Last Sun - As mentioned in my last post, I went to Bugis to buy the J.Co donuts for the 2 students (though 1 was too shy to take from me in the end) and there was 1 v. pretty assistant there haha. The donuts there are pretty good I think! Wouldn't mind going back there again anytime soon (for the donuts!) =p
Mon - Triple tutorial + 1/2 lecture + preparation for IPSG on Wed. Lecture was good, a few funny moments including one where after a student answered my question loudly and clearly, a student in front of me commented, "Wah, confident sia." to which I alerted the rest of the lecture group and said something like - "Ya, you say confident sia. That should be the way right? If you know your stuff well you should be able to answer confidently and not like some of you who mumble your answers."
After I finished my part, I told the students that I'll let my "brother" take over, which got some of them laughing at the Chem. Bros connection. =p
Tue - Back-to-back labs cos I had to do makeup for Fri SPA + preparation for IPSG as I did a lot of resizing and aesthetic touchups to the cards for the chemistry game I created with my friend before sending it for printing and lamination.
A couple of funny moments with 08S114 when I think Jonathan somehow moved the lab table and I commented on his strength and when I had a funny laugh about Matthias when I was borrowing a TYS from him and he said that he needed it back right after that to do his weekly practice cos I thought he was joking at first but seems like he's serious, which is good cos he's smart but needs hard work to do well.
Wed - Chrystal Workshop again in the morning but the highlight was definitely the IPSG (Chem) in the afternoon at RJC. Btw, IPSG means "Instructional Programme Support Group" whereby teachers from various JCs come together to share their teaching strategies, demonstrations, and other things that can improve teaching (of chemistry) so I represented MJC with my presentation "Having Fun with Chemistry (Teaching through Songs and Games)" and I had planned to share about "Collide (FRS Remix)" and "Sodium Hydroxide" for the songs and our "VSEPR" game.
I started off explaining "Why Songs?" - mainly because not only because of entertainment value but also because sometimes students remember the lyrics of certain songs very well, sadly more so than their lecture notes so if we could wrap our content into a nice song it would be good to help them remember content knowledge.
Then I went into my thought processes when I create songs - (1) The topics/concepts I want to cover - that's always my no. 1 priority because you must know v. well what you plan to teach (2) The popularity of the singer/song - must be a popular song otherwise it defeats the purpose since a large portion of the audience would not be able to connect with the song (3) Lyrics of song - must be easy for me to rhyme with common chemistry terms (e.g. "-ide", "ate", "-gy") because it'll sound v. weird if the sound is v. different from the original song.
Next, I joked that I had checked out the competition as I showed them 2 websites which they may want to take a look at because some songs were not bad also but there were also examples of songs which I would NOT bother to write, such as "The Element Song", which is simply a song that includes the names of all the elements but there's no concept and you have a Periodic Table!
Then I started going through the songs with the concepts I planned to teach and also incorporated a "live" performance of "Collide (FRS Remix)" where I got my chem. bro to help me click the slides cos I joked with the audience that I wanted to connect with them so I should face them when I sing and I took an empty water bottle for my make-shift mike. The singing wasn't great (esp. after a day of lessons) but at least it was entertaining and they were also v. nice to applaud and cheer enthusiastically. =)
After I was done with "Sodium Hydroxide", I told them they may have some reservations about creating their own songs because those 2 songs I shared were quite long and complicated so I said they could start from something smaller and simpler. Then I said I had a surprise for them and since CNY is just around the corner I would share a bonus song based on a CNY song. Throughout the entire song they were laughing loudly and cheering, which was great to see.
At the end of my song segment, I told them that since these songs will be compiled into a CD by RJC, they could use it but please give credit to the creator because of intellectual property rights and joked that music piracy is rampant. =P
After that came my games segment which, after an overview of "Why Games?" and things to consider when creating games, was kicked off with my friend and I explaining to two groups of what the game was about and how to play the game before we let them explore the games by themselves. It was obvious the teachers enjoyed themselves, esp. the TJC teachers who were pretty high when they played the game haha.
