Reflective Journal 5: Reflect on SES. You may want to consider the
curriculum, the learning process, the assessment, difficulties you faced, how
you overcame them, and how might SES be applicable in time to come.
One and half term have
passed since the start of SES and I have certain thoughts about this subject.
I find the topics discussed
in SES very interesting because they are important to me in the future as they
mostly concern about economic powerhouses such as China, America and Japan as
well as the country I am living in, Singapore. I learn about their history,
economy and their society. These, especially their corporate culture, are
particularly important as I would probably be going to one of these countries
to work in the future.
I like the learning process
very much, which is mainly based on your research because this me to learn to
be an independent learner. However, I dislike the quantity of the research we
have to do and the long time we have to spend doing it.
Every lesson in the class,
we would engage in a discussion with one student being assessed and getting the
ball rolling with his presentation. I like this mode of assessment as it allows
people to exchange knowledge with each other as well as clarifying their own
knowledge at the same time, a win-win situation. However, I dislike the fact
that the discussion is so rigid, we have to talk about a certain topic and only
a certain topic. We are not allowed to digress from the topic. (We even have a
red stick for it!) I feel that the purpose of SES is just like any other
subject, to educate us, why can’t we digress and learn new things from each
other, isn’t it a process of learning? When we are so focused about a certain
topic, I find it boring and become uninterested as I can’t talk what I want to.
I suggest that the discussion topic should not be fixed as only then it will
truly be a “free’ discussion. Furthermore, the classroom is very pressurizing,
marks are given based on class participation and many are competing to get it.
I don’t really see the point of a class discussion when people just talk to get
marks and not to truly help the person presenting on his term paper. This will
also be a disadvantage to the shyer ones as they will not speak up even though
they had done their research. Thus, I feel that we can engage in discussion
online at home while the student who is being assessed presents in school, as
many of the shy ones write/type more than they speak. Furthermore, it is easier
to look at the references one has referred to and also reduce the chances of
having miscommunication between everyone. I also feel that class participation
should only be counted as OP marks.
The other modes of
assessment, besides class participation, are the term paper and research paper.
I feel that the term paper is fine as it is because the one doing it can share
with the class what he is doing and also get help from classmates. However, I
do not think that the term paper is a good idea. Everyone is to select a topic
to work on and more than one person can work on a single topic. This results in
certain “easier” topics having a lot of people doing it and also everyone is
limited to the topic they can choose. I think that the research paper should be
about an area of research that we want to do and are interested in, not just
some fixed topics. This will allow more diversity in our papers and everyone
can learn a lot more from each other although there may not be alternate
perspectives to the topics and less collaboration.
I have
faced many problems in completing the weekly research for the SES lessons at
the start but these problems have mostly been solved when the questions were
spilt between us and each of us only has to work on one question and not all of
them. However, a new problem is that the 2 SES lessons in a week are on 2
consecutive days, instead of the 4 days gap in term 1, so we only have 1 day to
prepare for the next lesson, which sometimes may be a new tutorial and thus
there is a need to prepare more for. Another problem I faced would be the
readings, the readings are mostly very dry and boring, even though sometimes I
read through them, I do not understand and retain what I have just read.
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Dear Jin Hui
ReplyDeleteYour suggestions are really interesting. You talked about the digression in class and you want to make the discussion free of direction. I think this will help us learn more, because our thinking is no more restricted in the given problems and we can be more creative. However, if a discussion like this can have a high quality, it requires everyone to have rich knowledge about all the issues that may come up. There is no guarantee for this. Also, this kind of discussion cannot be led by the presenter as it is unfair that he has only prepared focusing on his given question.
If we really want a free discussion, your concept of a online forum is really good in the sense that more people like to type and it is easier for us to understand what is going on and take part in the discussion as we can search relevant information on the Internet when the discussion is carried on. However, it may be only possible for us to do this before or after the lesson as it is better to speak up in class.
Regards
Huiyao
25/4/12
Dear Jin Hui,
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned that you found the topics discussed very interesting since they are important to you in the future. However, I feel that there is no direct link because the two, and that you could have elaborated more on how exactly it can benefit you in the future. One specific way you briefly mentioned was that learning about their corporate culture would assist you in the future (and you did not elaborate how either), but I feel that it is the skills of adaptability and understanding that would be the most necessary, instead of just content knowledge.
I found your suggestion about allowing digression very interesting. After reading your reflective journal, I am convinced that allowing digression would be beneficial for us. In my reflective journal, I stated that discussions on controversial topics would be useful for us to hone our creative and critical thinking skills. Coupled with your suggestion, I feel that we can slowly learn to connect abstract ideas and find links between concepts which may seem absolutely different. In this way, we can also expand our knowledge and become wise individuals, who are able to connect the dots effectively and efficiently.
On your suggestion of having discussions on an online portal, I feel that there are pros and cons to it. If it is implemented, students like me, who are more vocal online and less open in real life, would be given an opportunity to participate and contribute to discussions. However, I strongly believe that we should not escape the problem. Instead, we should face it and learn to be a confident speaker, so that we can communicate effectively with our colleagues in the future. However, looking from another perspective, technology is becoming more advanced day by day, and meetings in companies can be made online, instead of face-to-face discussions. Therefore, I generally feel that your suggestion is going to be useful, but I feel that class discussions should not be totally eliminated.
I strongly disagree with your suggestion on the research paper. If students are allowed to choose their own topics, they would also choose the easier topics as well, instead of what they are really interested in. Moreover, it would add on to the heavy workload of students to formulate a good research paper topic, and we also lack the experience to do so. Furthermore, there was already a wide variety of essay topics provided for us to choose from, and your suggestion does not lead to a better learning experience either.
Regarding your complaint about SES being on two consecutive days, I feel that Miss Yeo has already addressed that concern and alleviated it by giving us less work to do on Mondays. Moreover, we should be more independent learners and start preparing for the tutorials during the weekends, instead of waiting for Miss Yeo’s instructions
All in all, I feel that you have very good suggestions to improve this elective, but some others seem very self-centred. In my opinion, we should offer solutions to problems faced by most classmates, instead of proposing solutions for our own problems, especially those which should be resolved by ourselves.
Thank you.
Regards,
3S129
Dear Jinghui:
ReplyDeleteI think the reason why we study the economic powerhouses such as China and America may not necessary be that we will go and work in one of these countries. That is of course one reason, as those studies can help us improve our CQ, which will be important for us to work in a globalized world. However, I think the more important reason is that they can also help us understand the economy. From analyzing how those powerhouses develop their economies, we can actually see how an economy runs and the factors for it to thrive. Those powerhouses’ successful experience itself is worth learning and would help us with further study in SES.
And I think that it is necessary for us to talk about one topic at one time in class. Before we were given the colorful sticks, the discussion in class was quite unorganized and we always digressed from the topic. In that way, for the presenter it would be very hard to react quickly and answer our questions because there was no consistency, and for those who had prepared hard before the class it would be unfair because they could hardly speak up in class as what they had studied would not be involved in discussion. And whether we can speak up or not in class is not about marks. It is about opportunities for everyone to convey his idea and listened to others’ response to it so that they can learn. What do you think?
Best wishes
Wang Zhenghao