Key Takeaways from edSummit Singapore

Events

Mar 17

Recently, Sarah attended edSummit Singapore, hosted by GESS - German European School Singapore and EdEvents Community. What were her key takeaways?

🔵AI - first there was prompt engineering (transactional), then context engineering (teaching your own tool; conversational), now there’s intention engineering - you don’t know at the beginning what output you want, so you explore together. What’s left that’s distinctly human? Character and metacognitive skills. (Thanks, Andrew Mowat.)

🔵Learning walks and coaching conversations are hugely better for staff morale and growth than formal lesson observations. (Quite right, Mireia Bickley.)

🔵School culture (beliefs, traditions, values and norms) interacts with school climate (how it feels, perception, atmosphere) to impact on the behaviours of students and staff. Culture and climate are invisible and evolve whether you do anything or not. Behaviours are visible and can be changed. So leaders can use behaviours to influence culture and climate. (Look for an upcoming book by Dr Richard Webster.)

🔵It’s amazing what we can do as teachers when we think creatively about the environment of the school and how it can be used by students and teachers for learning. Seed planting around the school was one example. Curious learners can also exercise their creativity using tech - we heard some AI-generated music about dolphin conservation. (So inventive, Nurul L R. and Pei Kian Lee.)

🔵Tech adaption starts with the super keen and takes time to filter down to everyone. Staff who are slower to adapt are asking the right questions - the questions that the change team should be answering. Staff adapt to new tech if it is shown to be beneficial or there is a clear necessity. At GESS, that happened due to a school-wide requirement to implement a certain visible learning model. (Thanks for the insight, Jan Brockmann.)