MsSheepy

Image by iandavid via Flickr

Sometime in March, my school has nominated me to attend an external course entitled ‘Systems Thinking‘.

After attending this course, I realized that my life is filled with balancing loops. I would like to elaborate on one of my own version of balancing loop.

Analogy 1: my savings account. I am personally comfortable with having a balance of $x amount in my account. Whenever i receive any small bonus or any other minor benefits, say $y, i will have a balance of $(x + y) in my account. Of course i will be very happy of my own achievements, and most of the time, i will spend the extra $y to pamper myself or to treat my hubby and so on. So i am always back to $x in my account, because $(x+y-y) 

Analogy 2: my hobby. Being one who loves to travel around the globe, i will surely book a tour to go somewhere far away during the school holidays whenever time allows.  The tour package will cost $p, which is way more than my $y (Pretty Yucky). Thus having $p > $y, my bank account will be left with an even smaller balance of $(x-p). I hate the feeling of being back from my holidays, because this is the period which i will usually announce to my friends that i am pathetically poor, so no more outings for me. I had to scrimp and save all over again in order to reach my comfortable level of $x again.

My savings graph, when drawn, could look something like this:

Sounds familiar? I am sure many of you out there have your so-called comfort zones. Whether it’s in school or at work. Once you are out of your comfort zone, you will feel uneasy or feel threatened. Most of you will strive hard to bring yourself back to the comfort zone level, by resigning or quiting school etc…

I personally think this is a bad kind of loop. After listening to the trainer’s explanation, people who followed this loop are doom to fail in life. We should always strive for the better and aim high. In order to succeed in life, we need to break out of the comfort zones.

That’s all i have to share here. Enjoy!

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Do you know that one can get sued for slander by blogging about the ‘wrong’ and abusive stuff about a person? In my free time, i did some googling and i came across websites of students blogging badly about their lecturers or teachers — brainlessly. They go to the extent of placing the teacher’s face, full name etc on the blog. I could easily use this as evidence against the blogger if i want.

What’s worst is, these students actually put their real faces on the blog , together with the school name and their classes. I am not going to name those students here though, if they happen to stumble upon this blog, they should know who they are.

Whatever things you have placed onto the net, it will eventually surface out in the search results; especially if the key words used are common. We teachers do read public blogs too.

As a blogger myself since i was a student, i do censor what i really write in my blog. If you have noticed by now. I kept all personal and touchy stuff in my private blog where it’s only viewable by my close friends.

Let me give you some tips on how to ‘bitch‘ without getting yourself into big trouble; especially if you are those who feel better after sharing and writing it down:

1. Lock up the entry and make it visible to only your good buddies. You can swear or bitch whatever you can in there. However, do watch your words too. Anything that is listed on the net is still not-so private. Best is to take them offline.

2. Do not reveal your real name and face on the blog if you don’t want people to find out who you really are. And especially if you want to write terrible negative comments about the people around you. Well, unless you want attention and don’t mind being a net whore. But strangely enough, people who do this tends to get a lot of attention from other bloggers. I loved reading bloggers flaming one another. it’s so entertaining and it drives traffic too

3. Leave out the company or the victim’s real identity. Instead, drop subtle hints on who the victim is. The victim will definitely react if he/she finds your blog entry description familiar. :X But by then, you could simply deny that you are referring to him/her, since no names are mentioned.

Last but not least, the best way to deal with your problem and anger is to speak to the ‘victims’ personally. We teachers are human beings after all, and can never be perfect. We do appreciate feedback from others too.

Life can never be perfect.

Nothing can be more bored and dry than to do work over the weekends, but there’s nothing we educators can do especially when we are involved in crafting curriculum. Most of the time in school were spent on meetings, lunches, grading and classes. Nothing ‘concrete’ was ever done.

On weekends especially SUNDAYs, I usually seek solace at my little working area in my home in between meals. I know some of you will be raising your eyebrows, thinking that this is merely a dining table!

Well, i get the most inspirations while sitting at this desk, and better still, i don’t need to move around when i am hungry or thirsty. Everything is in front of me. If only time will just stop here for now.

