But it’s no ordinary graph they are drawing. The pupils are plotting what is known as a “behaviour-over-time” graph. It is one of the tools used in “Systems Thinking in the Classroom” (STiC), an innovative approach to classroom teaching adopted by Jurong Primary School in response to Teach Less, Learn More to engage students in learning.

Mrs Constance Yip, Principal of Jurong Primary School, conducted a half-day workshop on systems thinking for the school’s teachers in 2006. This is one of the set of disciplines discussed by Dr Peter Senge in his books, The Fifth Discipline: the Art and Practice of the Learning Organisation and Schools that Learn. He showed how the five disciplines - personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning and systems thinking - can be applied in an education system for more effective and student-centred learning.

Mdm Yip presented the various concepts and tools of systems thinking, which excited the teachers. They believed that systems thinking could be applied in classroom teaching and began exploring ways with which they could creatively incorporate the tools to enhance the curriculum. Through their hard work, STiC was implemented school-wide across all levels to teach various subjects in that same year.

A pupil plotting the behaviour-over-time graph, one of the commonly used tools of Systems Thinking.

Jurong Primary School uses two main STiC tools - the “behaviour-over-time” graph and “causal loops”. The graph shows how certain variables change over time, while the causal loops demonstrate how one variable may affect another, i.e. the causal relationships between variables. The STiC tools are incorporated into the curriculum selectively, depending on when the teachers think these tools would be most effective in teaching certain lessons.

STiC has two main advantages. “With STiC, there is a strong visual representation of a system or problem. This allows pupils to learn better,” explains Mr Ng. “Furthermore, STiC is language-independent. This means that teachers of mother tongue languages could also use it in class to help their pupils learn more effectively,” he adds.

Besides being used as an academic tool, Mr Ng said that STiC could also be used in counselling to show pupils, in a very visual manner, how their actions may reinforce certain negative consequences and what could be the positive outcomes if they choose behave in the opposite manner.

Mr Ng Kok Leong and his pupils find Systems Thinking to be a useful teaching and learning tool respectively.

Through STiC, the school hopes that pupils will develop a better understanding of real-life problems and solve problems better by adopting a broader perspective. They can learn to see how different parts of a system are interdependent and how changes to one part influence the others.

Pupils at Jurong Primary School have found STiC useful. “The behaviour-over-time graph has helped me plan my composition better. From the graph, I can tell if my composition is interesting or not,” enthuses Bernard Ng, a Pri 6 pupil.

“I must think of things that are not shown in the picture to make my story interesting,” comments fellow Pri 6 pupil Harie Hadi about the composition exercise. “The good and bad feelings of the main character can make my story interesting.”

Going forward, an Action Research project on STiC will be started this year. “STiC will be tailored for a low-ability class on a particular subject area of medium-to-high difficulty. Results will be analysed to determine if these pupils have learnt better with STiC,” says Mr Ng. The school has also identified a few educational conferences and meetings for teachers to share STiC with others.