Malaysia ranks a poor 52 out of 65 in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), conducted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
In fact, there are no Malaysian schools performing like the average schools in Singapore, which are ranked as “Great”. Only 7% of our schools are ranked as “Good”.
Malaysia’s Government has realised this and presented the Malaysia Education Blueprint (MEB). The target to is to raise Malaysia’s performance to become one of the top 20 countries. One of the most obvious skills that is lacking in Malaysian student is the Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS).
Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) requires more out of the student. Memorising solutions has always been the way for Malaysian students to get a good grade in their examinations. This means that the students are only able to answer questions well if the structure of the problem is the same as the one that has been memorised.
HOTS meanwhile is a more holistic approach where the emphasis is on understanding and being able to use the skills learnt to put together a solution for any kind of problem or even a more complex problem. That means should the structure of the questions change; students are still able to answer them well.
The Singapore Ministry of Education has long realised the importance of education to the human resource in their country, in particular Mathematics. Therefore, as a country that heavily relies on its human capital, they have done a lot of research and devised methods to help improve the teaching of Mathematics in their country.
This led to a major success story where Singapore is now consistently ranked at the top of league tables in terms of Science and Mathematics.
How does Singapore do this? They have been constantly developing ways to improve the HOTS of their students.
Two key developments that they have in the past are the following.
Word Problems – aims to not only present a real life case involving Mathematics, it also forces the student to extract information from the scenario and use them to find a solution.
Pictorial Model – allows the student to see a bird’s eye view of the situation to better understand the problem and find a solution.
Apart from that, the teaching involves focusing on the process to find the solution rather than placing all importance on the answer itself.
With the availability of Internet, the dissemination of information and its speed is now making the world a borderless society. We can now receive any form of news and information from any corner of the world at the same time as someone standing next to the source.
Can we still accept out dated material or information?
No. Hence, the same books are always updated with revisions. However, this ‘information’ is at best 1 to 2 years old.
That is why there is now a shift in moving content into cyberspace. The latest content is made available instantly to all parties anywhere in the world.
Online social network allow you to update your friends anywhere in the world with a single click. No need for individual letters, phone calls or postcards.
Online based application where updates can be rolled out immediately to the user.
Online based maps are up to date. No more getting stranded due to road changes, new roads, and road closures etc.
There is a lot of talk now on big data. Big data means the processing of huge amount of information to specifically cater to the needs and wants of individuals. Technology now allows for algorithms to process that information.
Mostly this is seen in the advertising industry and customer service industry. Someone who likes to visit online health websites may be targeted with an advertisement for supplements. Whereas a mobile phone user who talks more than texting may be sold a mobile plan with more minutes than texts.
The education industry is not left behind as well. We can now process the results and behaviour of individual students to best adjusts questions and material to capture their interest and help them advance at their own pace.