About Us
Dare to be different. dare to be the first.
we offer full laboratory sessions to
learn science through inquiry approach
TEACHERS | PSLE SCIENCE SPECIALIST | P3 – P6 SCIENCE | SECONDARY 1-2 SCIENCE|
BIOLOGY SPECIALIST | GCE O & A LEVEL BIOLOGY| IB & IP BIOLOGY |
We are the first centre that offers hands-on practical sessions for our students. We firmly believe in building the next generation of scientists through learning science the right way – the inquiry approach.
Our Existence – To Solve Your Problem
Have you ever felt disappointed or anxious over your child’s performance, to that extent that you felt so drained, having to guide him by yourself? Are you trying hard to find an excellent Science teacher to coach your child?
We have found that 59% of the science lessons are not effective because of the following:
- The focus is wrong. The teacher focuses on the content and not the concept. Hence, the student is likely to have difficulties in applying the knowledge learnt to higher – order thinking questions.
- Poor explanation. If the teacher cannot explain it simply, it just means that the teacher does not understand the topic well enough. The use of technical terms must be explained clearly. For e.g the term accuracy vs reliability. If the student constantly has difficulty understanding and has difficulties in connecting with the content, he/she may have lower self-efficacy and subsequently anxiety.
- Lack of precision. In order for the student to score well in a written assessment, the science language that the teacher use must be clear and unambiguous. The teacher need to ensure the students’ answers meet certain quality requirements.
- Lack of quality feedback. An excellent teacher would be able to pin-point the exact issue that the student faces and help the student develops clarity in understanding and make progress.
- Do not teach learning strategies. An effective teacher would teach the student how to effectively master different topics and tackle open-ended questions, which is an arduous task for most beginners.
HOW PEOPLE LEARN
Research tells us that the student learns best when he has
High self-efficacy
Psychologist Albert Bandura has defined self-efficacy as one’s belief in his ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task. One’s sense of self-efficacy can play a major role in how one approaches goals, tasks and challenges. Our lessons are customized and designed to ensure the students taste success, gain confidence and boost performance.
Good learning strategies
It is time to learn science the right way. Inquiry-based teaching is simply the best way of learning science as it is a perfect complement to a student’s natural curiosity about science and how it works. Every lesson at Science Masterclass, we design investigations & hands-on experiments to get students to co-construct knowledge. By integrating science laboratories into the regular classes, students naturally develop reasoning & analyzing skills and a keen eye for observation and exploration.
Low anxiety
We have heard many stories of how anxiety cripple and cause students to blank out during examinations. Our lessons are designed to eliminate anxiety as the students would be actively engaged in science performance tasks, through the fulfillment of his learning needs and competencies.
High task value
We spare no effort to work towards giving our students a positive learning experience. In every hands-on experiment conducted, students have the opportunities to describe and clarify; elaborate and justify; hypothesize and analyze.
Good self regulation
According to Education Week (Lawton, 1997), a poll showed that students who used hands-on experiments in science classrooms have a better attitude about the subject than students who learned science through lectures and assigned textbook reading. Nearly 25 percent of the students in traditional classes said that science is their most difficult subject. It is our desire to create and design science lessons that would enhance motivation and get students to become self-directed learners.
Personal encounter
There was this one time that I inherited a class of students with a very humble T-score of 189 and were doing very badly for Biology. They had high anxiety, poor self-regulation and poor learning strategies. Naturally, they resist learning as they do not want to fail. And one of the best way was to avoid the task so that there will be no failure. They have zero task value.
I was determined to raise their motivation to learn & I implemented a Secret Science Formula which I am sharing with all students and parents.
By looking closely at each student’s science competency level, I took great effort to design science performance tasks that each would enjoy and consistently encourage each one to ask questions in a safe environment.
Thinking back, I realized how important it was to create a safe environment to make mistakes, especially for students who have low self-efficacy. With careful attention and many rounds of quality feedback, the batch of students did me proud. The lowest grade was a B3 and we beat the national distinction rate! This was no mean feat as we only had 9 months to cover a 2 years syllabus!