The Ageing Challenge: Essential Questions

To begin with Semester 2's work, we would be looking at eliciting some essential questions (EQ's) that would help to scaffold your project further in subsequent lessons. The following are the basic essence of what constitutes an EQ:

A question is essential when it: 

1. causes genuine and relevant inquiry into the big ideas and core content;
2. provokes deep thought, lively discussion, sustained inquiry, and new understanding as well as more questions;
3. requires students to consider alternatives, weigh evidence, support their ideas, and justify their answers;
4. stimulates vital, on-going rethinking of big ideas, assumptions, and prior lessons;
5. sparks meaningful connections with prior learning and personal experiences;
6. naturally recurs, creating opportunities for transfer to other situations and subjects.

[Taken from: http://www.authenticeducation.org/bigideas/article.lasso?artId=53]

By design, the big idea allows for the generation of a wide variety of essential questions that should reflect your interests and the needs of your immediate community. Essential questions identify what is important to know about the big idea and refine and contextualize that idea.

Please follow up with coming out with as many questions first bearing in mind the ideas or information that you already have thought of in the last few weeks, if any.

The Challenge-Based Learning (CBL) Framework

I hope that the diagram of the CBL framework below would give the class an idea on how we are going to move forward in tackling 'The Elderly Challenge' in Semester 2.

Source: http://ictedservices.typepad.com/icted_services/2009/10/challenge-based-learning-professional-learning-module.html

Video on CBL

A short video clip on Challenge-Based Learning (CBL)

Holiday work - Part 3: Tools to be learnt in Semester 2

There are primarily 2 key software tools that you would be learning in Semester 2, namely:

• Phun
• Google SketchUp

Please do try to self-learn the basics of the 2 software tools above. For Phun, there are tutorials already done up on their website. Please do have a look at them. You might also be able to pick up some completed examples from YouTube. For SketchUp, there are even more resources available for you. You might want to try to download some free video podcasts from your iTunes, or watch some tutorial videoclips from the SketchUp website, or to look at other tutorials done by other users on YouTube...the choice is really yours.

Submission:
Please do up a simple room or layout space that shows how you would consider planning to furnish a room so that they are more elderly-friendly. Do explain your submissions with some texts to explain. Submission deadline for this is on the 21st June 2010. Please  name your files as follows:

SST_ADMT_ElderlyChallenge_YourClass_IndexNo_YourName.skp

(e.g. SST_ADMT_ElderlyChallenge_S104_07_TanAhKow.skp)

Holiday work - Part 2: Deepening your learning experiences

As part of your research into understanding the elderly, you are tasked to also take video clips, photographs, or any other forms of recordable media to show how the elderly cope with their daily routines. These could include, but not necessarily limited to, every day activities such as: cooking a simple meal, pouring water from a flask, going to the market to buy groceries, going down the stairs, exercising, etc.

As a follow up, each one of you would do a podcast or a writeup of your observations and interviews with the elderly, caretaker, nurses or anyone who work with the elderly. Find out from them what are the problems that the elderly faces. Look for opportunities to observe and interview them such as at the senior citizens corners, void decks, hawker centers, etc.

Note that you are highly encouraged to select a range of elderly folks to observe so as to give you a broader perspective of them.

Submission:
You are to post your work on your personal ADMT blog every Wednesday of the week during the June holidays. (2nd, 9th, 16th and 23rd June 2010). Name your post: Elderly Challenge - Observation 1, Elderly Challenge - Observation 2, etc. You are also tasked to go to other students’ personal ADMT Blog to comment on their posts.

Holiday work - Part 1: Understanding the ‘The Elderly Challenge’

For your ADMT individual coursework in Semester 2 on the topic of ‘The Elderly Challenge’, you would be tasked to get a better understanding of the local context of the situation/challenge. A reading on the report done by the 'Committee on Ageing Issues (CAI)' is compulsory for you. The link to the report is here:
http://bit.ly/aKVZZC

Submission:
The following are guiding questions that may enable you to understand the report better. Please answer them in your own ADMT blogs, and post their links into the ‘Comments’ section of this post. You are to complete this by the 19th June 2010.

• Explain in your own words, the FOUR key recommendations of the report.
• State ONE way that the CAI report is recommending to make our public housing more elderly-friendly
• State TWO ways on how we can ensure that the quality of elderly care here in Singapore is affordable
• After reading the CAI report, what do you are the THREE things that you can do, as an SST student, to help overcome these elderly challenges

T2W8: Rubrics on Group Presentations

This is the proposed rubrics for the evaluation of each individual member in the final group presentation:

T2W8: Rubrics on Group Work

This is the rubrics for group work, for your kind reference:

T2W8: GROUP Reflection of Semester 1's project work

Hi all, these are the guided questions that your GROUP can use to craft out and evaluate your group's work on the 'Environment' theme in Semester 1: 

What do we need to evaluate?

• The processes: What are the different stages of the process? Evaluate each stages. How do you think that you can improve on the various stages.
• The proposed solution: Is it an effective solution? 
• If yes, state the reason.
• If no, suggest an alternative solution/make improvement to the proposed solution

Please submit your completed group reflection documents in the ADMT's Submit folder. Please name your file as follows: 
GroupReflection_S106_Grp_GroupNumber 

T2W8: Personal Reflection of Semester 1's project work

Hi all, these are the guided questions that you can use to craft out your personal reflection on the 'Environment' theme and the group work done in Semester 1:

• How do you think you have contributed to the group?
• What are your strengths and weaknesses? 
• How do you think you could have done better?
• What are the problems faced during the process?
• How did you overcome the problems?
• What would you have done if you were given a second chance?

Please submit your completed personal reflection documents in the ADMT's Submit folder. Please name your file as follows: 

PersonalReflection_S106_IndexNumber_YourName