Being a knowledgeable parent

An Article by our developer Nalini. An amazing mom, fantastic educator and great friend.  

In this blog article, I recount a few experiences with my son.

When my son was around 7 to 8 months, he used to crawl his way around.

One day, I had taken him with me to my friend’s place and we were sitting on the floor chatting. Suddenly I noticed my son crawling to a toy vehicle which had 3 wheels and the 4^th wheel was missing. He looked around and then took a Vicks bottle lid which is also circle in shape with diameter similar to that of the wheel and tried to fit it in place of the missing wheel.

As he grew, I watched him get fidgety to sit in one place and glowing when he meddles with things around. He used to watch with absolute calmness when a mason or a carpenter or a plumber works.

As a family, we provided him as much space as possible. Of course we had to stretch ourselves to the core for it.

Just a few days back, he is all of 12 years old now and he was telling me about some motors (not the big ones, but those we got him for his projects) that he was working with and he was telling me the similarities and difference of two and then the topic moved to a particular motor which was encased in a plastic case. He told me that it gave high power o/p and also low rpm (rotations per minute). And then he explained to me how the low rpm was achieved with the help of gears.

Well, it got me thinking “why should we spend all the energy to bolster the motor and then spend effort to lower the rpm?”

I put this question this question to the rest of the family which includes engineers. They enriched my knowledge on how if rpm is not reduced, centrifugal force will play havoc and also the wear and tear.

I also understood that high rpm was needed to generate the magnetic field and hence power.

And also how modern technology is working on achieving better efficiency.

Later, when I discussed with my son, he was telling me if the rpm of the motor in the grinder is not reduced, the dosa batter would be thrown out and was demonstrating by waving his hands.

On further discussion, he used the word “centrifugal force”.

Viola ! That’s from my side as a knowledgeable parent. Do post your experiences and comments.

 

Definition of a test or an examination

This has been something I have wanted to do, and that is to define a test or an examination in a non threatening manner. I really do not feel that there is any need for enormous amounts of fear, stress or anxiety to be associated with an exam. So, we defined it!

Hope you like it and do let me or us know your thoughts

Gabriel Suppiah
The Dean

Ok, I have a request.

There are plenty of learning journeys created for various locations and you may know about what I am talking about. There are trails created for Singapore River, Zoo, Airport and places that. You can often see students walking around these areas during their learning journeys too.

During our recent findings, we have learnt that both students and teachers are not engaged in some of these journeys and they do not see a link between the experience and actu...al classroom learning.

1. What is missing and what can be done to improve it?

2. Who is responsible for the learnings during these experiences? Students, teachers, vendors, educational technology folks, who?

3. What is the real meaning of gamification when it comes to experiences like this?

4. What kind of data will we require to see the success of such an experience?

5. Are our teachers trained in creating Authentic Tasks for such experiences?

6. Who wins at the end of the day?

7. I love all of you who can take a min to answer some of these questions.

Free $5 Starbucks voucher for good answers!

Go Score!

Gabriel Suppiah
The Dean
www.scorecampus.com
 

Well, most of us have heard of Flipped Classroom, its goodness and also its multiple levels. We have also heard of Authentic Learning and its goodness along with its 9 pillars as well. We educators have proven ourselves to be right in creating these methods and scaffolding them too. We think its great.

But now, can we see the real goodness in it? The bigger picture maybe? What should learning be really like? What can flip and authentic learning do help this process? Do visit this blog when you can and let's get some good and real education happening here. Go Score!