Designing My Own School Week

Personally, I think the most important thing for a successful education system is to inspire students’ interests and passion toward learning, and make them take ownership on their learning, which is more related to the modern education method. However, I also think that the traditional education system is sometimes beneficial for children, since I was from a local primary school in China, where we practised a lot and had a lot of tests, especially for Maths, and I found it quite useful for my further study in UWCSEA. Traditional education method works well for students to learn the basic and necessary knowledge. Therefore, in my school week plan, I combine both traditional and modern ways of learning, to create an education system that I think is better and more beneficial for students.

-Every subject needs to have an equal time of class, but students can choose what subjects they want to learn except from Maths, Science, English, mother language. (The students can choose the subjects according to their interests and future considerations, so that they will be more passionate toward the class, and don’t need to learn the subjects that might not be that helpful for their future.) [optional subjects include: third languages, arts, humanities, P.E , I.T)

-The teachers shouldn’t randomly pick students to answer questions, and shouldn’t judge students by their verbal contributions during class time. (Sometimes it would be very uncomfortable for some people to express their ideas verbally, but they might be very good at writing them down, so the teachers should find their advantages instead of forcing them to speak, but encouragement is acceptable.)

-Group discussions and group tasks for 1/2 of the class, and teachers talking for 1/2 of the class. (randomly pick the groups, so that the students can get to know different people)

-There will be a personal project every morning, which every student can share what they’ve learnt to the rest of the class. Students can choose one topic or one book they are interested at, do some research about it independently, and share it in the form of presentation, audio recording, drawing etc. (the only requirement of the project is that the project requires effort, learning and mastery)

Rules: Students and teachers design their own rules in the beginning of the semesters and make an agreement on the rules. Everyone, including the teachers themselves, need to follow the rules.

Assessments: 1/2 tests, 1/2 presentation or posters or other oral/visual forms. (Not assessing based on their class performance, because it’s part of the rules and their own learning customs)

One thought on “Designing My Own School Week

  1. This is excellent. “ownership’ is a great term. Some teachers may feel this is an ‘overused’ phrase but I think it has real meaning.

    I was very impressed by your reflection on asking students to speak in front of class. We perhaps overlook this too often.

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