Educator's SEL Lesson Guide for 'A Fish With A Wish'

One of the modules I am taking for the Masters in Education degree programme at NIE is an interesting and refreshing exploration of using picturebooks to facilitate Socio-Emotional Learning (SEL). The assessable assignment for this module is a lesson plan that incorporates the use of a selected picturebook to conduct an SEL lesson. With the huge volume of picturebooks to choose from, it did take me some time to get to one that I was happy with - but which was not overused in popular culture like Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak or The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.

Anyway, after poring through various authors' works, I stumbled upon Ethan Crownberry's work - a handful of novel-in-verse (or story-in-verse, in this case) picturebooks exploring various SEL elements. I subsequently devised a lesson plan around one of his books entitled A Fish With A Wish by Ethan Crownberry and delivered it to one of my classes at ITE. It was an interesting experience for both the students and I, and I'm quite glad that they found it fun and enjoyable. Although it was an exploratory attempt to see how the main component of the lesson plan would execute, it was evident that the lesson had incredible potential.

Here is some footage of the lesson...

The lesson itself was actually one of the easier ones to execute and the students took to the task without much persuasion necessary. Interestingly, one of the students recalled that this story had been read to her by her mother during her childhood and she was able to retell the original story during the classroom exercise. Another student picked out the congruence between the selected picturebook and a biblical story and retold that tale in detail through the exercise.

While some groups tried to reimagine the story with comical exaggeration, it was obvious that the students recognised the element of sacrifice inherent in the story and made reference to the protagonist's unhappiness with the existing circumstances in one way or another. It was indeed a fun experience and the trial run of the lesson component has been developed into a full lesson (which is what I have submitted as the assignment). I am now looking forward to executing this lesson proper and analysing the results.

If you have the chance, feel free to try this lesson out and share with me your experience as well! You can download the lesson package from the following link, which includes:
   a) Lesson Plan

   b) PowerPoint File

   c) Worksheet

   d) Softcopy of picturebook, A Fish With A Wish

   e) Examples of student work

www.gangasudhan.com/blog/20140408fishwithwishSEL.zip

Note: The author, Ethan Crownberry, dropped me an email to thank me and share his appreciation!

You can visit Ethan's website to support his other works at

 www.ethancrownberry.yolasite.com.

iPad Lessons at SINDA

On Thursday, I attended a one-day workshop on using the iPad for pedagogy and got a few ideas from the trainer, John Larkin (whose website is really resources-rich) and fellow participants. I never took the apps offered on iPad seriously till the workshop and thus decided to explore how I could use the apps available on the App Store (the free ones, that is) for my own classroom use.

That evening, right after the workshop, I had a science lesson with some P6 students at Pasir Ris STEP centre, so I decided to see how a science-related game might be received. I managed to find one called DK Quiz which is a rapid fire timed quiz of 20 questions in a multiple-choice format. This particular quiz app offers many different categories (e.g. Science & Technology, Natural History) and sub-categories (e.g. Incredible Bodies, Worlds Apart, All Things Creepy Crawly & All About Behaviour), allowing for (relatively) targeted practice.

In class, hooking up was as easy as it gets (VGA cable, audio cable and the iPad port-to-VGA converter) and the game was a hit with the students who loved the break from the normal routine of worksheets and practice papers. Each round took about 2 minutes or so and we had about 4 to 5 rounds just before the lesson ended for the day.

Inspired by how it went, I decided to try a more elaborate lesson for my Maths class on Saturday morning at East View STEP centre, with about 12 students. I trawled the App Store again and discovered quite a number of math-centred games and tools. One interesting and stylish game app called King of Games really stood out. The free version allows Addition, Subtraction and Mixed (i.e. Addition/Subtraction) topics with a S$1.28 purchase offering the full version of 9 other topics (i.e. altogether 12 topics).

Each topic (called 'book' in the game) has 9 chapters and each chapter has a rapid fire series of 10 maths questions in a multiple-choice format. But the interesting thing is the questions are phrased in a way that tests the students' ability from different angles. I used this app as a trigger/warm-up activity before proceeding to the lesson proper. Watch the video below to appreciate the impact/value of this app.

As the focus for the Saturday sessions was to guide the students on word problems (the format of the lesson would be to show a word problem, get the students to try it and then show them how to work through it, before moving on to the next word problem), I decided to use the app called Singapore Math which offers word problems and worked answers (there's an app for each level) for the types of questions where models need to be drawn.

While the app's free version only offers a few questions, there is a 'tool' option where you can use the workspace to work out any other question you would like. I thus used questions from the assessment I was using for the class but instead of working out the answer on the white board, I used the neater representation of the app's workspace to show the students how the answer is worked out. The video below shows me working out one question for the students.

All in, the experiment resulted in positive outcome, with the students enjoying and learning together. I do like how the iPad can be easily set up and conveniently carried around, making it an easy option with minimal fuss (as opposed to using a laptop). Needless to say, I intend to incorporate more of the same into my lessons at SINDA, with the probability of using many other apps.

The next step will be to see what apps can be used to deliver Lifeskills lessons at my day job as an ITE Lecturer.

Singapore Reality in Hell Boy 2?

The lack of proper updates during the past 3 weeks is largely due to the current projects on my plate coupled with the preparation of the necesary administrative details with regard to the release of my new book.

Well, recently I had the chance to watch Hell Boy 2 and although the movie itself was not that fantastic, an idea struck me when I saw one scene where the characters spoke a fictional language. The scene itself dealt with an issue somewhat similar to Singapore's political climate and I naturally felt it would make for some good satire.

Basically, the idea bore out of the ERP-Hitler Spoof that was circulated around not long ago. I managed to get a clip of the original scene and went about creating a 'Singaporean perspective' of the scene. I do think it makes for a good laugh and hope you agree. Of course, you might simply find this lame and if so, I'm terribly sorry.

I do hope you enjoy this at least somewhat and perhaps I will have a chance to do more of the same - it's pretty fun to create...