I'm suppose to write a reflection after the conference trip, just like students who went overseas for their trips. I find it hard to start because to be honest, I wrote all I want about critical thinking before being tasked with this reflection. And I don't like to use them again as I wait for new inspirations to write about. And it looks like I can complete my reflection now. So what I'm going to reflect about is not really on critical thinking, but I'm going to reflect using the tools of critical thinking, and beyond. And I'm going to reflect on education, but education is too broad, so I shall narrow my reflections related to the CCA that I happened to be in-charged and also talent development. Specifically, selection of students for talent development program under in-house research opportunities for science society CCA.
When it comes to real world problems like these, I find, more often than not, that the most fundamental question to ask is 'what is the purpose'. We have a problem, how shall we select students for in-house research programs? Before we match students to the programs, we have to ask ourselves what is the purpose of research in the CCA?
Is it to make important contributions to the advancement of knowledge?
No, that is the criteria for a PhD thesis.
Is it to take part in SSEF and other competitions to win awards?
Yes, if you are a student who wants to get A*Star scholarships for example
Yes, if you are a teacher who wants to put it down your EPMS at the end of the year
Yes, if you are a parent who wants your child to be the best in everything
Is it to promote your own science discipline be it Biology, Chemistry or Physics?
Only if you are more concerned about your discipline compared to your students
Is it to promote research and groom future scientists?
You are in the wrong school, NUS High will give you more and better opportunities
Is it to provide talented students a chance to experience research?
Yes! I believe in this. A chance to experience research and widen their horizons! They may not be scientists in the future, but their experience will be valuable even if they eventually become successful politician or salesman or businessmen in the future! Even if they become a housewife, they will learn how to interpret research results published in newspapers. Of course, it will be great if they eventually choose to do research for their future, but that's not the reason we are doing it, isn't it?
Yes, if you are a teacher who wants to put it down your EPMS at the end of the year
Yes, if you are a parent who wants your child to be the best in everything
Is it to promote your own science discipline be it Biology, Chemistry or Physics?
Only if you are more concerned about your discipline compared to your students
Is it to promote research and groom future scientists?
You are in the wrong school, NUS High will give you more and better opportunities
Is it to provide talented students a chance to experience research?
Yes! I believe in this. A chance to experience research and widen their horizons! They may not be scientists in the future, but their experience will be valuable even if they eventually become successful politician or salesman or businessmen in the future! Even if they become a housewife, they will learn how to interpret research results published in newspapers. Of course, it will be great if they eventually choose to do research for their future, but that's not the reason we are doing it, isn't it?
In NUS Science faculty, there is a UROPS program in place, or the undergraduate research opportunities programme in science. And this is what they say on the front page, I couldn't have said it better!
Welcome to UROPS!Isn't education about preparing our students for their future so that our future can be secured. Not what we want them to be in the future or what we want in our own future.The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme in Science (UROPS) invites you to work with our Faculty staff and experience the challenges and benefits that come from pursuing an independent research project. UROPS is one of the most important means for undergraduate students to foster mentoring relationships with faculty and research staff and it provides you with a unique opportunity to work with one or more scientists in a specific area of study.This programme allows you to engage actively in research, discussions, intellectual communications and other creative activities. By complementing the conventional classroom learning, UROPS places students at the frontiers of scientific research. Through the typical phases of doing research, you are able to enhance your knowledge in the latest development of science and technology; acquire special communication and presentation skills; experience creative thinking; interact and forge closer ties with the established scientists and members of their groups.We believe that the experience you can gain upon completion of the project will assist you in the preparation for future careers and postgraduate training.
In my opinion, the main purpose of offering research in school is really to offer the learning experience. That is not to say that to win awards, to advance knowledge, to promote science etc are not our purpose, they are. But they are secondary purposes and not as important of my main purpose.
Main purpose, checked. Issue checked. Points of view, checked too.
Another pressing issue to work on for selection, is the talent bit. How do we identify them? This can be a good research for a postgraduate degree in education. But what is the concept of talent? Is it academic results? IQ?
I have been through a module in NIE on gifted learners, and one of the most memorable activity we did in the module is to role play as the selection officer for a gifted education school based on their application forms. It turned out that the one with the perfect grades and most promising candidate was Adolf Hitler while others like Einstein etc were considered as slow and/or problem kids by teachers. Of course, I'm not thinking that every student who has the perfect grades/resume will turn out to be Adolf Hitler or every student who was slow will become another Einstein. But I learned not to make snap judgments of what a student can or cannot do based on a piece of paper and a quick interview.
For example, there is this boy who is so talented in Mathematics, but if you judge him from his looks, behaviour or just talk to him, you might just write him off immediately.
What about the kinds of talent that we should recognise? Is the talent development framework so narrow that we can only fit Maths, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Geography, Literature, Language Arts and all other academic domains? What about traits like a very strong determination? That can be a talent/gifted too! One of the Nobel prize was awarded to 2 very determined engineers from Bells lab who designed a new antenna that was suppose to be very sensitive. But they found this consistent background noise affecting their design so they worked very hard to remove the caused. They tried everything before concluding that nothing caused it and they won the Nobel prize for discovering the cosmic microwave background radiation that remains from Big Bang billions of years ago!
Now if they are any less determined, the bird shit could still be on their antennas and lady luck would not have smiled on them.
If we want to let our students experience research, if we want to develop their various talents, then we need to rethink on how we select students for research projects and challenge our own assumptions. Not all students who take H2 Physics are interested in Physics, so why is it necessary to put it as a pre-requisite for nanoscience research that I'll be offering? After all, the student who is not doing Physics H2 is doing pretty well in nanoscience research right now. The same goes for life science research, at least 3 of them are not taking H2 Biology at all too!
This implies that we have to devise a selection procedure that takes into considerations of the above mentioned points, and of course, other information like school calendar and the fight for the best students against other CCAs. I shall leave the rest to myself and see how it works out. It's going to be an exciting closure to the school term. We shall see...
Critical thinking, can I check out now?
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