PS21 Star Service Awards 2014

thanks to some committee in moe, i am nominated for  PS21 Star Service Awards 2014 :)
below is the write-up! thanks to Gabriel for supporting my nomination too!
enjoy

Profile write-up/ Justification:

Wee Loo Kang Lawrence is a senior specialist at the Ministry of Education (MOE), Education Technology Division (ETD). His research focuses on designing Open Source Physics computer models, Tracker video analysis and modelling for physics education all free for the public of the world.


Driven by a desire to bring about engaging science learning in every classroom, Lawrence constantly seeks to address teachers’ needs and requests for meaningfully engaging simulations. Many teachers have given feedback on the extraordinary service provided by him to ensure that his computer models are appropriate tools for guided inquiry. He goes the extra mile to develop computer models at no cost, free for access in the public internet domain by everyone, not just for local educators but also for all educators from around the
world. Regardless of where the requests might originate, his service quality is always top notch.

Recent extraordinary service delivery

Kenneth Lee, Principal of Hillgrove Secondary School approached Loo Kang regarding gravity physics simulations curriculum materials to boost the school’s niche on flight and aerospace.
Typically, if a vendor is to produce such simulations curriculum materials, the cost of developmentis usually a financially costly affair not to mention almost impossible to get students to learn through customization of simulations – “learning by coding”.

Extra mile in service delivery/ exemplify Whole of Government (WOG) mindset?

Lawrence responded promptly by providing a list of customized simulations related to flight and aerospace for the school’s immediate use. He also attends several meetings with this school’s teachers to understand their teaching need even though it is not within his job scope.

Lawrence even went on to conduct a 3-day, 2 hourly workshops to 15 students to “code” a rocket model-simulation, which inspired many of the secondary three express students’ love for rocket-physics. The students appreciated the rationale for having such specialized pedagogy aims to better prepare them for the future despite the difficulties in learning by coding both in software and physics content knowledge mastery.

The teacher in charge was very grateful to Lawrence for having gone the extra mile in mentoring his students to “learn by coding” as this is an advance pedagogical approach practice by computational physics professors in overseas universities.

Testimonial from members of public

1. I have enjoyed the course and I would like to thank the trainers and the teachers for teaching and organizing the course.– Student, Hillgrove Secondary School 
2. On behalf of the school, we would like to thank you for spending your time and giving of your expertise to train about 15 students from 3-8 over the course of three sessions in the afternoons in Easy Java Simulation Software Course. We are really grateful to be able to partner with you in this collaboration. The students have indeed learned much under your supervision. Hope to be able to continue to work with you in the future again. Thank you. - Teacher Derrick Chia, Hillgrove Secondary School 
3. Excellent effort and work by the team! Keep it up J - Ho Peng Director-General of Education. 

Service Excellence Type Awards won at Ministry-level

1. Public Service Excellence in Service Award (EXSA) Star 2013, 2011, Gold 2010, Sliver 2009 
2. MOE Excellence Service Award 2012

PS21 Distinguished Star Service Award?

Loo Kang goes beyond the call of duty to continually customise Physics resources to make them suitable for use in the different schools and project contexts. With his close handholding of schools e.g. HCI and YJC, successfully scale the use of the video tracker for the learning of Physics. In addition, every feedback is taken into account to explore how the simulations can be improved.

Loo Kang has garnered compliments from all levels ranging from teachers in schools to MOE’s senior management (e.g. PS and DGE), from local tertiary professors (Dr Darren Wong and Dr Zhang Bao Hui) to overseas ones (Dr Hwang F-K and Vasudeva Rao Aravind).

Everyone is indeed impressed by his passion and contributions.Many school teachers are impressed and some even “amazed” by the quality of his physics computer models and thank him for sharing them freely with them. Even now ETD, AST and CPDD do refer teachers to check out his blog http://weelookang.blogspot.sg/p/physics-applets-virtual-lab.html.