The world just falls apart in front of me this semester. Everything is going hay-wire, everyone seemed overloaded and nothing I do seems right. I find myself forgetting things easily nowadays. Perhaps i got too many things at hand? Even a simple task of merely assigning students to supervisors is peppered with students withdrawing, ending deferment and so on. I have a nice admin assisting me in doing this, but then….if anything goes wrong, my head will roll first right?

Aww…. If only this semester will come to an end soon.

I chanced upon this article from the mypaper the day before. It mentioned that bosses in the US don’t buy excuses for lateness of their employees. This make me reflect upon my own doings when i was still a student in the secondary school.

I was a real cheeky student during my school time. I had ideas and mischief up my sleeves whenever i stepped into school, so i ended up doing all sorts of weird things. Friends came to me and ask for an excuse to use on their teachers. I had 101 excuses up my sleeves, so i can always ‘lend’ one to them

My most common actions and the corresponding stupid excuses as a student were:

• forget to bring textbook (I got a lot of ‘gangs’ in the school, so i can always borrow from friends in other classes on my trips to the toilet. The excuse i gave my form teacher was, ‘Oh, i lent my friends in other class and i just gotten in back’ )
  
• never wear uniform during ECA (I was from the NPCC group. and i hate the usual master parades on early saturday mornings. So i bandaged my own toes and claimed that i couldn’t wear those boots’. Muahahaa)
  
• late for classes (Oh teacher, i missed the bus, my mum wants me to buy something for her.., my school bus was late!!)
• late homework submission (lend my friend, she forgot to return. lost my book on the bus)

Actually what makes people want to make up excuses? The reason is simple, they hope to avoid punishment and not take responsibility of what they had done.

As i stepped into the working world, i realize i survive better when i stop giving excuses. I am surprised that most bosses are quite forgiving as long as one admits his/her mistakes sincerely; with the effort of not repeating it again. This contradicts my statement ‘the working world is treacherous‘ i made in my earlier post. You just have to be at the right place at the right time.

All is not lost by once being a cheeky student. All my skills and knowledge are put into good use in class. Whenever my students give me excuses for being late for class, for being late in submitting their work; i feel like laughing out loud in front of them. I notice NONE of the excuses are new to me! They still belonged to my book of 101 excuses i had used many years ago. Hahaa, quite astonishing to know that students nowadays still lack creativity in this area.

So, just like the bosses in US, i take the students excuses with a pinch of salt. I will just listen and brush it off. Lessons will still carry on as usual. I will still downgrade their grades as usual too.

I am tasked to facilitate the IT Project Management module this semester. Frankly speaking, i face great difficulties trying to bring the concept of ITPM across to students. If only we can create a real life working scenario within the four walls of a classroom. Unfortunately, due to time constraint, it’s rather hard to achieve this goal.

Being an ex-hamburger meat Project Manager myself before i join this tertiary institution, I could see myself adding value into the day-to-day lessons with the students. This of course can be a great disadvantage also, as i tend to ‘nag’ the students more whenever they did something wrong or irrelevant. It just gets over my head sometime and i find myself having more and more difficulties ending my lessons on time.

The true life of a PM is not as easy as what the students thought. We introduce the Project Manager as the piece of meat wedged in between two pieces of thick halves of a bun. He/She has to appease the top management and the users (a.k.a customers) as well as to manage the teams under his/her charge below.

Most of the time, the users and the top management are not that nice to work with; and they can scream at the top of their voices whenever a project slips off the deadline or doesn’t meet their requirements. So being the meat of the burger you had to try ways and means to ‘protect’ the bottom half of the bun from sinking further, else the meat will be the one touching the ‘hot’ ground.

Aww…. this is also the main reason why i tend to be stricter to students in my classes this semester. I am just trying to be the bad egg in the basket. Hehee.

The world is a treacherous place to work in.

I am on course these two days. Ah, i really loved this course. It’s on Basic Systems Thinking held at Civil Service College. The instructor is really a jovial guy and he is one of those rare facilitators or lecturers that could actually keep me awake for 8 hours! I always fell asleep during lectures/tutorials during the Uni days. I find most of them boring. Usually, 80% of what was being taught went into one of my ears, and 60% went out via the other ear.

