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Our team seeks to enrich the students by improving their literacy skills through weekly tutoring sessions
This small lil website serves as the blog of our group, providing us with a platform to express our feelings in the form of a reflection.
Clarence, Daniel, Hong Jhun, Ranald, Vignes
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Saturday, April 23, 2011 @ 11:36 AM
Overall i feel it was quite enjoyable, most of the students were responsive and were able to catch up very fast. Before this session, i had concerns that they might not be able to catch up or understand what we said. Also, i was also unsure about the difficulty of the worksheets. However, the worksheets were generally perceived as "Too easy" and most of them were able to get most of it correct although they might take more time. I believe that is a good sign and future worksheets should be set at a higher difficulty level. The class originally was supposed to have 7 students. However, 1 couldn't make it on the first day and thus resulting in the class of 4 boys and 2 girls. The boys were quite responsive and open.. and mischievous too >.<, but fortunately we were able to control them using a 'points system' whereby they gain points for answering questions correctly, and they will behave properly if we threaten to deduct their points :P On the other hand, the girls were quiet and not very responsive... i have a feeling that they were afraid of us and thus very soft-spoken... [they were very very very very soft when we got the students to narrate the story out] Things to prepare/improve on for next lesson:
Future sessions [as of now] [me and HJ only]:
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Wednesday, April 13, 2011 @ 3:05 PM
Overall, I think it was rather successful. During the interaction, I found out there were 2 types of students. 1) Enthusiastic students who had no problem interacting with us, enjoyed playing with us.. etc 2) Students, [who might be more mature] that were just sitting at the side watching, or passing time. Through my observations, half of the students do not like playing with the facilities in the SPARKS cabin. I went to start a conversation with one of them and he told me that this seems to be a pure waste of time. He didn't want to stay back since 1 [we reached there at 3] just to play with us, and didn't see the purpose of this. For him, it was the first time staying back till so late [about 6] and yet it was a complete waste of time. After this interaction, although we might not have done much during the session, I have learned that we should engage them in more meaningful activities the next time and shouldn't have came without preparation. We also must make their 2 hour wait before we arrive worthwhile. Ranald |
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@ 2:44 PM
In the past month, we have managed to finalise our project proposal, only for us to find that it was unrealistic due to some reasons which I will be discussing later in this post. The main trigger factor that has allowed us to understand this is a meeting that we missed with our VWO due to last minute commitments that have cropped up for our group members. I believe that while this would often be seen in a negative light, in a way this has been positive to our group as it has enabled us to learn two important lessons - one regarding teamwork and communication, the other regarding being realistic, and planning ahead. The incident of missing the meeting has shown us that communication is important, and also that our group is currently lacking in this aspect. Just this Wednesday, we sat down and discussed about this with our teacher mentor Mr Goh and he brought forth that while this may seem to be an isolated matter, it can very easily occur again. We decided that we needed to rethink our proposal, and it was immediately apparent that it would be extremely difficult for us to stick to the current commitments that we have presented to APSN given how busy we are. As such, our group has decided to remake the proposal and lessen the number of sessions/hours of service as well as narrow the scope in which we will be covering. We believe that this is much more realistic and achievable, and allows us to focus and do well in a single aspect, rather than attempting to do more and not doing a good job. As a part of our new plan, we would be going to APSN for our service learning sessions in two different groups, one on Thursday and one on Friday. This allows for more consistent meeting times and ensures that such a thing would not happen again. To summarize, I feel that the past month has not been a good one for our group, and progress has not gone as expected. I think that it is time for us to kick start this project. Looking forward to the next meeting with APSN and meeting the students for the first time. Clarence |
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@ 2:32 PM
Last Thursday, our group visited Tanglin School and we managed to meet the students we would be working with for the first time. Overall, I felt that this was quite a successful meeting. We achieved a few things from this meeting - Firstly, we got to know all of them, via icebreaker activities such as asking them about their hobbies, and accompanying them in playing some of their favourite games, which were the Playstation, Pool, Carrom etc. Secondly, we learnt that it was extremely important to know what activities they enjoy, as having passion in the subject would ensure they gain the most they can from our programme. We realised that the video idea was not as welcome to them as we thought it would be as some of them are shy about appearing in a video. Upon bringing this up to Ms Jey, we managed to explore a different programme - a peer tutoring programme. Summarising everything we did this week - we confirmed what programme we would embark on, and bonded with the students. I believe that this was a fruitful meeting and I'm looking forward to the next meeting when we can start our tutoring programme. This week, we will be assessing how effective the programme is and tailor our future lessons according to the trends that we observe in our tutor session. Clarence |
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Monday, April 4, 2011 @ 9:26 PM
Seeing as to our team’s different schedules and busyness, it seems that over this month RESL has been more of a managerial lesson than one of service. As much as this experience has taught me too, like the importance of good team coordination and commitment, I really hope we can move on from here quickly and get to the service itself proper.
