Mr Christopher Niven (2H 2021)

AST’s 28th OEIC/R

Mr Chris Niven is currently teaching mathematics at Sheldon College, and has been serving as the Head of Faculty for Mathematics since 2019. Prior to his appointment as the Head of Faculty, he was the Pedagogical Coach for mathematics teachers and numeracy in the college. Mr Niven has facilitated the development and implementation of teacher observation tools and used the data to strategically plan professional opportunities to build the capacity of teachers in his team to deliver quality teaching.

Mr Niven was the recipient of the Choose Maths: Teaching Excellence Award, 2019, awarded by Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI). He was also recognised on the 2019 Education Hot List and with one of The Educator’s Rising Star awards 2018 for leadership in education (Australia Education Magazine). Mr Niven has deep experience and led professional development in the use of technology to reflect on lessons, the active Maths classroom and flipped learning to support the development of self-directed learners; and specialises in the integration of ICT tools into mathematics classrooms such as the use of Augmented and Virtual Reality for interactive learning.

Working with our Master Teacher and Teacher Collaborator

During his engagement, Mr Niven participated in rich dialogue with our Master Teacher supporting the program, Mdm Pang Yen Ping, who lent her subject matter expertise and pedagogical experience to further enhance the depth of Mr Niven’s strategies.

While Mr Niven was not able to be physically present in Singapore to observe classroom teaching, with the strong support and assistance of a local Teacher Collaborator, Mr Alvin Lee, a mathematics teacher from Chung Cheng High School (Yishun), Mr Niven was able to contextualise his pedagogies on the use of ICT tools to support blended learning for our local mathematics classroom context. During the lesson, students engaged in augmented reality to manipulate prisms in 3D, enabled by the CoSpaces Edu platform, while at the same time leveraging the Student Learning Space (SLS). This provided greater student autonomy, as students interacted and engaged with the visualisation of prisms in their own way and collaborated with their peers to form conclusions about the volume and total surface area of prisms.

Mr Alvin Lee providing explanation to a student using the CoSpaces Edu platform

Conduct of Online Workshop

In working with AST, Mr Niven conducted his Online Workshop titled ‘Using ICT Tools to Support Blended Learning in the Mathematics Classroom’ over two sessions for mathematics educators. During the Workshops, he shared valuable insights on his teaching philosophy, and design considerations for a blended learning lesson. In addition, he demonstrated as the use of CoSpaces Edu to help students make use of augmented reality for the visualisation of various mathematics topics such as geometry and trigonometry. He also shared design considerations in the creation of short explanatory videos and demonstrated the use of platforms such as Lightboard and Explain Everything. These considerations form part of his pedagogies to enhance the learning experience for his students as he challenged the participants’ prior beliefs on the use of technology in the classroom. Participants also heard from Mr Lee, who shared his experiences in the enactment of Mr Niven’s pedagogies. During his sharing, he reflected on how he adopted and adapted these pedagogies to suit the learning needs of his students.

Mr Niven demonstrating the use of CoSpaces Edu to visualise prisms

Mr Niven sharing insights and his considerations on what makes an impactful learning video

Mr Alvin Lee sharing his experiences in enacting a blended-learning lesson using pedagogies shared by Mr Niven

Participants shared that the workshop inspired them to employ the pedagogies which allowed them to reach out and connect with an increasingly digital student population who are adept at managing technology-infused lesson content.

We are honoured to have the opportunity to interact and work with Mr Niven through the OEIC programme and we would like to thank him for his generosity in sharing his keen perspective on the impact that technology has on teaching and learning.