AAR for biodiversity sabbatical --
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
This AAR is for the biodiveristy sabbatical done on week 9 of term 1. So here goes a little different from Weiseng's AAR though:
Observable facts:Trainers
- Initially poor student manegment but later on improved
- Not well trained
- Lack disicpline
Admin
- Clearance for mice/bird preservation not given until last minute
Programmes
Logistics
- Trainers need to rush out to buy extra stuff during sabbatical
- Confusion over venues
- Last minute changes to venuesinsufficient resources
Planning
- A lot of time spent
- Prompt in doing stuff
- Lots of efforts put in
- Resources well managed
- Slack for too long
Actual Day
- Students enjoy the activities: going to Marina South Park and rat dissection
- Students have short attention spans during lectures, theory
- Time was well managed and most activities could be finished on time
- Trainers tend to stay in a group instead of going individually to help the students
- Students are spontaneous in activities
Assumptions/Causes
Trainers
- Assumed that students are easy to manage
Admin
- Lack in initiative in trainers led to delays in certain tasks
Programmes
- The trainers had planned for lots of hands on so the students would not get bored easily
Logistics
- Logistics plan was not finalized till the last moment and hence some things might have been omitted
Planning
- Always assumed that things will go on well as planned but in actual fact did not, eg. Usage of lab by other sabbaticals told to trainers at the last minute
Actual Day
- Things on the overall went well and no accidents happened – thus sabbatical was carried out smoothly as well
- Very comprehensive and detailed action plan led to efficient carrying out of activities
Collective Proposals / Area for improvement
Trainers
- Should be more well prepared on mice preservation techniques before teaching
- Should be better trained in student managment
Admin
- Should ask Mrs Har for permission earlier
Programmes
- Clearer instructions for hands on
Logsitics
- More back up plans
- Get ready more materials then needed
- Make checklist of items needed everyday
- Improve communication with other sabbatical teachers
Planning
- Should work hard throughout instead of slack for a few weeks in the middle of planning
Actual Day
- Trainers can be attached to a particular group and stay with it for the whole duration of the sabbatical
- Better control over the students for the first 2 days so that they will be more attentive during lectures
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whispered 8:59 PM
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Details & reflections of Biodiversity & Conservation Sabbatical --
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Being our virgin attempt in conducting our sabbatical, there were a lot of advice, guidance and help from Mr. Goh's side. The suggestion of conducting the sabbatical was actually sparked off by Mr. Goh on the topic of conservation after a few of us had actually attended a bird preservation workshop @ NUS, and wanted to expand on our work scope, and try a hand on conducting sabbaticals.
I still remember we were only a group of 3 initially, with me, Guan Jie & Yee Jiunn expressing interest over the sabbatical during the December holidays. Thus, we met up with Mr. Goh initially to discuss ideas, and our course of action during the 5-day sabbatical week to see what to include and what not to include. It was really enriching as we were allowed to plan a 5 day activity (action plan) from scratch without much help, whereby we used to only attend such activities.
Although it may be tough to think of ideas, more brains definitely work better than 1, which highlighted the importance of teamwork between the members of the group. Mr. Goh gave us some books to read up on preservation, biodiversity and conservation for us to spark off ideas and to prepare for the courses of the day. We ended up with the 5 day action plan, with Biodiversity, Preservation [Of birds (which we learnt @ NUS) & insects], and conservation.
The main focus of the course was actually "Biodiversity & Conservation" and we are actually 'preserving in order to conserve.'Jobs were dedicated to work on various powerpoint and concepts, but we soon expanded to a 4 member group, with Jianghao joining first, before Jansen finally joined too.
Through the doing up of the powerpoint on Biodiversity, I certainly gained valuable knowledge on the importance of "Biodiversity" and also learnt basic presentation skills like using large font (to ensure font size are able to be seen), and also making use of the diagrams and pictures to aid in teaching and also capturing the students' attention. (Yee Jiunn - Importance of Preservation/Mice Preservation, Jianghao - Insect Preservation, Guan Jie - Conservation)
Meetings were held regularly throughout Term 1 to discuss on the whole process.
During the third official meeting, Mr. Goh vetted through our powerpoint plans before giving the final nod for the further development of our powerpoint. We gathered information from various resources such as the world wide web and the book to do up the powerpoint; in the process of which, we learnt valuable information through too.
We also made hand-made nets, by bending metal wires into loops, and sewing a fish net around it to form a net for catching insects. Mr. Goh told us about the characteristics of different nets, and what to take note while doing this nets.
There were a lot of hands-on and preparatory work going on among us which we learnt a lot from which will prove useful in while conducting our course.We also went down on recee sessions to buy stuff and also to recee areas for us to catch adequate insects for the students to preserve. It proves interesting, as although our budget was rather large, (we had to use as little money as possible) so we had to compare prices, durability and whether the materials are correct before buying the stuff. The recee sessions to Marina South & West Coast Park to find a suitable area for catching insects were also an eye-opener for us, as we realise the importance of planning, with adequate insects to catch and also due to the obstruction of "National Parks" which forbids any catching of animals within the parks.
