Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences            
New Teaching Initiative

The Department of Geography has devised a module in which students take responsibility for their own learning. ‘Learning by doing’ is the motto of the new GE 3230 Geography Field Studies module. Students have to engage in a variety of teamwork projects involving different kinds of fieldwork in an overseas context. The module encourages students to test out methods learnt in classroom settings and apply them in different situations. Students also learn to explore the gaps and links between ‘field studies’ and ‘classroom’ teaching. Projects are designed to encourage teamwork, creativity and knowledge of basic skills required to collect primary data.

During May and June 2001, 29 students took part in an overseas Field Studies course in Northern Thailand. Students involved themselves in various projects related to broad themes such as: urban and cultural landscapes; cultural tourism and hill-tribe peoples; ecological tourism; highland development projects and small village communities; migrant communities in Northern Thailand; and the clashes between resource exploitation and environmental conservation. Future Field Studies modules are scheduled for Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Faculty of Business Administration            
Advanced Modules for USP Students

Two special advanced modules have been designed specially for University Scholars Programme (USP) students to challenge and develop their intellectual and creative potential. The course, Conflict Resolution: Negotiation and Mediation, introduces the theory of negotiation and conflict resolution through short debriefs, discussions and papers. To foster negotiation and mediation skills effectively, the course features an open, experiential approach that allows for maximum participation, experimentation and self-reflective learning. Participants are expected to apply and demonstrate acquired knowledge through practice and exercises. Moreover, participants from different backgrounds are selected for the course so that they can interact and share different perspectives on conflict resolution. A good classroom environment is also maintained to encourage participants’ creativity and spontaneity.

The other course, Treasury Management, synthesises the theory and practice of treasury management. Exposed to a wide range of theoretical financial concepts, tools and techniques as applied to treasury activities, USP students will gain an understanding of international financial markets, the accompanying financial instruments and innovations, the key functions of a Treasury department in a multinational firm, and latest trends in treasury management. To obtain current market practices and informational prices, students can also access a subscription-based electronic information provider of financial and economic data.

Faculty of Dentistry                            
Teaching Outside of the Classroom

Classroom teaching has limits in exposing students to certain environments and/or experiences. In our Community Health Study module, we have designed a series of lectures that are tied in with tutorials and field trips. One of the projects, entitled ‘Caries risk assessment of Singaporean kindergarten children’, allows Third Year dental students to physically enter society, assess the needs of people/children, and develop a deeper sense of responsibility for the community. Students are guided to establish a new learning mode, involving the cognitive, affective, and volitional components of their minds. Through this more holistic approach, we hope to bring joy, creativity, and a sense of community to dental students who will be Singapore’s next generation of oral health caregivers.

Faculty of Medicine                                 
Clinico-Pathological Conferences Go Online

The Clinico-Pathological Conference (CPC) is an important teaching experience for Fourth and Fifth Year medical students. CPCs have been in the curriculum of the Medical Faculty for many years and used to be traditional classroom affairs. Since 2000, the CPC format has been transformed into a completely IT-based, online exercise. The aims were to present clinical information in a structured, holistic manner that is meaningful and engaging as well as simulates the real world of clinical practice and decision-making. The multi-faceted, multi-disciplinary, interactive presentations are sequenced with breaks that elicit responses to multiple-choice questions and direct discussions with staff clinicians. They are linked to appropriate reference texts and other web-based resources that elaborate on the case under discussion. An additional bonus is that students now no longer have to travel across town from their different hospital attachments to attend CPCs.

Faculty of Science                           
Read & Present: Developing Thinking & Communication Skills in Biology

In the course, AB4220 Behavioural Ecology, students not only learn the course contents, but also develop analytical and critical thinking as well as communication skills. Each week, all students read a research publication specifically chosen by the lecturer for its wide theoretical basis, introduction to critical research methods and/or broad species and geographic coverage. Each student must take turns to give a small class presentation on the weekly paper and then generate a discussion among classmates. Consequently, students must know the factual material and develop communication strategies. If necessary, students are helped to plan their sessions. All students and the lecturer must also participate in the discussions. In this innovative teaching method, the lecturer only functions as a facilitator of the process, rather than as a leader or a dominator in the weekly discussion, thereby encouraging students to learn how to ‘learn by themselves’.

Faculty of Science                                
Timetable ‘Deregulation’ to Achieve Small-group Teaching in Lab Sessions

Achieving small-group teaching in laboratory sessions, especially for big classes, is often difficult due to timetable constraints, scarcity of equipment and teaching assistants, etc. After much consideration in the Department of Biological Sciences, timetable constraints were identified as the root of the problem. So efforts were made to ‘deregulate’ the timetable of the BL1103 Physiology practicals. A small laboratory was dedicated for this module. Every experiment was scheduled 9–12 times per week such that the practical schedule truly complemented the lectures. With the help of CITA (Science), a software was developed that enabled students to sign up for their desired slots at the beginning of the term, which solved the problem of timetable clashes. It also allowed students to run the practicals at their own pace. Computers and software were purchased for data-acquisition and to give on-screen instructions. Consequently, students were able to do their experiments independently. Even though a small number of teaching assistants were mobilised, a TA:student ratio of between 1:5 to 1:15 was achieved.

School of Computing                                
Multimedia Learning Clips

The School of Computing offers a course, CS3240, on Human-Computer Interaction. We have been developing multimedia learning clips as resources to aid student understanding of the course material. Designed on the principles of visualisation and concretisation, these clips help to reify abstract ideas and concepts through the predominant use of visual and animated content (text is used only minimally) with synchronised audio narration to explain the content. Navigation controls are available to move to a preceding or following clip so that students can view the clips in logical sequence if they want a mini-lecture. The multimedia clips are developed in the QuickTime format and deployed on a streaming server, allowing students anytime, anywhere access to the learning resource.

During Semester 2 of academic year 2000/2001, we surveyed students on the helpfulness of the multimedia clips in facilitating their learning of course materials. 4% of students said that it made no difference, 23% said that it helped a little, 37% said that it helped moderately, 23% said that it helped a lot, and 2% said that it helped tremendously. Although 11% of students reported that they had not tried to access the multimedia clips, we are very encouraged that on the whole 85% found the clips helpful for learning.

School of Design & Environment           
Seeing Deeply in Architecture: Unraveling the Narrative

The challenge to First Year architecture students was this: to design architecture with its milieu of spatial sequences and sensorial nuances through the appreciation and analysis of a piece of poetry or prose. This narrative approach, though new to the student, is not an uncommon form of design impetus and process in architecture. Several seminal projects sharing this heritage include the Danteum by Giuseppe Terragni and Daniel Liebeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin. The potency of the narrative is evidenced in its ability to be both the scaffolding from which to launch the design process as well as the compass by which consistent perspective is gained during the varied stages of design development. The student’s journey from the immateriality of the ‘word’ to the materiality of the ‘built’ began with works which spanned Wallace Stevens to Alfian Sa’at and culminated in a range of projects as rich and diverse as their origins.