OER and East Zone Teacher Leaders Development Committee (EZTLC) Organise the Second Research-Practice Connection (RPC) for Lead Teachers in the East Zone

The School Partnership Unit (SPU) of the Office of Education (OER) and the East Zone Teacher Leaders Development Committee (EZTLC) jointly organized the 2nd RPC at Yusof Ishak Secondary School (YISS) on 7 March 2024. The SPU team was led by Dr. Imelda Caleon (Assistant Dean for Partnerships, OER), Ms Monica Ong (Teaching Fellow/OER) and Dr. Jack Fogarty (Education Research Scientist/OER) while the EZTLC was led by Mrs Finella Goh (Cluster Superintendent/East 4), Mdm Maureen Lee (Principal/YISS) and Mr Benjamin Yong (Principal/Bedok Green Primary School).

The RPC, which was held as part of the East Zone Teacher Leaders Networking Session, sought to provide opportunities for Lead Teachers (LTs) to have an interactive engagement with researchers from the National Institute of Education (NIE). Co-conceptualized by SPU and EZTLC, the RPC is a new model of engagement between researchers and practitioners that is anchored on the ideas of mutuality, closing the research-practice nexus, translation and application of research, and supporting professional learning of LTs to further impact and improve practice when they perform their leadership roles at their respective schools (see Figure 1). There were 53 participants for the event – all of them are LTs from the East Zone.

After Mrs Finella Goh's welcome address, each of the NIE researchers presented their research in three concurrent sessions. Assistant Professor Choy Ban Heng from Mathematics Education Academic Group of NIE shared about “Noticing the Affordances of Tasks for Mathematical Thinking” while Associate Professor Suzanne Choo from the English Language and Literature Academic Group and the Singapore Centre for Character and Citizenship Education presented on “Infusing Ethical Literacy in CCE to Develop Global Citizenship Dispositions”. Lastly, Associate Professor Chen Wenli, the Head of the Learning Sciences and Assessment Academic Group, and Ms Eileen Chai, a part-time lecturer at NIE, shared on “Computer-Supported Collaborative Argumentation: Technological and Pedagogical Design”.

After the sharing by the researchers, there were roundtable discussions between researchers and TLs on the application of the shared research findings in the classroom context and leadership practice. During the discussions, the participants reflected on the key learning points from the sharing sessions, particularly those that are relevant to teaching and leadership practice. They also engaged in layering or deepening their understanding of adaptive learning and teaching, ethical literacy, and technological and pedagogical designs to foster collaborative learning.

To conclude the RP Connection, Mdm Anne Wong (Principal Master Teacher/Academy of Singapore Teachers) led in the consolidation of key learning points from the research sharing and how the findings can be translated to practice. Mdm Maureen Lee closed the session by inspiring the LTs using two metaphors, that of the architect and the bridge builder, to impact and influence the quality of teaching and learning in their respective clusters. Feedback from the participants was overwhelmingly positive. There are plans to follow-up with professional sharing sessions to further deepen and enrich the learning experience of the LT participants.