Empowering Educators, Enriching Student-Athletes

To enhance teaching and learning for student-athletes, teachers have been tinkering with AI –to develop student-facing bots and experiment with platforms such as Flint and Google AI Studio across sciences, humanities, and languages. These innovations seek to help teachers sharpen the process of providing timely and personalised feedback to nurture independent, self-directed, and critical thinkers.

In one such AI pedagogical innovation in MOE’s Teachers’ Conference & ExCEL Fest 2025, Ms Grace Wang shared how AI can facilitate the co-construction of meaning in Upper Secondary Literature to nurture for independent learning and critical thinking. Grounded in constructivism, Bloom’s Taxonomy, and metacognition, she used structured engagement with AI — guided forethought, prompt stems and teacher modelling to shift student-athletes from passive learning to engaged and dialogic learning. Arising from the study by Ms Grace Wang and Mr Eugene Lai, learners across different readiness levels gained confidence in their interpretation of rich texts, and demonstrated greater original thought after sustained and scaffolded conversations with ChatGPT. The session drew over 50 participants and received strong feedback for clarity, applicability, and impact in pedagogical use of AI to deepen co-construction of meaning in Upper Secondary Literature.

In supporting meaning-making and purposeful learning for a wider community of learners, the Malay unit shared their knowledge with the larger Malay teaching community: leveraging on AI to provide specific and skillful feedback to sharpen students’ writing through a series of diagnostic questioning and iterative thinking prompts. Our colleagues have also conducted a cluster workshop for eight other schools, who found the sharing very useful.

To strengthen teaching and learning through process-level feedback for student-athletes, our academic staff used the PD workshop in May to build student-facing helpers in the Student Learning Space (SLS) that deliver faster and more personalised feedback. Student-athletes are also guided on the ethical use of AI through clear guidelines aligned with IB Academic Integrity practices to ensure student-athletes use AI tools with meaning and purpose. Our colleagues in various professional learning teams also worked on classroom strategies, including routines and checklists to help students focus on the learning intentions and deepen their understanding of the success criteria in conceptual understanding and skills, among other competencies. Together, these efforts mean more quality feedback and more self-efficacy in student-athletes’ use of AI tools.

In September, we focused on the Feedback Cycle and Matrix of Feedback, drawing on the Hattie and Timperley model to make feedback clear and actionable. To sharpen task-level feedback, our colleagues from the Mathematics Department shared the WAH routine - What I need to know, Assess my learning, and How I can improve - supported by step-by-step tasks, tiered levels of questions based on progression of concepts and skills, coupled with success tips. To sharpen process level feedback, the Mother Tongue Department demonstrated how SchoolAI provides timely and personalised feedback to improve coherence in writing and deepen generation of ideas while reinforcing ethical and responsible use of AI. This means that teachers give student-athletes clearer feedback: where they are in their understanding and skills, where they ought to be in their learning mastery and how to get there – leading to stronger consolidation of concepts and growing confidence by student-athletes to hone their thinking dispositions towards more inquiring, reflective, self-directed and independent in their learning across both academic subjects and sports.

At the IB Global Conference in Singapore, themed ‘Our Humanity, Connected’, we had an opportunity o connect with fellow global educators, learn from experts, and reflect on our teaching and learning practices. In light of the pervasiveness of AI affordances and tools in education and industry, some sessions highlighted the human qualities that underpin great learning — self-awareness, empathy, and innovation — alongside future-ready competencies such as human insight, which remains relevant in an age of AI.

Our Academic Wing colleagues had an eye-opening visit to the Apple Developer Center Singapore in June, where we learnt about a work culture that values everyone’s ideas and fosters genuine connections. We discovered that innovation is not just about being first – it is about observing real needs, asking for honest feedback, and continuously refining ideas. The facilitators explained how they encourage people to explore possibilities, reminding us just how important it is to empower our staff and student-athletes. Everyone was particularly inspired by Apple’s commitment to sustainability, data privacy, and creating spaces for professional growth. The visit also highlighted the power of clear communication: by actively listening, asking thoughtful questions, and sharing the bigger picture, we help everyone see how their work contributes to a larger purpose. Most of all, we left feeling energised to embrace change, collaborate openly, and keep learning together as a community.