We initially wanted to continue preserving birds, but we were unable to find dead birds by asking pet shops, especially when there is the Avian Afluenza, which made it harder for us to get the dead birds for preservation. [Prior to trying to get the birds from pet shops, we had seek Miss. Wong @ NUS who conducted the bird preservation workshop for birds, but they did not have enough (as they get their dead birds from Bird Park & Changi Airport - when birds are shoot down/crash into the aeroplanes and becomes dead], as the dead birds from these sources are also limited. Thus, we had to try seeking for ourselves. It was really hard to persuade pet shop owners to leave dead birds for you, testing our communication skills. We would also have went to try out another round for bird preservation to increase our skill of preserving animals if not for the change. Thus, there was a major crisis with the birds, thus Mr. Goh told us to settle on mice instead (as there was a classmate whose dad is a pet shop owner and is able to provide the mice), so we followed a guidebook and did hands-on. It depended a lot on our vocabulary of chinese (due to the fact that the book is in chinese) and innovation as there were certain materials that were not around in our school context. So, we had to find creative ways to preserve the animals. We also had another crisis in between though due to the law imposed by MOE to forbid any experiments done on live animals, thus the mice preservation was still pending at almost the last few weeks (8 - 9th week) which we panicked. Luckily, the pending got through or else we would have settled on plant preservation.
This tested us a lot on crisis management, and to deal with real life problems on our own, testing on our problem solving skills - the ability to deal with problems.The treasurer, Yee Jiunn was efficient and organised in keying in bank accounts and claiming money from Mr. Goh, which we can learnt after in future if we do similar jobs. Jansen was mainly the storage manager by buying most of the resources such as the box for keeping the mice, toolbox, styrofoam while Jianghao bought the bamboo poles for the nets.
After a whole term of planning, we finally conducted our sabbatical, with the Secondary Twos.
Day 1It was rather hard to control the students as we were both unfamiliar with dealing with students and are lacking in experience in dealing with the students. After checking out on the powerpoint in the Environmental LRC's computer, I discovered that my powerpoint custom animations wasn't working, so I had to redo it. Luckily, the sabbatical only started at 9a.m. due to the module exam, so I was able to change it. If not, the powerpoint would have ended up being badly done. Thus, this highlights the importance of preparedness, as if I did check with teh LRC previously, I would not have to deal with this crisis. Being the first one to start out on the presentation, I was a little shaky as the class was a little inattentive. I learnt how to control the class by through communication throughout the rest of the day, where
mutual respect is important where students attend the course because they want to learn something from us, while we conduct this course because we want to spread the knowledge of biodiversity & conservation for more to understand the severity of the problem the environnment is facing now. We adopted a points system (suggested by Jianghao & I) in order to interest the students more so that they will pay attention to the presentations, and to earn points from their groups. The Biodiversity game was a little messy as there was inadequate of answer sheets to go around and each group had a different cards to match the orders too, thus it was really confusing for other trainers to determine the 5 groups are right and wrong, leaving the job mainly to me, causing a lot of 'lag-out.' We should have better planned the activity in order to maximise the full potential of the time. However, on the same day, anther crisis occured when Mr. Goh pointed out that there were 5 missing bamboo poles, so Guan Jie and I went to the nearest retail shop @ Sixth Avenue to get the poles. We were lucky to do so, as prior knowledge of that area allows us to know that place has the things. We made it on time. This shows that we should come up with a finalised copy of items required and do a c hecklist.The net-making session took a rather long time to complete as there were a lot of students had doubt. Throughout the helping of the students to hammer and sew the nets, I was able to develop better communication skills to help, and also to give clear intrustions to them on what to do for the nets. We usually wait for all to finish before carrying on to prevent 'lagging.' After all the nets has been done, we concluded the day.
Day 2We realised that we had forgotten to give out the consent forms for NUS Raffles Museum trip. Luckily it wasn't needed or else it would have been another crisis. At the NUS Raffles Museum, the 'tour-guide' told us about the history and the various exhibitions before we concluded our day with the mice preservation on that day. It was really interesting on how the students do hands-on to actually determine whether one is clumsy or cautious etc. We also developed communication skills and bucken up our skills in the process of helping them. We remembered to give out consent forms this time.
Day 3After collecting the consent forms, I realised I had forgotten to get the first-aid kit. Thus, it was a more or less last minute work after telling Mr. Goh to get it. This highlights the need for a checklist for a day-by-day basis. Yee Jiunn then highlighted the importance of preservation. We went insect catching at Marina South for half of the day where each trainer was attached to a group. I was heartened especially when students from my group know the quota to catch, as they remembered to leave some of the bugs they see in the wild for them to continue to breed, and not to disrupt the population of the insects there too much. Although it was rather messy as nets break due to insecurity and them being overly rough. The insects were frozen and were soon able to be pinned afterwards. Yee Jiunn demonstrated how to pin the insects as therest of the trainers helped. This was a second go and still a rather refreshing experience for me, as I helped them in parts of the pinning for demostration. They were placed in the oven for drying.
