When the Ministry of Education (Singapore) laid out the first Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Masterplan in 1997, Dr Tay Lee Yong was teaching at Henderson Primary School. He was then nominated by his principal to learn more about ICT and help lead the school in its implementations. Just prior to joining NIE, he was with Beacon Primary School, one of the schools under the FutureSchools@Singapore programme. Now Teaching Fellow at NIE’s Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice, he talks to SingTeach about his experiences with the Masterplan, ICT in education and how this has paved the way for online and blended learning in Singapore.

The first Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Masterplan laid the foundation for schools to harness ICT in education by providing basic infrastructure and equipping teachers with a basic level of digital competency. Several rounds of upgrades have taken place since the first ICT Masterplan in 1997, such as the ICON email system, the installation of broadband Internet in schools, and, in recent years, the development of the Student Learning Space (SLS) by the Ministry of Education, Singapore (MOE) – an online platform containing tools and curriculum-aligned resources for students to reinforce their learning at their own pace.

“Today, students and teachers are not only equipped with the necessary ICT hardware and software applications, but teachers also undergo professional development in how to leverage ICT in their teaching. Since the first Masterplan, we have learned how to use ICT more effectively to enhance and facilitate students’ learning. Teachers are now able to pivot from face-to-face to online learning easily,” Lee Yong comments.

The Impact of the Pandemic on Blended Learning

Lee Yong observes that the pandemic has made a “sudden catalytic push for ICT” and has accelerated the pace and timescale for online learning. He points out that as teachers had to adopt and integrate ICT in their lesson plans, attention was redirected towards the use of ICT in schools. This has led to an evolution in our approach towards blended learning.

“When schools transited to full home-based learning (HBL), concerns with accessibility and e-pedagogy arose, resulting in the acceleration of the Personalized Digital Learning Programme (PDLP). To better support HBL, the PDLP has been brought forward by a few years and all secondary school students will be secured with a personal leaning device by the end of 2021,” he shares.

SLS was also utilized heavily through the HBL period, as the functions offered such as the Interactive Thinking Tool, or the ability to create varied questionnaires and quizzes, allowed teachers to put a creative touch in their lessons and find new ways to engage their students online. The curriculum-aligned resources available on SLS also allowed students to revisit ideas and concepts touched upon in the lesson, and helped teachers in their lesson planning.

“With the prolonged pandemic situation,” Lee Yong remarks, “the potential of online and blended learning have been felt more authentically. It goes to show that after more than 20 years of ICT use in schools, the country’s investment in infrastructure and teacher training has been put to very good use. Whilst these efforts were largely not noticed by many before, ICT has now become another critical medium of instruction as blended learning becomes an integral feature of Singapore’s curriculum.”

Facing the Challenges Head-on

Implementing online learning comes with its own set of challenges. Lee Yong highlights the problems associated with online learning. “According to the literature in this field, there are three types of interactions inherent in effective online courses: learner-to-learner interaction, learner-to-content interaction and learner-to-instructor interaction,” he shares. In his words, “this adds at least another layer of complexity.”

He adds that while students are able to carry out learner-to-instructor interactions, two clear challenges of online learning are students’ engagement (learner-to-content) and the lack of interaction with their peers (learner-to-learner).

“The lack of interaction with peers during full online learning can affect students’ engagement levels, as well as their socioemotional well-being. In this sense, blended learning may be the answer as it comprises face-to-face interaction and is able to ‘compensate’ for the disadvantages of full online learning,” he says.

It still remains, however, that virtual classrooms have proven to be a challenge for younger students to navigate, and even older students can struggle to stay engaged over a prolonged period of time.

So what can be done to address these issues?

Strengthening Efforts to Advance Blended Learning

To overcome these challenges, Lee Yong advises that teachers need to be more mindful in the design of the lessons, consider different learning needs, and provide different and more bite-sized ways of accessing the information and allowing students to respond.

“Moving forward with blended learning, we must keep in mind that while ICT plays a key role, the considerations to design online learning environments that meaningfully engage students are more important but are also complex,” he says.

Teachers and students will also need to constantly learn new skills and keep up-to-date with technology, be it for home-based, blended, or face-to-face learning contexts. According to Lee Yong, the main goal of implementing blended learning is to ensure that learning is not disrupted due to any unforeseen circumstances. He reminds us that it is crucial to always strive to further enhance online and blended learning even after COVID-19.

“As a researcher, I feel that it is even more important now to continue our research efforts to better understand how to improve our online teaching pedagogy. We also need to understand, from the local context, how to make blended learning even more effective. In the future, what I hope to see is how machine learning and artificial intelligence could be harnessed to enhance teaching and learning for all,” Lee Yong concludes.