EDUCATION: Encourage students to use critical reasoning
NST's article titled "Aiming to be among top education systems"
(Dec 15) by Tharanya Arumugam based on her interview of the new
Education Ministry director-general has made me write this.
Kudos to the new D-G for saying that to improve the PISA (Programme for
International Student Assessment) of our education system, the ministry
notes that "Malaysian students needed to improve their skills in
analysing and higher order thinking skills".
The latter is essential, as he said, "students here were used to content-based learning, in which they memorised the content of the syllabus". Teachers should reduce memorisation from their teaching strategies.
The D-G also mentioned that PISA forwarded "application and reasoning questions". This means teachers must formulate questions that require students to apply or reason out the content learnt. For example, less of "In what year did the Portuguese attack Malacca?", and more of "Why did Malacca fall to the Portuguese?"
But all teachers already know this and have been doing so ever since the ministry advocated critical and creative thinking skills in the 1990s. So, what happened?
The problem is difficult to spot. For example, the question "Why did Malacca fall to the Portuguese?" seems to require students to reason out the factors leading to the fall of Malacca.
Unfortunately, the factors can also be memorised as many books provide the answers.
That is just my two-sen analysis. I hope the Malaysian Education Blueprint 2013-2025 will give this some thought.
As a closure for my analysis, maybe the question that is preferred in this example would be: "What is your opinion on the fall of Malacca? Could it have been avoided?"
This is not a public examination question (as it is difficult to grade) but just an opportunity to apply higher order thinking skills in the classroom teaching-learning process.
The latter is essential, as he said, "students here were used to content-based learning, in which they memorised the content of the syllabus". Teachers should reduce memorisation from their teaching strategies.
The D-G also mentioned that PISA forwarded "application and reasoning questions". This means teachers must formulate questions that require students to apply or reason out the content learnt. For example, less of "In what year did the Portuguese attack Malacca?", and more of "Why did Malacca fall to the Portuguese?"
But all teachers already know this and have been doing so ever since the ministry advocated critical and creative thinking skills in the 1990s. So, what happened?
The problem is difficult to spot. For example, the question "Why did Malacca fall to the Portuguese?" seems to require students to reason out the factors leading to the fall of Malacca.
Unfortunately, the factors can also be memorised as many books provide the answers.
That is just my two-sen analysis. I hope the Malaysian Education Blueprint 2013-2025 will give this some thought.
As a closure for my analysis, maybe the question that is preferred in this example would be: "What is your opinion on the fall of Malacca? Could it have been avoided?"
This is not a public examination question (as it is difficult to grade) but just an opportunity to apply higher order thinking skills in the classroom teaching-learning process.
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