Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from 2009

Redesigning Pedagogy Conference, Singapore 1 - 3 June 2009

At the Third Redesigning Pedagogy Conference, I chaired a symposium on processes in mathematical problem solving, problem posing and investigations. The papers were presented by my Ph.D. students and the presentations are available on math.nie.edu.sg/T3. Berinderjeet Kaur and I also presented a session based on the Enhancing Pedagogy of Mathematics Teachers (EPMT) Project - a CRPP funded project. The proceedings for the Third Redesigning Pedagogy Conference held in Singapore 1 to 3 June 2009 is available at http://conference.nie.edu.sg/2009/search/index.php

READ Conference, Moscow, Russia 30 September - 2 October 2009

First READ Global Conference: Developing a Vision for Assessment System. In October 2009, World Bank and Russia entered a collaboration on the Russia Education Aid for Development (READ) program which aims to help developing countries improve learning outcomes. READ countries are Angola, Ethiopia, Kyrgyz Republic, Mozambique, Tajikistan, Vietnam and Zambia. On the first day, the event opens with speeches by Russian Finance Minsiter and World Bank Russi Country Director. Dean Slolkovo Business School Moscow will introduce the READ program. Erik Hanushek gives the keynote lecture on Learning Outcomes and Economic Growth while Andreas Schleicher gives another on Costing Under-Achievement in the OECD. On Day 2, there will be an ABCs of Assessment for the audience which comprises largely minister-level participants and heads of assessment units in the READ countries. There will reports from Russia, Singapore and Poland followed by sharing by African nations - South Afica, malawi and Kenya.

SEAMEO-RECSAM, Penang, Malaysia 10-12 November 2009

With 26 slots of parallel sessions, each with six different presentations, plus two keynotes and three plenary lectures, the conference was filled with plenty of stimulating topics. I was told that the participants come from 16 countries - Australia, Brunei, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Chinese Taipei and Thailand. Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia had the largest groups. The Proceedings comprises 40selected peer-reviewed papers. The keynote speakers are David Treagust (Science Education) and Kaye Stacey (Mathematics Education). The other plenary speakers are Pairash (Thailand) on teaching mathematics and science to children with special needs and Lilia Halim (Malaysia) on science education. I will deliver a pleanry lecture at the conference. The tilte of the lecture is Improving Mathematical Literacy Through Assessment. Yeap, B. H. (2009). Improving Mathematical Literacy Through Assessment. In Chaeh, U.

Casa Asia, Valencia, Spain 22-24 October 2009

Paradigms in Mathematical Education for the XXIst Century: Sharing Educational Experiences with Asia I will be doing the national presentation for Singapore. In the same session, I have Sung Je Cho (Korea), Jaime Carvalho e Silva (Portugal), Celia Hoyles (UK) and Peter Taylor (Australia) for company. The title of my presentation is High Expectations & Safety Nets: Teaching & Learning Mathematics in Singapore . The abstract of my presentation is as follow: The Singapore education system is often said to be working well. In particular, students in Singapore has done well in international benchmarking studies in mathematics, science and literacy. In this presentation, I will focus on two features of mathematics teaching and learning for the first eight years of the formal school system. In the first part, an analysis of the primary six national test items and a case study on how primary schools teach their weakest students found that there is a high expectation placed on eve