Just
before starting on this final reflective journal entry for Term 2, I went back
to my very first post dated 17th January. Time has passed really fast.
To
be honest, SES is actually the subject I enjoyed most. There is a lot of
discussion time during SES lessons for everyone to voice his views. This gives
us the chance to see things from different angle and learn from one another.
At
first, some of us were skeptical with this approach because we thought that it may
end up with the blind leading the blind. But it turned out quite well.
Personally, I think that SES is not very content-heavy which leaves much room
for debates. Since we are peers, we speak up more freely whenever we disagree. If
it were the teacher, we would have to think hard before asking. This learning
method suits the subject because the content is not too difficult to understand
and what we really want to get out of it is debates and discussions to show the
different perspectives.
I
must admit that preparing for the lesson is extremely time consuming and also
taxing because the readings are usually pitched at a higher level. At times, we
have to read it more than once before we can comprehend all of it. The tasks
are also challenging although they are not impossible to do. It is one subject
everyone will prepare before each lesson which is good because at least we know
what is going on during lesson and the discussion can go a lot faster and are
more fruitful.
I
feel that the reflective journal is an appropriate form of assessment. Reflective
journals give us the chance to consolidate what we have learnt in class. It
makes us think through the points that were raised in class and reflect as we
pen down our final thoughts. Most times, we are made to think of how we can
apply what we have learnt to the real life. I think this is good as it proves
to us that we are learning something useful and not just some theories which we
are forced to know for the sake of passing and doing well in examination.
However,
I am not convinced about the purpose and the need for the Research Paper.
I
feel that the term presentation, term report and the reflective journals are more
than adequate. Personally, I do not see the difference between the research
paper and the term paper. They both have the same structure and the same word
limit. The only difference is the discussion topic. I can understand the
research paper is there to make sure we listen in class when our friends are
presenting but I think there is a better way to do this other than the research
paper.
I
suggest that instead of the research paper which can be very taxing for us as
the topics only came out in the middle of the term which is the test period, we
should include the option for students to do mind maps of the lesson on top of
the reflective journal. This is less taxing
because it is presenting the points from the student presenters or Ms. Yeo in
point form. This helps to achieve the same objective at only a fraction of the workload.
Actually,
as I have pointed out earlier, the structure of the research paper and term
report is not very different. If we can just modify the format of the term
report slightly, we should be able to use it as a research paper. The term
report can be the main tool to train the students to put up a proper report.
That
is what I feel about the research paper and I apologize if I did not grasp the
objectives of the research paper correctly.
As a
whole, I feel that the topics in the curriculum are very relevant. The topics
did not appear inter-connected the first time we looked at it but as we went
along, I was able to see how they were linked together. I guess we can achieve
even more if the teacher can spend one lesson per term to show us how all the
topics are inter-connected. Some of us might not get it and I was one of them at
the beginning but I managed to gradually find a way to piece up the topics to
get the bigger picture. It was a lot more enriching when I was able to see the
big picture.
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