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| Sep 13, 2007 |
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Good to spice up GP but results count too
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I REFER to the report, 'GP boring? Innova spices it up with Second Life' (ST, Sept11) in which a student was reported to have said: 'GP lessons can be quite dry even if the topic is interesting. This gave us a platform to voice our views.'
While I congratulate both Innova Junior College and the National Institute of Education (NIE) on pooling their resources to spice up the teaching of General Paper (GP) on the basis of control-experimental research paradigm, I would like to submit the following questions for NIE researchers and Innova's consideration:
Who will bear responsibility for denying the control group of students access to Second Life that could have given them substantial gains in their performance in the GP exam? And what ethical principles are followed in executing such a research paradigm?
The researchers have asserted that the experimental group could 'construct better arguments than those in the control group'. What if the control group did not use Second Life but other, even more innovative strategies?
Was any control executed in the teaching of GP in the control group? Does the NIE team assert that Second Life is the most innovative strategy there is to teach GP, and how will performance be measured in students' grades in the forthcoming GP exam vis-a-vis the control group?
I agree with the underlying assumption behind the research to inject variety into teaching of GP, but the bottom line for success is the performance of students in the A-level exams, especially as the subject is considered for entry into local universities. I am surprised that Innova GP tutor Baey Shi Chen asserted that GP 'covers everything under the sun'. It does not. Surely, there is the syllabus with its detailed assessment objectives that provide the focus of teaching and assessment of GP.
Since 2002, a special component on the Application Question has been introduced into the GP exam, in which students are required to evaluate their assumptions, prognosis and assertions in responding to this challenging question. Merely 'airing their views from diverse perspectives' will not earn them the much needed high score.
Yes, we need to spice up GP teaching with new teaching-learning strategies, but we surely have to go way beyond all that to do justice to students sitting the A-level exams.
S. Ganesamoorthy
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