FrogPlay World Championships 2018: SK Sungai Lalang, Kedah

SK Sungai Lalang started its journey with Frog in 2016 when Puan Nur ‘Izzatie, who is now a Gold Advocate, attended the first Hubs session conducted in Kedah. It sparked her motivation to bring change to her school’s education through Frog. She was committed to using Frog in school and also encouraged other teachers to use Frog as well. After gaining more exposure through sharing and learning sessions from Hubs, she motivated teachers and students to participate actively in the FrogPlay Championship 2017.

Although the school did not place in last year’s Championship, the school went on to participate in the FrogPlay World Championships this year and has proven to be a solid contender on a world stage. Teachers came together to come up with creative ways to engage students to learn and improve with FrogPlay.

2.1 Creative student engagement initiatives

Student engagement activities

• Drinking Milo with FrogPlay
  - This initiative was started because teachers wanted to do something interesting to motivate students to complete FrogPlay quizzes diligently. Students from all levels were involved and each class get to participate.
  - Teachers invited the Milo trucks to the school that would give out free Milo drinks to students who complete their FrogPlay quizzes.

• Eating Ice Cream with FrogPlay
  - This was another initiative to do something out of the ordinary to motivate students to complete FrogPlay quizzes. Teachers and students from all levels were involved.
  - Teachers approached the leadership team of the school and proposed that teachers and students get to eat ice-cream while completing FrogPlay quizzes in the computer lab to make learning more interesting and fun. The leadership team approved the proposal and pulled together a budget to buy ice-creams.
  - When teachers approached an ice-cream company to get the best price, the owner was moved to sponsor half of the ice-creams.

• Kem Kenari Yan Kedah
  - This initiative involved only Year 6 students who were going to sit for the UPSR examination this year. Teachers wanted to do something interesting to encourage and motivate these students to revise for the upcoming exams.
  - Teachers brought students to Kem Kenari Yan Kedah, a camping site in Kuala Muda Yan district. Teachers also brought along Chromebooks and Zoom devices so that students will be able to do their revision there.
  - During the day, teachers and students will be doing interesting camp activities and at night, teachers will turn on the Chromebooks and students will take turns to complete quizzes on FrogPlay.

• Outcome
  - Students feel happy and motivated when they are rewarded with Milo or ice-cream when they complete FrogPlay quizzes. Teachers wanted students to feel excited to learn and not feel bored with routined classroom activities.
  - Through the camping trip, teachers are able to test Year 6 students on their understanding of what they have learned in the morning during activities through FrogPlay quizzes.

2.2 Frog Clinic

What is it about

• Frog Clinic is an initiative to focus on weaker Year 6 students such as students who are far behind in classes, while FrogPlay tuition classes are extra revision for students who have been catching up during lessons.
• Students in Frog Clinic are given quizzes that are simpler and more interactive to help them understand and absorb better.
• Not only that, students also answer quizzes based on their own level. Students can start by answering Year 1 students and slowly working their way up to higher levels in all subjects. This helps them learn at their own pace.

Outcome

• A comparison between March and May monthly test results have shown that overall student improvement have increased from 35% to 38%.
  - Bahasa Melayu Pemahaman - 83% to 84%
  - Bahasa Melayu Penulisan - 75% to 82%
  - English Comprehension - 45% to 67%
  - English Essay - 48% to 54%
  - Science - 73% to 83%

• Previously, there have been 18 students in the school who would fail all subjects. Now through this initiative, 9 students have passed all their subjects.
• There is also an overall improvement in grades where more students are achieving As in subjects, compared to previously when there were a lot of students getting Ds.

2.3 Parent engagement

Parent Teacher Association (PIBG) Group

• The PKG has a PIBG Group that consists of parent committees from different areas of the PKG. They are very supportive and would always share information on Frog via group chats or social media.

Getting parents involved in school

• Teachers have distributed parent login IDs and conducted workshops on how to login to Frog on mobile devices.
• The school openly invites parents to come to school to use Frog with their children so that parents get hands-on experience of how their children are learning with Frog.
• The school also collaborated with the PKG to support on details of the school’s consistency and achievement with Frog to further convince parents.

3.1 From a parent-teacher perspective

• Teacher has a child enrolled in the school. Teacher is teaching Bahasa Melayu and child is a Year 3 student.
• Child has always been weak in Science, and only getting Cs for the subject. At home, teacher tries her best to motivate child to complete exercises in revision books, but child refuses to do so.
• As a teacher, she knows how to use FrogPlay and create quizzes. To motivate her child to do revision, she created quizzes based on the revision book questions and encouraged her child to answer.
• Child has been excelling in Science ever since and is even able to answer Year 4 quizzes.