Anyway, in all honesty, I feel that I gave an excellent presentation with good flow of the points, injection of humour at appropriate times to keep the energy level high and continuously engage the audience (not exactly an easy task especially when you're doing it at the end of a long day from 4.15-5.05pm), as well as to teach them (to a small extent) how to create their own songs and games. Of course it was also nice to get recognition from my bosses who were there to support me as well as from my colleagues who attended the session.
To end this segment, I'd like to thank all those who had helped out in one way or another - my bosses and colleagues for being there for me and esp. those who help cut out the cards, my good friend Bryan Lim who co-created the game with me and helped teach the game, my ex-student Kwong Shi Min (08S103) for helping me to record and edit the songs, my ex-student Jonathan Wong (06S306) for his idea on the VSEPR card design, and everyone who had helped with the "beta-testing" of VSEPR =)
Thu - Needed to pia for my composition for CNY but unfortunately my time was eaten up by unexpected circumstances like discussion of lecture notes and being briefed on my duties in the Exam Committee.
During lecture I shared with the students about our thoughts for the test results and our 4D's, different from the ones Dr William Tan shared last week - (1) Those who got less than C we were disappointed (2) Those we got less than E we were
There was an incident that I was perturbed about cos when I showed the top 12 students, a student stood up and I suppose pretended to be one of the top 12 much to the laughter of the rest and I tried to suan the student with a witty rebuff, but it didn't come out right and I wasn't sure if people might take my words out of context and misinterpret them to be something sinister. Anyway, I smsed the student to apologize in case he took offence but it was good to hear that he didn't think anything of it and that he can take jokes. But lesson learnt for me to be more careful with what I say even when joking...
Pia through from evening to Fri morning to try and finish up my song and it took me a much longer time than I had hoped for...
Fri - Started off with a rather embarrassing situation when my shirt somehow got caught by the door handle as I tried to squeeze past some teachers while walking to some students haha.
CNY celebrations started off with a v. entertaining lion dance, the best I've seen out of the 4 performances in MJC cos it was interactive when the lions went around to disturb everyone, students, photographers, and teachers and also throwing oranges all over the place. Got a little bit draggy at the end imo but overall still a great performance.
While rehearsing for CNY, I took a look at the performances on and off and the Wushu performance was v. good, esp. this guy who I don't know what weapon he was using but he was v. good at controlling the string and spheres and he had some v. slick moves.
Also saw the other 2 teachers' performances and they were both great! Thought the saxophone was v. well played and of course I already knew what to expect from my ex-mentee from our karaoke sessions as he delivered a great rendition of Jay Chou's "说好的幸福呢" and the students were v. receptive as some of them swayed their hands in rhythm with the music.
The final performance by me and my chem. bro was disappointing for me and I wasn't totally surprised I must admit because >60% of my song ("I Believe") was only composed the night before so I didn't have time to rehearse and I couldn't remember the lyrics well enough (I still had parts of the original song in my mind) so I had to look at the screen quite often and I fumbled on the lyrics at the pre-chorus on both times. Also felt my voice was shaky because I was nervous about not remembering the lyrics well. Only the chorus was pretty ok because most parts were composed some time back so I could remember them.
It's very disappointing that my performance didn't do justice to myself and the song because I really liked the lyrics (though they could be better with more time) but I hope those who paid attention to the lyrics would've found them meaningful and inspirational... Anyway I should also learn from my own song and remain strong in the face of this setback. There're always highs and lows in our lives and I've no doubt I will bounce back and deliver great performances in the future. =)
Anyway, through all this I think there's a moral to the story for my students:
"If you don't study properly then you cannot expect to do the best that you can."
Had our Lo-hei session in the Library after that before going out for lunch at Simpang Bedok, which was v. funny cos apart from the usual crapping, there were a lot of arrows (not curly ones) flying all over the place, such as who to arrange our JB trip in March and who to pay for the bill later. Really enjoyable company! We headed off to my bro's house after that where some of us played mahjong, some board games, and others table-tennis (3v3). Had a great time and it was even better when I had a self-picked maximum hand in the final game of mahjong. =P
Some of us carried on with mahjong in the evening and it was a v. draining session and the 1st time I played a full round taking about 4 hours! =s
Ok, that's it for now. Got a lot of work to clear up again over the weekend and CNY, esp. since I'll be away for reservist v. soon. Quite xian but I must be disciplined!
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