Denmark Trip Reflection by Si Qi

During the course of this study trip, we visited different schools in Copenhagen. I appreciated the opportunity to interact with different stakeholders— from principals and teachers of public schools to lecturers and student-teachers from the University College Copenhagen (UCC). 


With Danish kids ranked the happiest students in the world, there were a lot to glean from the pedagogical practices employed by educators. Danish students often exemplify “joy of learning”, which Singaporean educators seek to inculcate in our students. A statement made by a Danish secondary school principal perfectly sums up the core ideology underpinning education in Denmark,  “the classroom belongs to students and not to the teacher”. Each lesson is carefully planned to meet the learning style and interests of the students, with great autonomy given in learning tasks. For example, in a grade 7 class, students were tasked to create a presentation on the theme of health. Students were given autonomy to decide on the mode of presentation as well as the sub-topic relating to ‘health’. We were pleasantly surprised by how deeply interested students were in their chosen topic as well as the depth of research these thirteen year olds were able to perform. Some created a skit on diabetes while others baked healthy snacks from the 14th century! 


Needless to say, I was deeply intrigued by their forms of assessments. Graded summative assessments on competencies are few and far between. Often assessments are formative, with an emphasis on collaboration. Seeing how comfortable students are in groups as well as how eager they are to work together encourages me to include more group work in my lessons. 


In contrast to the Singapore, Denmark does not practice streaming. Rationale being to prevent students from studying solely for grades, hence losing the joy of learning. However, this also results in the danish classroom being incredibly diverse, with large ability gaps. Danish teachers circumvent this by including differentiated instructions for the different student abilities. Looking at the lesson plans of Danish teachers, teachers would plan for students who are a few grades below their peers, taking into consideration their individual needs. 

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