Reflections for Session 4

I am able to concentrate much better in class today than I did yesterday. Guess I was trying to multi-task (read: IM, facebook) less and pay attention more. :)

In today's lesson, we looked at the School Level Environment Questionnaire. It was interesting to note that the questions testing the same domain are not grouped together to avoid student fatigue. We observed that the 9 dimensions in the SLEQ can be group rather nicely into the Moos Schema that we learnt yesterday. Dr Quek also noted that the students' language abilities and concentration span must also be taken into consideration in customising of the tools for usage in the classroom. This is so true! In administering of surveys in the classroom, we often have to stop to explain the meanings of the words to the students. There was an ocassion where I even had to translate the words to Mandarin to assist them in their understanding.

The group work on case studies of the schools is a good exercise for us to extract information from the qualitative data available.

In the afternoon, we tried entering data from our survey into Excel for analysis using SPSS tomorrow. It could have been a rather boring task but our group actually had quite a bit of fun during data entry. SPSS looked rather scary but I guessed it would be a useful tool to learn especially with so much research going on in schools. Hopefully, by tomorrow, SPSS would be much clearer!







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Reflections for Session 3

In today's session, we learnt about assessing the learning environment. In the first part of the day, Dr Quek explained why we need to assess the learning environment and how to go about it.

We were introduced to Lewin for his theory on human behavior as a function of the person and the environment, Murray for his needs-press theory, Timothy Leary on his 8-dimensions of interpersonal teacher behaviour, Walberg on his works on the classroom climate and individual learning, Moos on his three schema (Personal, Relationship and System Change & Maintenance), Fraser and Fisher.

During today's lesson, we are exposed to various questionaires that are developed to assess learning environment. I think the WIHIC, QTI and SLEI are suitable tools for assessing my students. To think that we are actually trying to craft out tools like these in schools from scratch! I am glad that there are valid tools readily available.

In today's lesson, we also saw five short videos on the different teaching styles and that set me thinking about how my lessons can be different. :)

Guess that's about all for now!

Walberg, Walberg, Walberg...

My group is supposed to research on this guy called Herbert Walberg. He has written a lot of work on classroom climate since 1960s. A short bio data as provided by Hoover Institution on this guy could be found here and here.

Also, check out Meena's blog entry which shows my group's work.


Other than dear Walberg, our class also looked at Murray, Lewin, Leary, Moos, Fraser and Fisher and their theories.

Hi there!

Yup! Welcome to my blog!
Can't believe I am back blogging again. Will blog more another time. The instructor wants me to follow instructions now...