preliminary work - PISA symposium 13 OKTOBER 2014

Posted by sazali

Salam

We came in the last third of the PISA 2012  ranking.  Sad?  As a teacher, i felt so frustrated.  Something has gone seriously wrong.

Now I must think of how to bring new achievement/ new face / values  to the students in this country facing UPSR, PTK3 and SPM 2014.  Target Blue Print 2013 - 2025 -- we must get top third by then.  He..he..  magic - David Copperfield some of my friends making fun of me in Kota Bharu coffee shops.  They laughed hard but I bled.  Luckily today I get hold of a kitab "How have chinese students performed in mathematics? 2004 by Fan Lianghuo, Wong Ngai Ying, Cai Jinfa, Li Shiqi'  Singapore:  World Scientific .  574 pages

B) What are the strongest factors that could directly influence the students' achievement?

May be these 11 factors ..while I am not yet finish reading Hattie (2009) .. could play some influence :

1.  teachers' quality - qualification, training after graduation, seminars, visits, book publication, examiners?
2.  teachers' attitude towards their daily teaching, marking, explaining, elaboration, reading , researching
3.  teachers' personality
4.  students' quality  - MRSM, SBT ,  SMS , Smart school, cluster school, top Chinese school, Maahad
5.  the schools' infrastructure -  location, urban, rural, vicinity to the capital cities
6.  syllabus and curriculum -  is it completed before the big examination?  If not ..so what!
7.     schools' climate, profile  -  is it full of opposition /  full of obedient teachers  towards MOE directives, planning
8.  communication skills between teachers , the students and school administrators.  Do they have 1 language, 2 languages or 3 ?
9.  how committed is their PTA towards the students well being, sports and exam achievement?
10.  time tabling format/ enough teachers?
11.  number of public holidays that influence the degree of  momentum in understanding mathematical and science concepts and principles through out the academic year

Hari Raya 2012 - UTHM Batu Pahat
Sports Meet TMS Besut 1972 - LCE 

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C) Last time there was a small exercise ..  two top boarding schools were picked..  they were given mock PISA test ..  surprisingly none got near to 500 marks .. the international standard of achievement covering reading, problem solving and critical thinking and   numeracy/understanding.  The ordinary schools got 360 marks.  Lagging so far behind .  Singapore , Shanghai 600 + .OMG!

D) We found that ..in mathematics ..  mostly our students (90%) can answer ..  problems that was put bluntly in numbers, operators symbols and graphical forms only in front of their eyes but once the maths come in the form of words, mathematical modelling and application type ..  hardly our students can solve the problem.  Pity me?

E) Why is that so?  one paper from UiTM on  initial analysis .. most teachers .. taught their students according to the UPSR format -  found that most questions in UPSR mathematics are not in word forms that command understanding and applying some logic to the daily problem in mathematics.  They are in visual forms that the students can easily understand (Mohd Sazali & Helmy Adly, 2012).  With ICT and fb ..  many students learn mathematics .. the easy way ( Mohd Sazali & Sulaiman, 2013) i.e., many students were not given enough time to read the questions, think about the strategy of solving the problems, trying out their strategies, discuss among peers and of course .. study the way how the solution was derived.  Why?  the teachers are rushing with so many activities my, my , my - sports meet, moral and religious agenda, pro- Putrajaya agenda etc etc ..where when July/ August come ..  the syllabus was completed but the students hardly practiced the word problem solving and application type.

During one pre-exam seminar that I attended in Johor Bharu 2012 .. few popular  coaches taught the students in 'parrot' style.  They learnt how to sing ( according to certain melody, tune )  ..  OHMS Law ..  instead of understanding the real principles behind  electricity i.e., voltage, resistance and current. He..he..  May be we should put science projects / STEM ideas ..are good for a start.

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F) Thinking of trying to use .. SPSS and AMOS to see the pattern between the 10  main variables and the antecedents (hidden) ones like the students background, parental guidance, language used at home, socioeconomic  etc  .  What are the dependent and independent variables here? think think hard.  the dependent must be the exam marks, gain score etc etc.  and the independent ones are the 'teaching methods' employed. So pre- control- post test method come into our mind.

But before that I can predict the outcome of this work - the strongest influence would be the teachers' factors and the students themselves.  So goes ..the task of finding the right potential teachers not only in IPG (teaching institutions for primary school teachers ) or education faculties (UM, USM. UTM, UTHM , UPSI, UPM ) - teaching potential secondary school teachers Kamaruddin (1988) to BPG MOE.

Methodology?  survey form and interview.  Huh?

G)  the chinese superiority in mathematics ?  attributed to solid drill and practice method from primary to secondary education. Fan Lianghuo et al (2004).   Evidence found that chinese from HK weak in data analysis, statistics and probability  but for other areas like algebra, geometry, trigonometry .. they are always top.  Thanks to drilling method.  If they compared to USA ..they beat USA in almost all areas of mathematics. Why?  attitude of the rich american children versus poor chinese in Mainland China/  indians from Mainland India.

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That is all for now.  To know more please come to 1st Symposium on PISA : critical review on the findings and mapping the actions.  13 - 15 Oct 2014.  SEAMEO RECSAM Penang. Early birds - some discount.  Contact RECSAM +6 046522 767  (761)

Work begins ..developing the items in the survey form.  Thinking about the main themes, sub-themes etc now.  Likert Scale .

Sekian.
Wallahu aklam bis sawabbbbb.

Rujukan:
Kamaruddin Kachar (1989).  Perkembangan Pendidikan Di Malaysia.  SIRI PENGURUSAN PENDIDIKAN. Kuala Lumpur:  Teks Publishing & Penerbit ASAS Sdn Bhd

Mohd Sazali and Sulaiman Yamin (2013). E-learning in Malaysian Technical University Network.  JET Vol. 4 (1), 27-38 . June 2013 ISSN 2180-3811  Malaccca: UTeM

Mohd Sazali and Helmy Adly (2012).  Teaching and Learning Mathematics using CDiCL :  making sense through computers within teamwork.  Batu Pahat:  UTHM

John Hattie (2009). Visible learning - A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement.  London New York:  Routledge





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