Live Blogging from Mayor of London's Education Conference 2013

#LDNeduconf

Final Session - Professor David Hogan University of Queensland Brisbane Australia.

What features of the Singapore pedagogical approach are significant in high achievement?

1) There is a very tight coupling between the textbooks and the curriculum. In Singapore, textbooks are created in house by the educational ministry. This is a key feature of the system. Textbooks are the basis of instruction. Workbooks and worksheets are a basis of instruction.

2) There is a much higher percentage of teachers who give test questions every 2 weeks or more. 39% in Singapore and only 9% in the UK. Assessments require application of knowledge.

In comparison, London's strengths are in 'knowledge building pedagogical structures' as well as assessments that require students to explain, justify and search for patterns and relationships.

However this data does not adequately capture the picture of the Singapore pedagogical structure.

Teachers in Singapore are not choosing between pedagogical structures. They have a hybridity in instructional techniques, and it is within this unique feature that its strength lies.

In addition to this Singapore dedicates an overwhelming majority of time and learning support to procedural learning. Singapore does well because it focuses on factual and procedural knowledge, rather than conceptual understanding and this has to be reconciled to the PIZA success. The conclusion we draw is the importance of rigorous, domain specific knowledge acquisition.

The modal interaction in classroom talk in Singapore is IRE exchanges. Initiate, respond, evaluate answers to closed questions. Only 7% of talk in Singapore classrooms is conceptual and 1% is explanatory.

The focus is on exam preparation and teaching to the test, there is a strong focus on procedural learning and a sense of mastery.

Key features of the Singapore Pedagogy:

1) Curriculum coverage - teachers have to cover the curriculum
2) Teaching to the test, bureaucratic accountability
3) Meritocratic advancement
4) Highly prescriptive national curriculum
5) National high stakes assessment system
6) Extensive curriculum support from ministry of education
7) Pervasive folk pedagogy (beliefs, teaching scripts, interactional genres)
8) An integrated, tightly controlled, coupled systems of popular education that preserves sufficient autonomy at the school level ti ensure responsiveness to local circumstances and the professional judgement of teachers.

Singapore teachers overwhelmingly believe that their responsibility to ensure that pupils score well on the high stakes national assessment. The system is orientated to performance.

Limits of the pedagogy

1) Aversion to risk and innovation
2) Depth of curriculum
3) Perverse instructional incentives

The results of this is restricted attention to knowledge building and 21st century skills. Limited development between ICT mediated tasks and the integration of technology into instruction. A focus on task infidelity, task implementation rather than task design and finally, limited us of high leverage instructional strategies.

In the UK the debate is about how broad should the curriculum be, in Singapore the debate is over depth. Recently the Singapore curriculum content was cut by 20% to facilitate greater depth.