Initially, on a personal level, I believed that as people somewhat “imposing” on the VWO’s normal operations, I thought the stated 40-60 hours was something that we, as guests of the VWO, should adhere to. Being a more vocal person, I would have voiced my concern over the long hours otherwise. Fortunately, now with some consultation with our mentor we are following through with a proposal to shorten our time commitments while trying our best not to compromise too much on our goals that we have set to achieve.
I see that as an RE group no matter if we have to split our members up, or shorten timings, I really hope and believe that we can still make a difference in the childrens’ lives and do something positive for them in the time that we will be helping them out. Hence, I hope our meeting with Ms Jey this Thursday will bear some fruit and allow our group to move forward from here. |
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Sunday, April 3, 2011 @ 1:00 PM
We learned a lot about ourselves from last week. We are unhappy with the state of things at the moment as all of us have extremely tight schedules with many events. Unable to disagree on a single day when all of us can visit our VWO, we are struggling to come up with a suitable calendar of events. However, I think we can still pick up the pieces of this project and forge ahead. What is important, as Mr Ann Tat mentioned, is that we come up with a realistic plan for our project so that we are able to deliver what we promised. I do think that our VWO requires quite a bit of time from us and a huge commitment that might be difficult to work into our schedules. However, I think it is important that we give our best and if they still require more from us, we must tell them that we are trying our best and that we are unable to carry on anymore. I would like my first Service Learning project to be a success but I must keep in mind that this is a team and when it is a team, we must work together to be efficient in whatever we do, and to be successful in whatever we attempt. I look forward to our meeting with the 10 students from APSN who we will be meeting next week. |
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@ 12:42 PM
Today, as I was researching on the job field and the oppurtunities made available to people affected by disabilities, I came across an article written in 2004 by Dr. S. Vasoo who at that time, was the head of the department of Social Work and Psychology in NUS. I was intrigued by this article particularly because it tackles the issue of why the employment rate among the disabled is still low, despite the good employment prospects made available by the government. The article mentions Bizlink centre which is defined by the article as a "more concerted effort (which) has emerged to assess and place disabled for employment." Despite the creation of Bizlink centre, on average only 225 disable people are hired through Bizlink Centre annually. I was shocked to have read this, primarily because of the hard truth that Singaporeans are still discriminatory and prejudiced against the disabled. It is also to be noted that the article mentions that unemployment is high among the visually, intellectually and neuro-muscular disabled. This is highly relevant to APSN where the students are affected by mild intelligence defficiency, as this would mean when it is their turn to enter the working world, their disability will affect their job prospects. The reasons given in the article are straightforward yet revealing of the fact that Singapore simply isn't "disability-friendly". No matter how many busses are made "disability-friendly" , the fact remains we are still unable to create an environment ideal for the disabled to flourish and grow. In fact, our society has made an environment hostile for the development of the disabled. The article mentions that the reasons behind the high rates of unemployment among the visually, intellectually and neuro-muscular disabled are :
The disabled are a minority in Singapore, and thus are inadvertently marginalised into helpless roles by the non-disabled. This causes many problems as when they are marginalised, their chances of getting a job becomes much lower than that of the non-disabled. This is something that really needs to be improved upon. I remember that Ms Jey informed us that APSN has great need for a class on transportation and now I fully realise why this is so important. Unlike the non-disabled, disabled people may not be able to take public transportation without being taught by the appropriate authorities (school). If they are not taught this, they are unable to go to work in the very first place, limiting their employability greatly. However, taking into consideration the transportation classes provided in APSN I think this is slowly being improved upon. Inadequate Vocational skills and educational levels are no longer relevant in the matter of employability of the disabled. This is because, schools for the disabled are making Vocational skills classes compulsory, thus aiding in teaching the disabled skills that they require. Also, considering that our group project will be on this, I think it would be really good to approach Ms Jey to find out if the Vocational skills classes are sufficient to get students employed in the future, or if there is still room for improvement in the current circumstances. Website: http://www.disabilityworld.org/01-03_04/employment/singapore.shtml |
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@ 11:40 AM
Although we didn't successfully met with the VWO the past week, I have learnt that communication among group members is important. Throughout this past month, I admit that my priorities have not been focused on the RESL project. However, my SYF will be ending next week so I can focus more on RESL. Even though I was not actively involved in the discussion last wednesday, [the day i was sick], I also felt that the idea of splitting into 2 groups more feasible. Firstly, smaller groups are easier to manage and it also fits with the schedules of the members of the group. I hope that our group will be able to work better with the VWO after this split. After not being able to make it on time for the first meeting, I think that the VWO will be disappointed with our group, and I don't think she have replied our request to meet next Thursday >.< Regarding special schools in singapore, the 2 main organizations that deal with students with intellectual disabilities are MINDS and APSN. [http://www.moe.gov.sg/education/special-education/schoollist/] However, from previous interviews with Ms Jey, APSN handles students with mild intellectual disabilities while MINDS handles students with severe intellectual disabilities. Thus, I feel that an interview regarding the workings of special needs school with Ms Jey might be required in order to obtain more information. |