{"id":7900,"date":"2014-01-08T13:14:31","date_gmt":"2014-01-08T05:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/singteach.nie.edu.sg?p=7900"},"modified":"2021-09-15T07:10:37","modified_gmt":"2021-09-15T07:10:37","slug":"issue46-classroom01","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/singteach.nie.edu.sg\/2014\/01\/08\/issue46-classroom01\/","title":{"rendered":"Research as Professional Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>Just sharing good practices among themselves is not enough for teachers at\u00a0Yu Neng Primary School. There, every teacher is encouraged to become involved in\u00a0action research, for the benefit of their pupils.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<h1>Teachers as Leaders<\/h1>\n<p>All teachers are leaders in the classroom: This\u00a0is a belief that Interim School Staff Developer\u00a0Mdm Zuraida Akbar shares with many teachers\u00a0at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yunengpri.moe.edu.sg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Yu Neng Primary School<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>What they do in the classroom matters, and\u00a0their central question is always, “How would my\u00a0pupils benefit from what I\u2019m doing right now?”\u00a0Because of this belief, the teachers get together\u00a0and share their good practices.<\/p>\n<p>But Zuraida sees a need to go beyond such\u00a0sharing. “We always go by tests results, our gut\u00a0feel, and our conversations,” she says.<\/p>\n<p>“Now we do research. With action research, we go a step further. When we say that this is the\u00a0way to go, we are now backed by data \u2013\u00a0it is\u00a0data-driven.” This allows the teachers to better\u00a0understand their pupils’ needs.<\/p>\n<h1>Empowering Teachers<\/h1>\n<div style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/singteach.nie.edu.sg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Classroom_yuneng_1_for_web-300x208.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"208\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">(From left) Pauline Ng, Eymani Helmi, Zuraida Akbar and Nicholas Tan believe that research is integral to a teacher\u2019s professional growth<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The school adopts action research as the collaborative tool in\u00a0their Professional Learning Community (PLC). Within the PLC,\u00a0teachers decide what issues are pressing and should be looked\u00a0into. From there, they then propose their research ideas.<\/p>\n<p>The reason for giving teachers such autonomy to decide is simple: They are being groomed\u00a0as teacher-leaders.<\/p>\n<p>“That it is not dictated is something that makes us more independent as teacher-thinkers. It\u00a0really makes us think,” shares teacher Mdm Eymani Helmi.<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to professional development, going for courses may be helpful but\u00a0research have the potential to empower teachers to become more self-directed in seeking\u00a0improvement in their teaching practice.<\/p>\n<p>“Engaging in research brings us to a different level \u2013\u00a0we are our own boss in our teaching\u00a0and learning,”explains Eymani.<\/p>\n<p>For teachers, being able to take charge of their professional growth and learning not only\u00a0helps their own development, but their pupils’ too. “We believe that when our teachers grow\u00a0professionally, our pupils will definitely benefit from it,” says Zuraida.<\/p>\n<h1>Support from School Leaders<\/h1>\n<p>Getting teachers involved in action research is something that aligns with one of Yu Neng\u00a0Primary’s strategic thrusts, which is “Growing Staff in Innovative Leadership”, says Primary 4\u00a0Level Facilitator Mrs Pauline Ng.<\/p>\n<p>And it is through the strong support provided by their school leaders that made action\u00a0research possible for teachers.<\/p>\n<p>But engaging in research isn’t always a comfortable idea for some teachers. “I always\u00a0believe that without knowledge comes uncertainty,” says Yu Neng’s Vice-Principal,\u00a0Mr Nicholas Tan.<\/p>\n<p>To help them ease into the idea of research, he brought in a research expert from <a href=\"https:\/\/nie.edu.sg\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NIE<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nie.edu.sg\/profile\/hairon-salleh\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dr\u00a0Hairon Salleh<\/a>, to conduct introductory courses in action research for teachers. The teachers’\u00a0misconceptions of research were addressed during the course and it also helped boost their\u00a0confidence when they embark on their projects.<\/p>\n<div class=\"shortcode-block-quote-left\" style=\"color:#999999\">\n<p>Engaging in research brings us to a different level \u2013\u00a0we are our own boss in our teaching\u00a0and learning<\/p>\n<p>–<em><strong>\u00a0Eymani<\/strong><strong>\u00a0Helmi,<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0Yu Neng Primary School<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>A challenge arises, however, when it comes to data analysis because not all teachers are\u00a0equipped with statistical knowledge and skills. To address this, some teachers in Yu Neng\u00a0conducted in-house workshops for their colleagues.