First day at Blair High School

Wow. It was quite an adventure. The first thing that hits me was just how huge the compound was, well at least when compared to my school in Singapore. Classrooms are all enclosed and when the doors are closed during lesson time, the hallways are very quiet. Lessons are range from 1 and a half hours to 45 minutes and then the students have 6 minutes to get to their next class. The students don't really have a home class and they may have different classmates for different subjects, kinda like college.

They are a magnet school for math, science and computer studies. It is like my school's center of excellence for science. I guess they have advanced curriculum in these subject areas and I look forward to taking a look what they do in these classes.

The most shocking thing for me, is the fact that students don't wear uniforms. That's fine most of the time, but some of girls' dressing leaves a lot to be desired. Plus some of them are constantly touching up their makeup so much so they have little time for anything else. On the other hand, I have entered classes where the students are engaged, actively contributing to the discussion and learning.

So it caused me to think, what makes or breaks a class. Of course the subject matter makes a difference. Some subjects or topics may seem more interesting to the teenagers and so it's less effort for the teachers. But good teachers can turn boring subjects interesting and bad teachers can well ...

I had a lot of fun attending my first biology class where the teacher started the topic of ecology by playing a snippet from the Disney's production of Pocahontas and asking the students to categorize things they see in the film as biotic or abiotic factors. I had the chance to walk around the classroom when the teacher had the students do some work in groups and it was fun to work with them and helped them understand the concepts.

First lessons at the University

It has been almost a month since I have been in Maryland. After numerous outings, gatherings, and tons of good food (the crab cakes at Annapolis were heavenly), I finally attended the two courses I applied at UMD. One was a course for preservice teachers on Teaching and Learning Science, the other is a graduate level course on Applied Measurement.

The courses were interesting to say the least. I never had much love for math, much less statistics. But when it comes to measurement and testing as mentioned by my professor in my Applied Measurement course, the results of the test should relate to the behavior we want to measure through some mathematical equation. And statistics will help us describe and compare this data across different students. I realised in order for us to design suitable tests, we need to be very clear what we want to measure, and how the data collected in the test relate to the construct or behavior we want to measure. I hope after this course, I will be better equipped and have more understanding about assessment in the classroom. I also found that testing agencies are a big thing in the US. Teachers that got tired of being in classrooms can opt to work in these testing agencies.

The other course was a class for seniors who are about to graduate as science teachers. It was fun for me to see them learning and getting ready to go into the classrooms. It reminded me of my own journey as a student-teacher, learning the theory of different pedagogies at the National Institute of Education in Singapore and my 8-week practicum at a Singapore secondary school. I felt honored that my professor thought I could assist her in the class and that I have things I can contribute to the class. I guess I will learn more about US teacher training and professional development as I spend more time here.

Overall, I think the conversations here at UMD will continue and my teaching and learning will be enriched through the experience.