Entertainment aside. What’s best about this course is, it has NO EXAMS! Things will be real different if there are exams right? I would most likely spend a huge chunk of the time ‘memorizing’ and taking down whatever the instructor says without actually deciphering what he really meant. That was the trouble of the education system during my time. It has trained all of us to be exam smart- to the point where we ace in studies, got the best grades but seriously lack in creativity and human skills.

Right now, i noticed that most of the exams had evolved over the years. The new examination styles are crafted in such a way that there’s no way a student could regurgitate whatever they have memorized.

One of the famous styles is:

The Open-Book concept

I detest this to the core! The exam papers are real tough. Open book concept sounds like a godsend exam for people who simply cant memorize things for nuts since secondary 2 like myself. Ah-hem. But, what’s the use of open book when there’s nothing you can refer?? I used to bring in all the tests papers, thick textbooks into the examination halls for open-book papers, but 99% of the time, there’s not enough time to even touch those resources. It takes me 30 seconds to find the page that i want to refer and another 5 mins to digest the information. Those minutes are important in the exam!!

Aww.. i think i still prefer close book examinations. They seemed to be easier.

My third batch of students graduated successfully today. How time flies, i had been with this school for 3 years ++ and i’ve taught hundreds of students here. Most of them managed to find a good job; be it part-time, contract or full time. 

It’s nice to see how one grows up in the school system. When they first entered as Year 1 students, the kids were so innocent and shy. Upon reaching their third year in school, they begun to build up confidence in their presentation skills and are able to justify and bring their ideas across in the classrooms.

As their teacher, I do grow up together with them too. And i do not deny that i do learn useful things from the students too. During my course of teaching, I’ve met students who are older than myself. I am truly inspired by them.

I still remembered how i stammered in front of the students during lesson  time on my first day of work. :)  The students, upon knowing this fact, encouraged me to speak ‘properly’ by paying their utmost attention.  So sweet of them. 

Though most of them are not top-notch students in Singapore, i could see that some of them really put in a lot of hard work to make up for what they have not achieved in the past.

For those who had done well, i really want to congratulate them. 

For those who did not do very well,  i hope they do not give up. I believe that if they put in an extra effort, they can do well too. 

Let’s hope this batch of students can do well and be successful in the working industry. :) 

Most students are afraid of examinations, including myself. What makes things worst is to have a certification examination hours before my flight, when the only main worry on my mind is:

I have not finish packing my tour stuff!

The course starts early in the morning at 9am and … ouch, the exam was held at the end of the same day. The tricky questions were not helping me to score much. And I felt that I might do badly for the paper. I just cannot imagine that I could fail a paper which consists of 20 multiple-choice (MCQ) questions. The passing grade is 65%.

Seriously speaking, if one failed a paper, does it mean that he/she is not competent or well-versed in that subject matter?

In my past, the most common kind of examination format is a combination of MCQ, Multiple-response, Structured questions and Essays. Is this the perfect combination?

Let’s do some analysis.

Usage of MCQ or Multiple-response questions alone

I personally do not like to set such format for examination papers. For “soft” modules like Management, or Business Communications, the paper crafter could utilize the power of English to create numerous confusing answers to a simple question. Most students will be tricked by this kind of questions even though he/she understands the concept well; perhaps not in terms of formal terminologies.

Another setback of using this method alone is, students can “guess” their answers if they are unsure. For a question with 4 choices of answers, the probability of a student getting it right is 25%. Once again, understanding could not be accurately tested.

However, this type of questions allows markers to grade faster within a short time. Students could get instant results upon completion of the paper. That’s the advantage of this kind of exam format.

Usage of Structured / Essay questions

Well, yes, I somewhat agree that these kind of questions might be more useful to determine student’s level of understanding. Students are given the opportunity to write down their answers as well as their reasoning. They could also demonstrate their analytical skills in their answers.

The only drawback of this method is; the grading process could be horrendous. Teachers will see hundreds of different variations of answers and it’s really hard to derive the perfect set of grading criteria.  Teachers have a higher tendency to give “pitiful” marks especially if the student gets totally out of point but spent effort to write a full page of essay. *perspire*

It will take weeks for students to receive feedback on how well they had done for their paper.

Ah… so now that explains why most examination papers have the above combinations.

Do you agree with me?

I will talk about more examinations format when I am back. Watch this space soon!