Team
KennethRaffles Institution, Singapore
MarioNasional Junior Senior High School, Indonesia
IrvinRaffles Institution, Singapore
Jia JinRaffles Institution, Singapore
JosephRaffles Institution, Singapore
Shi JieRaffles Institution, Singapore
Age Range
15 & under
Coaches
Aileen ChorRaffles Institution, Singapore
Jian Sheng LiRaffles Institution, Singapore
Category
Social Sciences & Culture > Education
Audience
Ages 12 and up
Language
English
Site Features
Online Activity / Game
Reading Guide / Book Guide
Teacher Resources (Lesson Plans, Worksheets)
Photo Gallery
Video / Sound
Team Collaboration
Our team was bonded together and collaboration was very evident. Tasks were assigned according to strengths, where we complemented our group member’s weaknesses with our individual strengths. Irvin and Jia Jin who were good with the computer and the different web-making programs were assigned the task of web design and coding; Shi Jie and Joseph who were good at content generation and analysis were in charge of collection and conclusion of the results following analysis. Mario was placed in charge of conducting surveys and interviews in Indonesia. Lastly, Kenneth who had a strong English literature background was tasked with the editing and refinement of language.
Our strengths complementing each other were clearly seen in many instances throughout the course of our work, one of them being the collection of interview results. Joseph, who possessed the best inter-personal skills, sent out the interview requests; Shi Jie generated the interview questions and Kenneth edited them. Although Irvin, Jia Jin and Mario were not directly in charge of any aspects of the interviews, they helped by giving constructive criticism and helping in whatever other ways they could. For example, they stood in as interviewees when we were "rehearsing" for the interviews. If we were all strong in one area, we could have generated brilliant interview questions but would not have got the interviews in the end. This further emphasises the importance of our various strengths complementing each other.
We encountered many difficulties along the way, for instance our members come from different countries. Thus, we solved this problem by using an online project planner tool. This online project planner tool included a track of milestones, ‘cases’ to track the dealing of problems faced, a ‘wiki’ so that everyone could contribute their ideas freely and a ‘files’ section to share and archive the different files used. This way, we could hold group discussions online, brainstorm ideas and track the progress of each member even though we were from different countries and were in different timezones. We worked past these difficulties and managed to collaborate together very well.
Our teamwork and mentality of sharing responsibilities based on our different individual strengths saw us through this project and allowed us to jump over every hurdle we faced. We all had a common goal, a common vision, and worked towards it as a team, putting in our very. Ultimately, our efforts paid off and we are proud to say that this project could not have been done with one member less.
Team Diversity
Our team members are diverse in many different ways. We come from different cultures, religions, and socio-economic backgrounds. However, instead of letting our diversity hinder our work, we made it work for us, utilizing our different viewpoints influenced by our different environments to explore Visual Learning with more breadth and depth. This helped to enrich and enhance our project, especially in development of our website content. Mario’s parents came from financially troubled and at times, internet connectivity is poor in Indonesia. As such, this opened our mind to visual learning not only in the form of computer visuals such as videos, but also of mindmaps and drawings. This enhanced our project by increasing the breadth of our topic as we explored other different kinds of visual learning. Kenneth grew up in a family and environment where literature and the English language were heavily emphasized on. Thus, this also enhanced the breadth of our topic as we were prompted to venture into finding ways through which visual learning could be integrated and applied to linguistic disciplines. Shi Jie came from a background where books and notes were heavily emphasized and utilized. As a result, he felt that the use of visuals could shorten the attention span of students, and this viewpoint was also further emphasized and explored during the interview with Mr. Dean Ang when he mentioned this possibility as well. Joseph grew up in an environment in which the Sciences were very heavily emphasized and thus he suggested conducting an interview with Mr. Fernandez, CEO of a leading scientific company, to get a perspective on the topic from a representative of the scientific community. Through this, we gained new insights and we broke free from our own thinking, accepting the other viewpoints and exploring them in our website. We are also diverse in our strengths, and this was definitely integral in our website development, making it more all-rounded. For instance, our strength in content generation and information technology enabled us to make such visually pleasing videos while maintaining the strong impact of our content-rich information presented. Our strengths complemented each other and contributed largely to our project. In conclusion, our different strengths, cultures, socio-economic backgrounds and even nationalities were not only integral in the overall creation and development of content on our website, but also in provision of different perspectives. This diversity and different perspectives were well utilized to explore and present the topic.
