. Gotta wake up even earlier tomorrow as we are cycling to school! Hope that I will be able to make it on time for my 8am class.

UCSB Day 5

Woah. Today’s so happening that i am worn out already when it’s only like 9pm. As it was raining at 7+am, we did not leave for our intended PT session. I woke up earlier than the intended 8am reverie time because there was like a blender in my stomach. Breakfast composed of waffles made ready using a toaster (which is quite a new experience for me). Butter plus maple syrup and it’s ready to be served.

After which, Peggy and Steve came and we left for the farmer’s market (which happens on the Thursdays and the Sundays). The stalls sell a variety of groceries and as the name implies, the stallholders probably prepared the things themselves. As such, the price of the stuffs at the farmer’s market are cheaper than that of marts (and supposedly fresher too). Here goes a few photos~
Getting some apple pie for the dean’s party

Some strawberries.

Assorted vegetable.

Peggy getting some vegetable for the soup. Check those purple broccoli out! We had some. Tasted the same actually.

We got Peggy and Steve a little token of appreciation (almond seasoned in seasalt + some honey) at the farmer’s market and also a bouquet of flowers + an apple pie for Dean Jane Conoley’s party later. The experience was a rather interesting one despite the rain as there are many interesting items to look at and also, the stallholders are all wiling to let you sample whatever “sampleable” from the apple pie to apples themselves.

After the grocery shopping, we left for Peggy place. As there were 5 of us, we had to split 2-3 and I happened to be the three in Steve’s car. We went up the expressway and it was a short distance away. Moved pass some farmyards and landed properties as we will call them in Singapore. Drove past a neighbour who does up “crazy” (according to Steve)  elaborated designs for festivals – in this case, Christmas. Rather interesting also was that we had to drive through people’s yards to get to their home! And when we eventually reached their home, we were all awed. The place was really wow, fantastic (baby).It has a huge house, a garden with numerous fruit-bearing trees and even a swimming pool… Beat that. Let the picture do the talking!

dinning area where we dump our stuffs, had lunch and made the gingerbread house.

SWIMMING POOL !!!!! Covered up as it’s a little too cold to swim in winter. There’s a heater function though that can warm the water up if need be.

An interesting array of plants found beside the main door. These came from different origins ranging from South Africa to Australia.

Red leaves seen on the Japanese Maple Tree.
Lotsa birds encircling the sky so Steve suspected that there was a dead carcass somewhere.

Blueberry plants! But it’s off season.

Apples (see those green ones?)!

Finger lime (black lime in the shape of a chilli). In which contained pulps that looked and burst like fish roe!

Dont remember this one… Think it’s peach or something

Lemon!

Tangerines.


Garage.



Srijith and Cheryl using the fruit picker to pick avocado.

Lotsa tiny birds perched on the bare tree. Just realised that my resolution was set to a lower one… –.-

That’s Peggy and her pond!

In swim 2 kois, a few goldfishes and mosquito fishes. Apparently there were three kois and one got nabbed by a heron while others lived. The large rocks offer shelter for the fishes to hide from their predators and of which includes the racoon other than birds. It was told to us that tree frogs come down to the pond to lay their eggs too.

Now the indoors: (which are equally amazing…)

Collection of items bought from around the world

Oh guys… this is a toilet…

The living room

The reading area beside the dining area!

Collection of wine

The door on the left leads to the computer room and the area up in front is the family room.

That gigantic television there is linked to the computers in the computer room. So we enjoyed the slideshow from the sofa.

Steve prepared lunch which was a vegetable soap with bread and we helped with the cutting of the vegetable (beet root, sweet potato, carrot, green, red and yellow capsicums). And after that, Peggy brought out two ginger bread houses for us to make! Woah! Never made one before. Srijith and I (Star Alliance) made one while the rest made the other. It was rather messy dealing with the icing and stuff but it was rather fun. The other three did a great job and rather quickly in my opinion. Here’s some photos of our end product…


Ingredients. Checked!

Hard at work.

Masterpiece of the star alliance. Apparently, there is a warped story here which is Hansel and Gretel knocked on the witch’s door and climbed up to the roof to troll her. They readied a brown rock in their hands too. Who knows what they will do up on that roof with that rock. The dog saw and climbed the tree (don’t ask me how).

Oh did i mentioned that there was another one other than the one star alliance did? Well, let’s just see it from here lol. Theirs were good.

Since we were running a little early, we enjoyed Peggy and Steve’s slideshow of their recent Indonesia trip and after that, since we had some more time still, we played snapword which is basically taboo without additional taboo words other than the word itself. And soon, it was time to go. In additional to the apple pie and bouquet of flowers, we decided that one of the gingerbread houses should go to the party too and it was immediately decided which house was to go. You all can think about it.

I got no idea how and why I was that tired but i was kinda zoning out already during after the slideshow (just as i am now). And that was not the most adequet state of mind to enter a party. There were many university members there (Deans, admin staffs, visiting scholars, etc etc). As the people came streaming in, this zoned-out introvert just got more and more sieh.I guessed there must be moments that i appeared rather zoned out or something. Hope no one picked that out.

Alrighty, now we are back home. Phew. Tomorrow reverie will be 0600hrs! Shall go iron my clothes and prep for early bed tuck in!