When our teachers are teaching History in our secondary classes, one observation about our secondary 3 students’ responses was that students were not able to effectively analyse the sources and they tend to focus on the first thing that they saw. Through examining the annotations on their source, we also realized that the students tend to analyse the sources hastily without taking into consideration the historical context and tapping into their prior knowledge. Students were also not able to make the judgement on whether their source analysis was accurate. As such, our team identified the Making Thinking Visible routine- Chalk Talk as a suitable thinking routine to help students deepen their understanding and improve their source analysis skills. Through Chalk Talk,
students will be able to analyse on their own the given sources and subsequently leverage on the other students’ comments and perspectives to guide them in making an accurate analysis of the source they have been allocated to. This also enables them to draw upon their historical knowledge and prior knowledge when analysing a historical source in order for them to agree, disagree or question their peer’s perspective or source analysis before consolidating and deciding on the message of the source. Technology was also used to enhance the learning experiences of the students.

Authors:
Chin Pang Joseph Tham, Academy of Singapore Teachers, Singapore
Rabiatul Binhan, Yusof Ishak Secondary School, Singapore
Wei Yang Kang, Yusof Ishak Secondary School, Singapore

About the Presenter(s)
Mr Joseph Tham is a Master Teacher/History with Academy of Singapore Teachers, Ministry of Education. He conducts professional development for the history teachers in the fraternity in the areas of inquiry-based learning and educational technology.

Additional website of interest
https://academyofsingaporeteachers.moe.edu.sg/office-of-subject-chapters/humanities-and-cce/history-chapter/

See this presentation on the full schedule – Friday Schedule

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