during the preceding academic semester, a student-teacher from the Natural Sciences and Science Education Academic Group of the National Institute of Education - Koh Shao Wei - attended the General Elective which my team offers (AGE08D Designing Learning Environments with the Internet of Things).
as part of his work for the course, he conceptualised and designed a learning activity for the topic on Forces and Dynamics in Physics Education, using Lego Mindstorms robots.
you can imagine how excited and grateful we were when staff and Grade Eight students from a local school - Serangoon Garden Secondary School - agreed to help us with enacting the activity, to the benefit of Shao Wei (who gained a more embodied understanding of the working out of his lesson planning) and the students themselves.
having had the privilege to be present during the activity, i felt that Shao Wei did a great job of designing a scaffolded learning activity which bridged the concrete with the abstract (as forces acting on an object are themselves not visible).
representative feedback from the students included:
"i like it when we can do hands-on stuff; it makes learning easier";
"i think doing hands-on activities is quite useful, it helps me visualise"; and
"i wish the whole class could come so that we experience it together".
Shao Wei and i would like to iterate again our gratitude to the Principal, staff, and students of the school for the trust they have extended to us.
:-)