<\/p>\n<p>These teachers are natural statisticians who often lend their analysing expertise to\u00a0colleagues as and when they need it, says Mr Tan. “They are very comfortable in handling\u00a0data so they are there to support them and analyse data, and then give it back to the\u00a0research group.”<\/p>\n<p>Such transference of skills is aplenty among the different research groups, which helps foster\u00a0teacher bonding. Teachers are also encouraged to share their research findings.<\/p>\n<p>“We have a sharing day within the school,” says Pauline. “We also encourage teachers to\u00a0share beyond the school, in cluster events and international conferences.”<\/p>\n<p>“I feel it’s very important that we must celebrate successes,” says Mr Tan. “We may not see\u00a0overnight that the teachers become very competent in research, but I always feel that we\u00a0must be there to encourage them and to celebrate together what they have found, and let\u00a0them report their findings.”<\/p>\n<p>And with a genuine passion to help pupils and the strong school support, these teachers are\u00a0motivated to further explore innovative teaching strategies using research.<\/p>\n<div class=\"message-box-wrapper yellow\">\n<div class=\"message-box-title\">One School, Many Research Projects<\/div>\n<div class=\"message-box-content\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yunengpri.moe.edu.sg\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Yu Neng Primary School<\/a>\u00a0has a rich mix of action research projects that look at both academic and non-academic subjects, and even issues such as student motivation in doing homework. In this year alone, the school has initiated 13 research projects. These are two of the projects.<\/p>\n<p><i>Modular Sports Programme<\/i><\/p>\n<p>A group of Physical Education teachers created a modular sports programme targeted at a group of pupils who are obese. The team came up with intervention strategies to help these pupils fall within the healthy body mass index<em> (<\/em>BMI) range. Rather than forcing them to do exercises such as running, the programme encourages pupils to play games during their recess break. The teachers found that the pupils are motivated by the element of fun in these games and thus, are more forthcoming in taking part in the fitness programme.<\/p>\n<p><i>Using Drama and Music in English Language Classroom<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Led by Mdm Eymani Helmi, a team of teachers came up with teaching methods to enhance lower primary pupils’ learning experience in the English classroom. They developed the English Unit Plan, which includes using drama and music to teach the experimental group of pupils. The teaching strategies usually involve games to motivate pupils to learn the language.<\/p>\n<p>For example, in the unit <i>World of Tools<\/i>, pupils play a game called <i>Hot Seating<\/i>, a teaching strategy often used in drama lessons to engage pupils in acting out the role or character of an object or person.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to the lessons, Eymani conducted drama training sessions for her colleagues to better prepare them to use such teaching strategies.<\/p>\n<p>“This is very much aligned with holistic assessment,” says Eymani. Instead of explicit teaching and telling, the teachers are practising the underlying principles of holistic assessment, which are about “building confidence, and desire and motivation to learn”.<\/p>\n<p>“We do have pupils who do not come from English-speaking home so we really have to immerse them in this very rich, engaged environment” Eymani adds. Through this project, the team found that pupils enjoy English lessons more and display more enthusiasm when taught using such strategies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just sharing good practices among themselves is not enough for teachers at\u00a0Yu Neng Primary School. There, every teacher […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[260],"tags":[9,22,29,82,107,174,259],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/singteach.nie.edu.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7900"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/singteach.nie.edu.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/singteach.nie.edu.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/singteach.nie.edu.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/singteach.nie.edu.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7900"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/singteach.nie.edu.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17920,"href":"https:\/\/singteach.nie.edu.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7900\/revisions\/17920"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/singteach.nie.edu.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/singteach.nie.edu.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/singteach.nie.edu.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/singteach.nie.edu.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}