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by Chris Dede | June 6, 2020

Nina Lim will share her personal experiences of distance teaching first grade students in California, United States from Seoul, South Korea. She will describe various forms of instruction used during the weeks of remote learning to show what this looked like for her elementary school students. She will share her thoughts on distance learning, describing the differences and similarities between remote instruction in United States and South Korea, including initiatives underway by the Ministry of Education in South Korea. Nina will also provide her personal insights as a teacher on how educational technology should develop in the near future.

Chee-Kit Looi will describe how, in Singapore, the actual practices of online learning at home during periods of lockdown bring us more awareness that inequality begins at home for online learning. However, the episodes of home-based learning also provide opportunities for us to think about resilience learning for our students. Chris Dede has shared several inspiring metaphors for viewing the silver lining in learning, for example, “It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” Chee-Kit likes to contribute one more metaphor, namely, “穷则变,变则通,通则久” – a saying from the Book of Changes from ancient Chinese history. This principle exhorts us to understand the way of change, to look for the turning point when things reach their extreme, and to facilitate change so as to effect their smooth and long-lasting development. Thus we can leverage on the inflection point now “to break the impasse, create the new normal, and sustain”, and not to “endure the impasse, keep anticipating, and wait to revert back to the old normal”!

More information about our guests below the video.

Our guests are:

Nina Lim, Stratford School, California, USA

Nina Lim is currently a Curriculum Designer and first grade teacher at Stratford School in Silicon Valley, California. She recently directed the distance learning program at her school by creating various online contents and training the teachers online. She recently collaborated with the Ministry of Education of Korea by providing recommendations on distance learning implementation of South Korea.

Nina also researches with Dr. Paul Kim at Stanford Graduate School of Education. Her research focuses on implementation of various higher-order thinking educational programs such as SMILE (Stanford Mobile Inquiry-based Learning Environment), HALO (STEAM-infused project), and 1001 Stories (global awareness & empowerment program). Nina has received her bachelor’s in Elementary Education from Vanderbilt University and then received her master’s in Human Development and Psychology at Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Chee-Kit Looi, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Chee-Kit Looi is Professor of Education at the National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. He is also co-Director of the Centre for Research and Development in Learning (CRADLE) at NTU. In NIE, he teaches a pre-service course to teachers on how to use technology in the classrooms, as well as learning sciences courses to graduate students. In his research work on the use of technologies in local classrooms, one key finding is that more productive and sustained outcomes will come about if technologies are integrated into the curricular activities for a whole school year, on the circumstance of being used as a necessity (a new normal is created), rather than as an add-on (there is always a possibility to fall back to the old business-as-usual normal).