ICT - Impact of Masterplans

Q. Has any of the Masterplans impacted you as a student/teacher (if any)?

Masterplan 2 was in effect for the time I was in secondary school and junior college. The Masterplan’s emphasis on the pervasive usage of ICT to enhance educational processes was especially clearly manifested during my secondary school years. Apart from having a Computer Studies session in which we would learn how to use various software programmes ranging from Microsoft Excel to Adobe Photoshop, we also had an e-learning week every term where we would be made to complete online tasks from home. Besides, we were also encouraged to make use of online resources for research, and our assignments would often require us to make use of basic programmes like Microsoft Word or Powerpoint. The above has enabled me to become relatively proficient not only at gathering my own resources via the internet, but also in using IT tools at my disposal to consolidate and organise the knowledge I’ve acquired, which in turn allows me to be a more effective and independent learner. Furthermore, for some subjects, like mathematics, the usage of IT tools during lessons at times helped to stimulate my interest, whereas for other subjects (e.g. literature) the impact of IT in terms of stimulating my interest was relatively limited.

Q. How do you think the current Masterplan 3 may affect your role(s) as a beginning teacher?

Masterplan 3 stresses self-directed learning, and a mutual, as opposed to one-directional, learning relationship between teacher and student. In this way, as a beginning teacher, I would have to carefully evaluate my ideas of what playing the role of “teacher” entails, and how much autonomy I should grant my students over their own learning while at the same time providing them with the requisite guidance. In other words, I have to find the right balance between teaching and allowing students to teach themselves, a balance that could be potentially complicated by the differing learning paces of students, as well as the impetus to perform well in examinations. The focus on self-directed learning and ICT furthermore implies that I would spend relatively more time equipping students with the skills to access resources and databases independently rather than merely spoon-feeding them information - which hopefully means less work for me!