Teachers in Our School Attended in IGCSE Training of Cambridge Faculty Professional Development
Click: Post Date:2016-10-12 20:36:35 Event Date:2016-10-12 20:36:35
During 24th to 25th September, 2016, five teachers from High School Attached to Northwest Normal University (NWNU) attended the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) training of Cambridge faculty professional development sponsored by Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) in Beijing. This training is the largest project of Cambridge faculty professional development with the largest number of participants and the most comprehensively involved subjects. Around 400 teachers from Eastern Asia gathered in Beijing Royal School and attended the training of more than ten subjects such as liberal arts, science subjects, business, art and design, world literature, economics, Chinese, physics and chemistry. The five teachers, Yangkang, Wang Lihao, Jin Yujie and Li Yanyan, from the Cambridge Research Center in our school, respectively participated in the training of first Language Chinese, chemistry, English as a second language, physics as well as Environmental Management, and also achieved the certificate of completion.
First Language Chinese
The First Language Chinese of IGCSE is an examination designed for adolescent students whose mother tongue is Chinese. The certificate of this examination is widely accepted by most students and companies as a language qualification. The students who finish two pieces of paper for the examination can be marked G-A* in light of their performance. Students are needed to finish paper one, consisting of two parts, in two hours. The first part needs examinees to answer a series of questions according to the given passages; the second requires examinees to summarize the provided passage. Students are required to complete paper two in 75 minutes, during which the candidates need to write an essay of 400-600 words.
During the two days, Mr. Lin led all the trainees to sort out the syllabus and understand the detailed rules and regulations of scoring papers. Through marking the range finders and taking exercises of authentic tests, everyone got a better understanding on the orientation of paper assignment and assessment criterion, which is useful for teachers to effectively guide students preparing for the examination in the future.
Chemistry
The training courses of IGCSE chemistry are carried out from three aspects. First, taking the assessment of specific papers as example, Mr. Margaret introduced the assessment criterion and scoring points of chemistry test papers. Taking some test papers of 2016 as exercises, he explained the scoring requirements of various questions and helped teachers better grasp the knowledge points and scoring skills. Although the proportion of scores of experiment tests in chemistry exam dropped from the original 40% to 20%, the test of experimental operation is still the weaknesses of candidates. As a result, the explanation of experiment become the second most important aspect. Hence, Mr. Margaret help enhance the teachers' skills in conducting experiment and remind of them the weakness in experiment test through specific experimental operation training. For teachers, the classroom is important for teacher-student interactions. Consequently, it is fundamental demands for teachers to design a course that is substantial in content and flexible in form, and also a difficulty in the process of teaching. Finally, Mr.Magert took the classroom design as the third aspect, presenting divergent concept of classroom design. It aims to extend from basic knowledge construction to continuity of ideas on classroom teaching, to get rid of the single model of teaching, and create diversified teaching approaches.
English as Second Language
The training course of IGCSE English as Second Language was taught by Ms Sally from Cambridge Examination Center. The training courses consist of writing, reading, listening and oral English. As a pathway program for students from Middle school to High school, the ESOL course carries forward the rigorous standard of Cambridge international English courses, focuses on basic skills for examination, such as fast access to useful information, note-taking and summary writing. It is of instructive significance for Chinese teenagers who attended the high school entrance exam and can help those preparing for International English Language Testing System (IELTS) in laying their language foundation. During the two-day training, tutors from China, Singapore, Korea and other Asian countries waged discussions actively. Besides, Ms Sally also presented guidance for them from all-round respects through classroom practices and cases analysis and achieved unanimous and positive feedback from teachers.
Physics
The IGCSE physics training course is abundant in contents. The training teacher, in combination with authentic test papers, elaborated the outline of examination mostly from the assessment objectives towards candidates, test contents and answering regulation, and guided the teachers to correct papers so that they can better grasp how to answer the short-answer questions in line with the rules. It is of highly instructive significance for understanding the examination outline and teaching students how to answer in correct manners. In the training courses, the teachers experienced how to better guide students to learn in the process of group discussion, cross-word puzzles as well as self-participation. In terms of experiment in authentic test paper, trainees, provided with relevant experimental apparatus, got the experimental result by themselves and further made analysis. In this way, all teachers learned the examination requirement for students in practice, which is useful for their guidance for students in experiment and improving their practical abilities. Meanwhile, the teacher from our school also made discussions with the teachers from other schools, from which he further understood the IGCSE and benefit much for the teaching in the future.
Environmental Management
As a new discipline, environmental management is seldom set up in many schools. During the training period, teachers of various disciplines who participates international education all over the country gathered together here for mutual communication and discussed the setting of IGCSE curriculum with colleagues. At the same time, they also learned relevant courses, made elaborate analysis of the authentic test papers under the guidance of training teachers. Under the leadership of training teachers, teachers learned the outline of environmental management and acquired a clear idea on each chapter. Additionally, they waged some activities and outdoor experiments including designing some posters about environment, analyzing the changes of temperature via measuring the temperatures of different altitudes. The two-days training went in a hurry, though, we have benefited much and also got acquainted with many outstanding teachers from various regions.
Since the establishment of international education in our school in 2008, we ranked first in Western China all the time. In 2016, the first Cambridge Examination Center in Gansu Province was authorized by CIE in our school. Nowadays, many A-level curriculum such as mathematics, further math, physics, chemistry, economics and lessons related to business have been offered in our school. Continuous efforts will be investigated to strengthen teacher training, introduce advanced curriculum system, and further keep in line with international education standards, thus providing high quality education resources and powerful support for the education development in Western China.
