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Editorial Board
Dr Azian T.S. Abdullah
(Advisor)
Devadason Robert Peter
(Chief Editor)
Dr Cheah Ui Hock (Editor)
Ng Khar Thoe (Editor)
Dr Hazura Ab Bakar
Dr Sheila Oyao
Contents
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1
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Exemplary Practices in SEARCH for Youth Science and
Mathematics Researchers (Series 1): ‘Science Across
the World’ (SAW) Programme (pp
1 – 19)
Ng Khar Thoe,
Linda Toh, Boey Mei Li
The advent of the digital globalization
era has resulted in an increasing demand for sustainable e-learning
platforms to facilitate the sharing of best practices in
science/mathematics education. Science across the World (SAW) is an
international education flagship programme founded in 1990 by the
Association for Science Education (ASE). The main objective of this
programme is to provide a forum for students, aged 12 to 17 years, to
exchange facts and opinions with youths around the world through a unique
series of compact resource topics on environmental and social science
issues. Since the inception of SAW, SEAMEO RECSAM has been the programme
coordinator for the Asia Pacific region, playing a major role in promoting
the teaching and learning of science via ICT integration. Over the past two
decades, RECSAM has contributed towards human resource development; to
provide training opportunities as well as coordinating capacity-building
activities. Recently, the Centre has embarked on promoting project-based
activities (PBA) and problem-based learning (PBL) to a wider audience aimed
at achieving the ‘Education for All’ (EFA) mission. A web-based learning
portal entitled ‘South East Asia Regional Capacity-enhancement Hub’
(SEARCH) has been developed to promote science and mathematics learning
incorporating ICT, with more exchange of ideas and sharing of best
practices, encompassing international cooperation via on-going e-research
and capacity-enhancement activities.
This article reports the first of a series of the completed and
on-going SAW related activities with evidences of exemplary practices in
SEARCH for youth science and mathematics researchers. Experiences from two
SAW project schools will be elaborated. Educational implications and future
direction will also be deliberated.
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2
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Case Study: What Does the Equal Sign Mean to
Children? (pp 20 – 24)
Ronny Kwan Eu Leong
What an equal sign mean to a child
might look trivial but it is a pertinent concept. The meaning of an equal
sign is useful for the conceptual understanding of algebraic equations. In
this paper, the main focus is to illustrate on a case study on the
interpretation of the equal sign by a child in the elementary level. The clinical interview method contains
several tasks to probe the understanding of the child on the equal sign. It
is important for a child to know the different meanings of the equal sign
that was used. In this case study, the child had a strong sense of the
equal sign as an operator. However, in situations involving words and
money, the child within the age group of elementary school level regarded
the equal sign as a relational symbol between quantities.
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3
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Cardiovascular Prevention:
Internet Resources for a Teaching Unit (pp 25 – 33)
Aldo T.
Marrocco
In order to find stimuli for getting
young students interested in the subject of Health, internet resources have
been searched such as scientific contributions, atlases, images, diagrams
and animations that help study cardiovascular prevention. The educational
route is geared towards an increased awareness of the consequences of our
behaviour on our health. The risk factors are determined to a great extent
by behaviours learned in childhood and continued in adulthood, such as
dietary habits, physical activity and smoking. The paper deals in
particular with the primary prevention of heart attack and stroke. It can
be noted, however, that compliance with its rules often produces benefits
on other areas of health, for example bone growth and cancer prevention.
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4
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Observations of
Mathematics classrooms in some countries (pp 34 – 40)
Ronny Kwan Eu Leong, Edward Ham
Comparative education is the field that
generates lots of interest from educationists around the world. Many
countries have their own unique methods in the teaching and learning of
mathematics. It is important to observe the teaching of mathematics in the classrooms
around the world. Not only one could
gauge how mathematics education is implemented in one country as compared
to others, but ideas for innovative mathematics teaching in classrooms
could also be adapted with educational implications. In this article, the
authors share their insight on the teaching and learning pedagogies
implemented in the mathematical classrooms in Russia, Singapore, Cambodia
and Vietnam.
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Learning Science and Mathematics