By John Redmond
Dulwich College Seoul (DCSL) won the Teaching Initiative of the Year award at the British International School Awards (BISAs) 2018 last Monday at the Grand Connaught Rooms in Covent Garden, London.
Teachers Neil Gorton and Chris Bonnet accepted the distinguished accolade on behalf of Dulwich College Seoul.
Dulwich College Seoul was recognized for an initiative that addressed a weakness in primary school math education. The school noticed its primary school students attended extracurricular evening schools, or hagwon in Korean, which emphasize short-term test results and rote memorization.
As a result, its students forgot what they learned from term to term, and the school observed a unique difficulty in using mathematics skills across different topics. To shift DCSL's focus to long-term learning, staff implemented a solution based on UCLA professor Robert Bjork's "Interleaving and Spaced Practice Approach" (IL/SP).
"We are honored to have received this award, which recognizes our achievements in improving mathematics education for our primary students," remarked Graeme Salt, headmaster at DCSL.
As part of the initiative, DCSL changed its curriculum from traditional blocks of content to spacing and interleaving mathematical topics, and systematically challenged students to retrieve knowledge and skills a week after learning them. The practice developed long-term memory for the application of mathematical knowledge and generated many opportunities for the crossover of skills.
Over the three-year project, assessments and surveys have shown an increased confidence in applying mathematical principles and improved achievement.
"To date, the program has been a success and over 87 percent of the staff surveyed in June 2017 believed IL/SP had improved or significantly improved their mathematics teaching practice after the first year of the initiative," Salt said.
DCSL was one of 10 category winners at this year's BISAs. The awards recognize excellence in British schools overseas, celebrate the success of the sector and identify best practices.
"The BISAs represent significant achievement for numerous schools around the world which follow a British curriculum," Salt said.
Dulwich College is one of the U.K.'s oldest independent schools, founded in 1619 in South London as a boys' school. Dulwich College International (DCI) was established to bring the Dulwich education to students around the world and is now one of the U.K.'s fastest growing independent school networks.
Through DCI, Dulwich College has been in Asia for almost 15 years. The Dulwich network currently provides for over 7,200 students in 11 cities and five countries.
Opened in 2010, DCSL has expanded to accommodate over 650 students aged three to 18, with over 40 nationalities represented in its student body.
The college is open to students who have one or two parents who do not have Korean nationality as verified by an alien registration card and Korean family registry, as well as Korean students who have lived overseas for no less than three years.
For more information, visit facebook.com/dulwichcollegeseoul or email admissions@dulwich-seoul.kr.
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| Dulwich College Seoul mathematics instructors Chris Bonnet, left and Neil Gorton receive the British International Schools Award for Teaching Initiative of the Year in London last Monday. / Courtesy of Charles Henderson |
Teachers Neil Gorton and Chris Bonnet accepted the distinguished accolade on behalf of Dulwich College Seoul.
Dulwich College Seoul was recognized for an initiative that addressed a weakness in primary school math education. The school noticed its primary school students attended extracurricular evening schools, or hagwon in Korean, which emphasize short-term test results and rote memorization.
As a result, its students forgot what they learned from term to term, and the school observed a unique difficulty in using mathematics skills across different topics. To shift DCSL's focus to long-term learning, staff implemented a solution based on UCLA professor Robert Bjork's "Interleaving and Spaced Practice Approach" (IL/SP).
"We are honored to have received this award, which recognizes our achievements in improving mathematics education for our primary students," remarked Graeme Salt, headmaster at DCSL.
As part of the initiative, DCSL changed its curriculum from traditional blocks of content to spacing and interleaving mathematical topics, and systematically challenged students to retrieve knowledge and skills a week after learning them. The practice developed long-term memory for the application of mathematical knowledge and generated many opportunities for the crossover of skills.
Over the three-year project, assessments and surveys have shown an increased confidence in applying mathematical principles and improved achievement.
"To date, the program has been a success and over 87 percent of the staff surveyed in June 2017 believed IL/SP had improved or significantly improved their mathematics teaching practice after the first year of the initiative," Salt said.
DCSL was one of 10 category winners at this year's BISAs. The awards recognize excellence in British schools overseas, celebrate the success of the sector and identify best practices.
"The BISAs represent significant achievement for numerous schools around the world which follow a British curriculum," Salt said.
Dulwich College is one of the U.K.'s oldest independent schools, founded in 1619 in South London as a boys' school. Dulwich College International (DCI) was established to bring the Dulwich education to students around the world and is now one of the U.K.'s fastest growing independent school networks.
Through DCI, Dulwich College has been in Asia for almost 15 years. The Dulwich network currently provides for over 7,200 students in 11 cities and five countries.
Opened in 2010, DCSL has expanded to accommodate over 650 students aged three to 18, with over 40 nationalities represented in its student body.
The college is open to students who have one or two parents who do not have Korean nationality as verified by an alien registration card and Korean family registry, as well as Korean students who have lived overseas for no less than three years.
For more information, visit facebook.com/dulwichcollegeseoul or email admissions@dulwich-seoul.kr.
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