Day 4The insects were taken out and the boxes were decorated. Their artistic sense in them is rather rich as seen from the interesting drawings on the box. The insects were also labelled after Jianghao taught them and kept in the box. I had my virgin attempt in grading their boxes and they almost tally with what Mr. Goh mentioned, boosting my confidence in giving grades by beng not overly lenient and overly strict. After that it was the completion of mice preservation, in stuffing cotton and sticks in the mice to give them the shape and then sewing them. It was rather interesting to see how some clusmily sew the whole mice, thus help were given to correct them.
Day 5A refreshing day whereby the students presented their powerpoint slides on the various topics they were given. It was impressive and
I had fun and also invaluable experience through grading the students' powerpoint, by being encouraging, highlighting the good points (to be learnt by other groups and by myselfs) and the areas to improve in, to cover up loop holes. I learnt to be concise, and give positive feedback. It allowed me to become more positive as a person, which many people lack.The mouse boxes were decorated and placed in the boxes after. The mouse skin were comparatively thicker than the birds', so the pinning was a little tough, but overall, it was okay after innovative methods by the students and us. After that, Guan Jie talked about conservation and it really marked a nice ending to the whole sabbatical as the students pay attention and compete for the top position (healthy competition) for the group points. The practical situation of sustainable development was highlighted by the 'fisherman' game which I also learnt a lot in. The class was comparatively much more attentive to the powerpoints, which is a good sign, as we are able to conduct the class more effectively and efficiently now, quoted Mr. Goh. We indeed learnt a lot throughout the whole thing.
Throughout the whole sabbatical, we learnt various communication skills, such as giving postive feedback, being concise, co-operative and work together like putting our brains together in terms of crisis. It was really enriching as we ourselves learnt more about biodiversity & conservation after teaching the students. We believed that the class brought with them invaluable knowledge from this sabbatical and learnt a lot, both being as a person and knowledge wise. We certainly look forward to conducting such courses again.- Boonie
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whispered 1:14 AM
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Brief AAR for Changi Beach Fieldtrip --
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
PLUS
Enthusiasm and cooperation of students in general, especially 3K & 3L
Coverage of information sufficient
Content of activities better / Lots of knowledge shared with them
Recruited enough people in the OT, flexible OT in situations
MINUSCooperation level in 3J was lower than the other classes
Bad time management / logistics
Improper location (especially where scattering of ashes took place) for certain parts of programme
Action plan badly done, not detailed enough unlike lesson plan for teachers
Not the whole OT is present for every meeting, in part due to poor communication but also due to hectic schedules of people
Poor communications between OT members
Did not plan for what ifs - foreseeable / unforeseeable circumstances, wet weather plan etc. Very risky.
SUGGESTIONSAction plan should be so good that last-minute trainers who read the action plan can also know what to do at any time (refer to teachers' record books for examples)
Should have a proper timeline for easier glancing of day's events.
Compiled by Wei Seng from OT.
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whispered 11:08 PM
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Planning Process:
I feel that this event was not really well organized.
Many things were not sure even at the last minute and
there is communication breakdown within the organizing team where some people were unsure of their own roles and details. This is probably due to the shaky foundation set by the initial stage of planning.
I feel that the first meeting is very important in setting the foundation of the future planning of the event. All members of the organizing team should be present on this meeting where the objectives, the programme outline, the allocation of tasks etc. should be set. Everyone should be clear on what they have to do so that in the subsequent meetings it will be much easier when everyone just update the rest of the organizing team on what they have done.
I think that
what caused the blurriness of the people is that they were unable to attend the meetings and they were not updated on what was discussed during the meeting. There was also no proper record of meeting minutes during the meetings so that those unsure can check.
Actual Event:
The event actually ran quite smoothly despite the messy planning. The students were rather cooperative. For the 3K/3L classes, we had a briefing at an open space near the beach, and they were asked to fill up their pre-fieldtrip handout. Then they were asked to ponder on the mind map of the English handout.
Then, it was the beach cleanup.
Most of them see this with a positive attitude and not just a CIP work. As it was very low tide at that time, many rubbish can be seen lying around and the students were quite active in clearing the rubbish. However, we did not realise that the area was a place where the Indians place the ashes with the urns of their deceased.
When we heard of the truth, I see that many were taken aback and the atmosphere became quite tensed. Even though religious and racial issues can be quite sensitive, but it was quite a meaningful lesson.
After the around 2-kilometer trek, 3K/3L met up with the 3I/3J where they also have a taste of the Biology module of viewing the different organism found in the sea. I can see that most of them were interested in it.
After that they have a short break and I see that they were enjoying themselves with their leisure activities i.e. soccer, playing with trash bags and wind. As for class picnic, 3L has their limited pool of food but there was sharing while 3K had a lot of food and much class spirit can be seen.
On the whole, I think that judging from the level of enjoyment from the Sec 3 students, it can be considered a success. However, improvements need to be made in terms of administrative matters.
By Terh Yee Jiunn
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whispered 10:55 PM
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