Assoc Prof Lee Ngan Hoe and Research Team Present at Three Conferences, and Publish a Journal Article and an e-Book

Assoc Prof Lee Ngan Hoe, from NIE’s Mathematics and Mathematics Education Academic Group (MME), leads a research team researching Constructivist Learning Design (CLD) and as Principal Investigator (PI) on the project “Constructivist Learning Design for Singapore Secondary Mathematics Curriculum”. Based on findings from this project, Assoc Prof Lee and team have presented at three conferences, published a journal article, and an e-book.

Assoc Prof Lee presented two online keynote addresses, the first at the Mathematics Teachers’ Online Conference, organised by the Aga Khan University (Pakistan), and the second at the Mathematics Teachers Conference organised by NIE. The first keynote, titled “Learning that sticks! A revisit of Bruner's and Piaget's Theories”, showcased learning designs that epitomise constructivist principles, with CLD as an example. The second keynote, titled “Discovering the Joy of Learning Mathematics Through a Constructivist Approach: Developing Creators and Consumers of Mathematics” saw Assoc Prof Lee discuss his take on the “joy of learning” and its connection to one’s orientation of learning, and how CLD could help fulfil this aim.

Assoc Prof Lee, and project co-PIs Dr Dawn Ng, MME Senior Lecturer and Asst Dean (PGDE) at the Office of Teacher Education, NIE, and Dr Cheng Lu Pien, MME Senior Lecturer, presented various aspects of the CLD research at the 14^th International Congress on Mathematical Education (2021).

Assoc Prof Lee was invited to present a lecture on “A Constructivist Approach Towards Teaching and Learning Mathematics in Singapore: Rationale, Issues, and Challenges”, he touched on CLD as  a pedagogical approach to help deepen the conceptual understanding of selected concepts in the Singapore mathematics classrooms. Dr Ng delivered a presentation titled “Towards Differentiated Instruction: Insights from Constructivist Learning Design”, proposing four interacting elements for consideration when developing a mathematical activity supporting the construction of mathematical concepts as part of a task design research. Dr Cheng’s presentation, “Inquiry-based Learning in the Mathematics Classroom: Insights from a case of two lessons”, described a descriptive study drawn from the CLD research to examine teachers’ implementation of an inquiry-based learning approach in the Singapore secondary mathematics classrooms.

Along with members of his research team, Ms June Lee, MME Research Associate and Mr Wong Zi Yang, MME Research Assistant, Assoc Prof Lee has published in the open access Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics. The article, titled “Preparing Students for the Fourth Industrial Revolution through Mathematical Learning: The Constructivist Learning Design”, details suggestions on using CLD in mathematics to help students to develop transferrable competencies to prepare for the future.

One of the key aims of the project is to develop units that epitomise principles outlined in CLD for secondary mathematics teachers to leverage in their instruction. To that aim, the research team has published an e-book, Constructivist Learning Design: Classroom Tasks for Deeper Learning (Second Edition), first published in December 2020, this second edition was revised in July 2021. The book outlines CLD as a pedagogical approach in enacting teaching through problem solving in Singapore mathematics classrooms. Containing six CLD tasks designed for topics for different levels that were tested in actual classroom settings, the e-book includes detailed elaboration on how each task supports emphases in the updated secondary mathematics syllabus (2019). These include task design to support the deeper learning of the mathematical object, themes about the nature of mathematics discussed in-depth, connections to Big Ideas, analyses of authentic student-responses, and suggestions of teacher facilitation towards deeper learning.