Teck Whye Secondary School (TWSS)'s student presenters and their teachers.
On the 21st of November, the first local Knowledge Building (KB) Symposium, "Ideas First, A Reason to Teach" was held at the National Institute of Education, gathering members of the KB community locally as well as from Hong Kong and Quebec to share about their experiences.
Amongst those present were a group of 5 students from Teck Whye Secondary School, the sole student representatives amidst teachers and KB practitioners attending the symposium. All eyes were drawn to them as they stepped up to share about their experiences with the Knowledge Forum (KF), as well as to enact a short skit on how knowledge building had been conducted in their History class.
Despite the initial nervousness from having teachers as their audience, the presentation ran ahead without a hitch and were met with a round of applause for the informative and creative skit.
“Even though we had only short time to prepare our skit, but it was worth it when some teachers mentioned that they benefitted from the presentation and the skit. ”
Aside from the students' presentation, keynote speakers Professor Nancy Law and Professor Therese Lafarriere also took to the stage to share on their extensive educational research in their respective countries, Hong Kong and Quebec. This was followed by round-table discussions on the KB practice locally, as well as a hands-on experience with the newest version of the Knowledge Forum, KF6, before wrapping up with a short workshop for teachers on working with students' ideas.
Reflecting upon the event, one of the students, Ryan, expressed,
“The KB Symposium was an eye opener for me as formally, I did not know the huge size of the Knowledge Building Community. ”
The students also reflected that participating in the event had broadened their perspectives on the application of knowledge building in the classroom beyond History itself.
“I learnt that Knowledge Building can be applied to primary school where children can become innovative in generating sensible questions.”
“I found the workshop regarding the knowledge building principles interesting as I could see how knowledge building could be implemented into other study disciplines other than humanities itself. On the whole, I feel that knowledge building is very useful especially in humanities as it really helps to stretch our brains and thinking further. It allows connection and enhancement of the ideas through Knowledge Forum that ignite the concept of knowledge building. ”
With the success of the first symposium, we would like to thank all who have participated and contributed to the event. We look forward to subsequent editions of KB symposiums, and to seeing the KB community grow as we strive to further develop knowledge building in Singapore.