Wednesday was a big day for many of the Fulbrighters – both the US and Singapore teachers. Except for one of the US teachers who left earlier, all of us had our Fulbright Sharing Sessions at AST on Wednesday. Even though I still have several weeks left in my stay here, it felt very much like a culminating activity. My session was titled “Lessons From Singapore: Reflections on – and More Engaging Alternatives to – the Teaching and Learning of Algebra in Singapore Schools.” (I’ll blame my affinity for long titles on my friend Michael.) We each presented twice and the sessions were open for free to all Singapore teachers. For a Wednesday afternoon, after school hours, I was impressed with how many teachers came to the sessions. Almost all of the 30 teachers who pre-registered for my session showed up. I know how hard it is to get downtown after teaching all day (see last post), so I can understand that there were a few no-shows.

In my ‘sharing session’ (that’s what most people call them here, not PD), I shared what I have been doing at my attachment schools, some observations and reflections that I have had about my time here observing classes and interviewing teachers. More that half of my sharing session was about Desmos, though. I presented Desmos activities as more engaging ways to present material to students than lecturing or worksheets. Out of the two sessions, there were two teachers who had heard of Desmos (but not the Activity Builder) and used the graphing utility quite a bit. Of course, there were a few teachers from my attachment schools who were there to support me (thanks!) and had heard of Desmos. I felt a little guilty that two teachers came from my second attachment and much of my presentation was the same from when I led a sharing session at their school. Gotta get some mileage out of this material, though. 🙂

I’m chatting up some participants.

It kind of looks like I’m getting a little close here.

All photos courtesy of the good folks at AST who arranged all the sessions!

I appreciated that I attended the AST Primary 3 and Primary 4 workshop on Tuesday, right before leading my own. I couldn’t help but note the times when the other session leaders asked teachers to do some problems or to present their work. I gave teachers plenty of time for the ‘doing,’ but less time for ‘presenting’ because each session was only 75 minutes. On the feedback forms, many of the teachers said that my session was too short, so I’ll take that as an indication that they wanted to spend more time with Desmos!

Then on Friday I led another sharing session with my third attachment school. I talked with the math HOD (Head of Department) earlier in the week in preparation. I wanted to be clear about what she (and the department) wanted from me for that session. We determined that sharing best practices and ICT integration would be a good learning experience for all. As you can probably guess, I presented Desmos stuff, but I also presented other ways to get students collaborating and talking more to each other. She told me that her teachers ‘learned quite a bit’ in the session and is hopeful that they will try Desmos in their classes. In general, the teachers gave me positive feedback, too.  I admire this HOD’s tenacity in convincing other teachers that teaching students mathematics is more than just telling them about it.

I have at least one more opportunity to present here in Singapore and I’ll be morphing my previous presentations into a new one again. “Desmos.com Changed the Way I Teach Mathematics” is the title of my 90 minute session, which is part of the Redesigning Pedagogy International Conference 2017 at National Institute of Education. I’ll be presenting on May 31, so I still have some time for more learning before I am the leader.