Glowing at S-cubed. Or - fun with e.coli

Here's a Saturday with a difference.

 My friend Sierin kindly opened her lab to a small group of students. Her friend's two teenagers, my friend's teenage son, and S, a ten-year-old from the Whampao neighborhood. The agenda: show the kids how scientists make proteins fluoresce and why. She also introduced the kids to her grad students who were researching cancer. The kids could see how the fluorescent proteins acted as "tags" and how they were solving real world issues. Three hours of microscopes, pipettes, e.coli, agar, and anatomy lab time (that was where the microscope was. And the kids knocked down Mr Skeleton - but that's another story).

The older kids had already been taking biology - so, no problem there. Another friend Ching-Hua, from IBM Research, did some extra " translation" for S  - helpful for me too! We were worried that it was all too much for S - but today, a staffer at Beyond Social Services told us how on a recent outing, S told her all about what she saw and did at the lab. S is also writing about it in her personal "newsletter." 

My thought- nevermind if  S didn't get all the ins and outs of e.coli and proteins (I didn't!). She had fun, she learned, she's interested.

A related note - I came across a TED Talk by 2013 Ted Prize winner Sugata Mitra. He's been experimenting with kids self-learning in Indian villages by plonking PCs in holes in the wall and coming back to find the kids were teaching other kids to use the computers - with no adult intervention. He then upped the ante is slight dose of adult involvement aka British Grannies.

He's now experimenting with Self Organised Learning Environments in which kids, in groups of four, are armed with one computer and a "helper"go researching Big Topics like "Why are whales the largest mammals on earth." And the kids research and present. Post-its, markers - and a framework for us adults. 

Check it out at http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud.html

We're going to try this out at Whampoa. We'll let you know how it goes. 

Meanwhile...we've received feedback from parents that the kids go home saying that they played games and had fun. Parents want to know "why isn't there more rote learning?" I guess we're doing something right. Next step - convince the parents that fun+learning = more effective.

New Quarter, New Program - "ish"

Different (learning) Strokes for Different Folks

It's been an interesting first quarter at the Whampoa Learning program. We received government funding for a reading program and it came with books, lesson plans, games, worksheets, and a trained teacher.

For an entirely volunteer-run learning/ literacy program serving a community in which the kids come from families that don't speak English at home,  those resources were really welcome. Now, that 20-week program's just finished, we've learned a lot. My personal takeaway: materials are just one element of any program. It's really about the individuals: the students and the volunteers.

Having books that were adjusted to 10 or so different reading levels is fab. Having a readymade resource meant untrained volunteers like us (mostly corporate people or high school students) didn't have to go the web looking for what we thought was the right level of material.

The worksheets we were given provided a great framework - but man...which 6-12 year-old would want to spend Satruday morning doing more worksheets - black and white ones at that! The lesson plans that came with those were okay...they were kinda  - dry and academic. (They tried). Again - why come in on Saturdays to do more of the same?

The games: now THOSE were winners. They were board games/ matching games...aimed at having kids learn how words are formed, what letters sound like...and for kids who come from families who don't really speak English, those have been a lot of help and fun.

We also had a KPI that there was no way we could have met: 75% attendance. And ours is a non-compulsory program comprising a mish-mash of neighborhood kids of varying abilities and levels of interest. And believe me - academics is not an interest. Kids were free to come or not come - depending on whether their parents felt it was important, whether they woke up on time that day, whether they felt like coming, whether there was food on the table...a myriad reasons.

We had a class list of about 40 kids of which about 6-12 would show up on any given weekend. And they weren't always the same kids. Absenteeism was a huge issue. Because it meant the previous week's work couldn't be built on. And it also meant that volunteers often outnumbered kids. Or vice versa. Neither provided a good learning environment.

So, now that our 20-week program is done, we're keeping the books, the games, and we're chucking out the worksheets and the uh...regimented lesson plans. The program directors also did something really really key. They culled the kids.

Here's what was different today:

The staff of the organisation we volunteer for, which includes trained social workers and community workers, went through the list to work out which kids should be part of the program. The kids had to want to be part of the program, had to be able to work with others in groups, and we also needed their parents' support and commitment. So, from 40 kids, we now have a list of 15 - of which we're targetting a regular attendance of 10 per week.

We had 8 kids today, almost all of whom showed up on time. On previous weekends, most of them would saunter in 20 minutes late.

Today we started with "Phonics Charade" in which a pair of kids in one team would be given a letter or a pair of letters. Say "E" or "CH". The kids would need to act out a word that started with the letter/s and the team would guess what the word, letter, and sound were.

Then, we got the kids to do some debate prep. Today's motion: Exams are a neccesary part of school. Interestingly, the kids and volunteers self-selected and were pretty evenly divided. Volunteers provided discussion scaffolding to broaden the arguments beyond "Exams aren't neccesary because we don't like them." (Yeah kid, I didn't either. I feel your pain.) Next session, the kids will continue the discussion and present their points in their groups - in whatever way, shape or form. Skit, rap, collage - whatever - it doesn't matter. As long as it's communicated.

Then came reading time. Or, the kids could choose the board games. Most of them chose reading.

In all, a pretty peaceful and productive morning. The kids were the "right" kids. They wanted to be there. So, we're OK for now.

In the meantime, the Centre is working on an assessment program based on Gardner's Multiple  Intelliegences: verbal/ linguistic, logical/mathematical, spatial/ visual, bodily/ kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=SG&v=l2QtSbP4FRg&hl=en-GB.


His theory is that human beings have different ways of processing and learning information. Our current education system, especially in this country, is mostly geared toward those who do well in the verbal/linguistics and logical/ mathematical part of the spectrum. So now the centre is working on finding out what each kid's strengths are, and then building a curriculum with volunteers from within and outside educational so that the program is adapted to the kids.

After five years volunteering at the program, I'm realising that we're just at the beginning of the journey. I'm excited that a roadmap is being drawn to suit individual kids - and that individual volunteers will be able to contribute based on their strengths as well.

I'm hopeful that this program be impactful - and that impact will go beyond those who do well in the traditionally academic areas of reading, writing and 'rithmetic.

We're in the 21st century after all.