The Use of Structured Academic Controversy in a Mobile Environment to Broaden Student Perspectives and Understanding in the Social Sciences

Abstract

This chapter describes a program designed around the use of handhelds and other mobile devices in a citizenship education program which has been implemented in a school in Singapore, in the Upper Secondary Social Studies syllabus. There is a general assumption that students are equipped with an adequate conceptual understanding of the theme of the macro concept of Conflict, one of the main themes of the syllabus. However, experience shows that this concept remains abstract to 15-year-old students who have limited experience, having been brought up in a relatively safe and secure environment in Singapore. The case studies in the Social Studies syllabus are much more complicated as they are multidimensional, involving clashes of interests, ideas, points of views and emotions. The program aims to afford students learning experiences which provide opportunities for the learning and examination of alternative, and often multiple, perspectives of controversial issues; the students will be given opportunities to discuss and express these perspectives through participation in a structured collaboration activity known as the Structured Academic Controversy (SAC). The pedagogy of the SAC is well known among Singapore teachers in Humanities departments and has been used to provide structure and focus to classroom discussions in various subjects. A primary innovation of this program is that teachers will design SAC activities going beyond face-to-face interactions (as has been the practice in schools, so far). Building upon the work of Lim (Enhancing fieldwork in social studies through remotely conducted structured academic controversies. Teach Learn, 25(2). National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, pp 189–195, 2004, Adolescent collaborative discourse through messaging. In: Aykin N, Preece J (eds), Internationalization, online communities, and social computing: Design and evaluation. 11th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2005), the program investigates how SAC activities can be transposed beyond the confines of the classroom (field-based SAC), as well as augmented through practice using 1:1 handheld devices (mobile-based SAC).