Schools take learning out of the box

Dramatic maths

At Mayflower Primary School, maths goes beyond memorising formulas and completing worksheets. It gets dramatic.

Pupils act out parts to help them understand concepts.

For instance, when learning about area and perimeter, they take on the role of a farmer who has to manage a small plot of land, and decide on the vegetables and fruits to grow.

When being taught about the properties of circles, the pupils become set designers who have to come up with props which are circular such as the entrance of a cave.

This turns learning into a journey of discovery, said Mrs Jessie Ching, one of the three maths teachers behind the initiative.

"Pupils' attitudes towards topics that they first thought difficult improved."

This new learning approach is part of the National Arts Council's Teaching Through the Arts Programme, which aims to help schools use artistic methods to teach non-arts subjects.

The teachers worked with a drama educator to co-design lesson plans.

They started in 2012 with three classes - two Primary 4 and one Primary 5. By last year, most of the upper primary classes were being taught this way. They now want to include some Primary 3 classes this year.

Chinese sayings come to life

Students are often taught idioms and proverbs by ancient Chinese philosophers and poets so they can use them when writing compositions.

Most dread having to memorise these famous sayings, but at Evergreen Secondary School, this has received an injection of fun.

After being taught idioms, students get to put them into practice - by coming up with songs, skits, short stories and even comic strips based on them.

Chinese teacher Ching Mei Fei said: "We wanted to see how they bring out the meaning of the idioms in different contexts."

In the first year of school, students are given a set of pocket-size flash cards with all the idioms they will need to learn. By the time they graduate, they would have been exposed to a total of 120.

It began in 2009 with two Secondary 1 classes. By 2012, all Sec 1 to 3 classes were learning this way.

"It's a time for students to enjoy themselves, and the class is very noisy in a good way, full of discussion and creativity," said Ms Ching.

Music, art and cupcakes

When teachers at Si Ling Secondary noticed how some students seemed unmotivated and were playing truant, they did a survey.

They learnt that students, some of whom lacked adult supervision at home, were interested in music, art, and cooking.

So, the school bought related equipment such as guitars which students could use, and organised events such as band contests.

Students were also taught to bake simple dishes such as cupcakes, and given free rein to decorate walls in their school with graffiti art.

"We want to give the students a place to go to after school, so they won't be loitering," said Madam Sharifah Afifah, who heads the school's character and citizenship education department

The programme was introduced in 2010, said vice-principal Adrian Tan, and surveys later showed that those involved in the after-school activities had higher attendance rates and were more interested in learning.

'Aerobics' in class

During Chinese lessons, the lower primary pupils at Guangyang Primary do 15 minutes of "aerobics".

That might seem out of place, but each movement represents the strokes - such as a dot or a line - that combine to form Chinese characters.

Teacher Lucy Sim, who thought up the idea of using movement to teach Chinese, had noticed that even children who speak Mandarin at home had difficulty writing and recognising characters.

"Pupils at that age enjoy moving around, so I designed this activity," said Ms Sim, who has been teaching Chinese for 26 years.

She would also get the children to "act" out the different characters, while the others guess the word. "The kids enjoy it," she said, adding that pupils have shown improvement in spelling.

The idea was first mooted in 2010 and introduced to the lower primary pupils in 2012. It earned the school the Ministry of Education's gold Innergy Award, which recognises innovative ideas in education.

ateng@sph.com.sg
leepearl@sph.com.sg

This article was published on April 20 in The Straits Times.

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