APEC - Tsukuba International Conference 2013

APEC - Tsukuba International Conference VII will be held from 13 February to 16th February with the 17th February dedicated to 140th Anniversary of Lesson Study in Japan.

The international conference is based on the theme of Innovation of Mathematics Education through Lesson Study: From Mathematics Education to Emergency Preparedness Education . The theme for 2012 was the same with a focus on earthquake and tsunami.

Participants will learn how to use real-life situations for mathematical modelling and applications. They will also learn how to integrate emergency preparedness education (in Singapore, this is part of National Education) with the teaching of mathematics and science.

More interestingly, participants will join Japanese teachers in a lesson study open house where they will get to see how lesson study is done in Japan.

The 140th Anniversary celebrations may offer further professional learning for the participants.

During this conference, the APEC lesson study specialists (who are mostly mathematics educators) will deliberate on the project they will implement in their respective countries. There will be some inputs from experts on floods, typhoon and tornado.

Schools in Singapore that are interetsed to send teachers to the conference, please contact yeapbanhar@gmail so that he can reserve places for you with the organizers. For participants from other countries, plase contact your respective country specialists - or you can also drop me a note if you do not know who they are.

In previous editions, several schools and officers from MOE have attend this conference with our specialists. Tsukuba University will help reserve the hotel (at slightly less than Y6000 per night). Please see http://www.criced.tsukuba.ac.jp/math/apec/apec2013/Accommodation%20and%20Transportation.pdf

You will make your own travel arrangements. Details will be available nearer the conference dates. Conference fee is waived but there is a small fee for participation in the lesson study open house (it was Y2000 the last time).

The conference fee is about Y10,000 which includes lunch.

Registration with iwakuni.sawa.ge@un.tsukuba.ac.jp

WALS 2013 First Announcement

Christine Lee (NIE) sent this message:

I am really pleased to announce that WALS2013 will be held at University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Our Council member, Mona Holmqvist, is the Chair of the Local Organizing Committee. Work for this conference has already started. We want to thank our Swedish colleagues for hosting the next conference.

Please keep these dates free and join us at WALS2013 in Sweden

5 September         Expert Seminar
6-8 September      Main Conference
9 September         School visit

The theme of the conference is "Teachers as Researchers".

APEC - Khon Kaen International Symposium 2012

Please see this blog for details.

The next meeting is in Japan in February 2013. This year it was 14-18 Feb 2012. It should be around the same dates for 2013. Singapore schools that are interested to attend the meeting with Yeap Ban Har, please contact him at yeapbanhar@gmail.com by January 2013.

Open Lesson at the Symposium

The first three keynote lectures were common to both APEC - Khon Kaen International Symposium and International Conference on Educational Research. In Keynote Lecture 4, Shizumi Shimizu shared the Japanese curriculum (the latest one was introduced in 2008) (also called course of study).

Mathematical activities are defined as related to mathematics, and able to engage students willingly and purposefully. In Japan, mathematical activities are perceived as as aims as well as methods. It is also included in the strands as content - emphasizing the centrality of activities in the learning process. In Singapore 2013 curriculum, the same thinking is evident. Learning experiences (similar to mathematical activities) are now included in the content strands to emphasize its importance.

Types of Activities are of three types (1) Creating mathematics
(2) Using mathematics (3) Communicating mathematics

At the heart of learning mathematics is for students to do mathematics independently.

Mathematical Activities in Japanese Classroom

The speaker discussed mathematical proficiency for a greater part of the lecture and shows Japanese students' performance on test items from National Survey.

This lecture is useful for schools to think about when constructing their research theme for lesson study.

He also describes a typical problem-solving approach in the Japanese classroom and shares some attractive activities that Japanese teachers may use.

A Mathematics Class in Fukushima Prefecture

Lesson Study at ICME 12 in Seoul

ICME12 DG7 Session1 from Jimmy Keng

ICME12 DG7 Session2 from Jimmy Keng

ACJC PLC Symposium

Keynote Lecture

LSP101 Lesson Study ACJC from Jimmy Keng

Research Lesson

Kong Hwa School

Primary Three Professional Learning Team has its lesson revision meeting with me today. They are on MCI Lesson Study Programme. Previously, I have met them for lesson planning meetings, research lesson, post-lesson discussion and, today, lesson plan revision. They use the one hour they have each week (Thursday 0830-0930) to do their lesson study. Their research theme is to engage students in learning. After the research lesson and reflecting upon it for several weeks, the team arrived at two main focus to revise their lesson plan. (1) How to revise the lesson so that students are more engaged in the sense that they are more independent? (2) How to revise the lessons for high ability students so that they are engaged in the sense that they are more reflective and able to communicate their thinking processes? Some possible ways to revise the lesson plan includes (a) to use technology in a more authentic way, harnessing on wireless technology for students to share solutions efficiently and for students to be doing more (rather than teacher demonstration) (b) to create corners where students go to get 'help' when they are stuck and 'extension' when they have solved the required task (to borrow an idea seen at Nanyang Primary School) (c) to use journal / notebook for students to organise their ideas and those of their classmates

First Toa Payoh Secondary School

The mathematics lesson study team did their research lesson today - the research theme is developing resilient behaviours and engaged learning. The post-lesson discussion threw up how engagement and resilience look like in a mathematics lessons. The discussion also centred around how to nurture such behaviours. The discussion concluded with the team members being urged to study students fundamental behaviours that may impact on engagement - for examples, students were observed to be logical (although unconventional) in their responses (a plus point) and they were seen to be not confident of their own thinking and often attribute their correct responses to 'being lucky' (a negative point). It seems that the following processes in learning have potential in engaging students in positive ways - (1) visuals (and some suggested hands-on manipulatives) (2) conversation-style lessons (3) ...