Assoc Prof Tan Seng Chee Presents at Local and International Conferences

Assoc Prof Tan Seng Chee from NIE’s Learning Sciences and Assessment Academic Group gave two presentations on teaching analytics at the 27th International Conference on Computers in Education, which was held in Taiwan from 2 to 6 December 2019. Both presentations were based on his OER-funded project “Improving Science Instruction through Teacher Noticing and Reflective Dialogues”.

In his first presentation “Teaching analytics: A multi-layer analysis of teacher noticing to support teaching practice”, Assoc Prof Tan described how the use of multi-modal sensors and analytics, namely eye-tracking devices, microphones and video cameras, can help to improve teaching practices.

For his second presentation “Contingency Theory of Adaptive Practices Through the Lens of Eye Trackers”, Assoc Prof Tan reported on a study of adaptive practices, as revealed by a teacher’s eye gazes, in response to the contingencies that arose during a lesson. From the literature, four categories of adaptive practices namely adaptive recognition, adaptive anticipations, adaptive deliberations, and adaptive insights were used for initial coding. In this study, eye tracking technologies are positioned as a mediator between the contingencies that arise in the classroom and the adaptive practices undertaken by teachers. This study offers new insights into the nature of teachers’ adaptive practices in classroom teaching, with two new sub-categories of adaptive practices being identified. The findings suggest that eye-tracking technologies can help to generate new empirical insights on the nature of adaptive practices that teachers adopt in the classroom.

Assoc Prof Tan was also invited to speak at the Singapore International Science Teachers’ Conference which took place from 19 – 20 November 2019 with the theme Science Education for the SMART Nation. Together with co-presenter Dr Teo Chew Lee, Senior Research Scientist at OER, the talk was titled “Learning Science in the Digital Age using Knowledge Building Approach”. They spoke about using knowledge building (KB) approach for science learning. He and Dr Teo explained knowledge building as a pedagogy, the alignment to science inquiry learning, the challenging principle-based approach that a teacher has to adopt, and the complementary roles of technologies (including analytics). This approach was illustrated with a few authentic cases of science teaching and learning in Singapore schools.

This talk arose from OER-funded project “Uncovering the Process and Outcome of Computer-Supported-Collaborative-Learning (CSCL) using Multimodal Learning Analytics: New Environments and Assessment for CSCL in the Learning Continuum”.



Assoc Prof Tan Seng Chee and Dr Teo Chew Lee presenting at the Singapore International Science Teachers’ Conference 2019