An Eye Opening Week 2

Week 2 has concluded! Had some chance to teach the students in front of the class (and I was being assessed for my very first lesson)!

As mentioned previously, students in IES Bromma are in the midst of working on their projects. The year 5s were already embarking on their Dream Room Project and the Grade 6s are being tasked with researching the History of Number System! Students were split into groups of 5 across their banded classes, and they were to explore the Attic, Binary, Egyptian, Mayan, Quipu and Roman numeral system. They will then have to present how these number system works and converting the numerals into the hindu-arabic system that we are using. This also means that they have to create a mini-lesson to teach their peers about the number system they have to master. Thus, I was tasked to give instructions to the class about the project and demonstrate what the mini-lesson could be like using the "Suan-Pan" (算盘) system.

The lesson was assessed and went rather smoothly! Could have made it better by going abit faster as the students were quick to pick up whatever was taught in the lesson. The rest of the week was really about going around to help the students and clarify their doubts about these new number systems they were exploring. This prove to be particularly challenging as the Binary and Mayan systems were using a Base-2 and Base-20 numeric system respectively, in which not only do we have to help the students understand it but also, prepare these students to know how to teach their peers about these systems too.

I also learned about how the grading system works as well as the syllabus of the students, which is vastly different from how Singapore conducts this. Instead of a point based system, the swedish education system uses a criterion-based evaluation system in which students answer correctly a number of Level E/C/A questions, and the number of E/C/A level questions done correctly would be tabulated to give them a final grade of A/B/C/D/E. The syllabus is also less restrictive on how lessons should be conducted for each level so long as they have the necessary knowledge they need to have by the final grade of each Grade bracket (ie Grade 6 and 9). The first grade bracket is the Grade 4-6 and the second grade bracket is the Grade 7-9. The schools are free to choose what should be covered in each year between grade 4 to 6 so long as the students move on to the next grade bracket with the relevant knowledge required. (ie if the school is not restricted on what needs to be covered in grade 4 or 5 so long as students build upon the relevant knowledge in Grade 6. This is also the same for grade 7 and 8 so long as the syllabus is completed in grade 9).

One other component that they have is the Oral Component, in which the students will be given 5 questions (Leveled E/D/C/B/A). Depending on how many they could explain correctly. Arranged in level of difficulty, the focus of the questions is not about getting students to provide the right answers but rather how their thought process for solving the questions, as well as being thorough with the right mathematical terms to explain their solutions. I thought this was a good way to check for students understanding and while Singapore may not have an oral presentation component for mathematics, I could definitely adopt this model for my own classes to check if the students could better understand what my students think (as well as surface any key misconceptions or misinterpretation).

Its starting to get warmer around here, but the breeze more than compensates for that :) We managed to catch a movie here and the theatres are HUGE (able to house 600pax). We also had a picnic at one of the cities' beautiful garden, Kungsträdgården. AND our Student Teacher Buddies has finally reached out to us and invited us to their homes for a BBQ! Food was great, the company was greater!