Wednesday, 30 September 2020
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| 9.15 am | Designing curriculum. Avoiding the pitfalls, rising to the challenges Keynote Address by Professor Denise Chalmers Emeritus Professor, The University of Western Australia National Senior Teaching Fellow Designing curriculum in a modern university is complex and challenging. The need to consider competing priorities from industry, governmental and regulatory bodies with university, disciplinary, community and student expectations contributes to the complexity. Designing a curriculum that will meet the needs of students and the society when the future is opaque provides university and disciplinary leaders with significant challenges. The decision to adopt a different curriculum model such as a problem-based or interdisciplinary model has been taken by a number of universities. Despite good intentions, not all have been successful, with their curriculum returning to a typical disciplinary model by stealth or design over time. This presentation considers some of the pitfalls and challenges that universities face when a change in the curriculum model is being undertaken. |
| 10.30 am | A Framework for Facilitating Interdisciplinary Learning in Higher Education Keynote Address by Associate Professor Shen Ji Department of Teaching and Learning, School of Education & Human Development, University of Miami Interdisciplinary learning refers to the types of learning that cut across disciplinary boundaries. It promotes deep learning as it drives students to integrate and apply knowledge across disciplines, and therefore enables them to make connections to the real world. This talk presents a framework to guide innovations aimed at nurturing students’ interdisciplinary learning in higher education. The framework submits that individual disciplines are the building blocks for interdisciplinary learning and specific considerations need to be given on which disciplines are involved or prioritized. Four interdisciplinary reasoning and communication processes (i.e., integration, translation, transfer, and transformation) are delineated as key interdisciplinary boundary crossing practices. Also proposed are three conditions to ensure the creation of a successful interdisciplinary learning environment: building an interdisciplinary team, sorting out interdisciplinary learning objectives, and creating materialized support. |
| 11.30 am | Integrating theory and practice through experiential education Keynote Address by Professor Alison Taylor Department of Educational Studies, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia My journey of exploring experiential learning has been shaped by my previous and current research into high school apprenticeship programs, community-engaged learning in higher education, and undergraduate students’ experiences of integrating part-time work with full-time studies. My presentation draws on this research, as well as my experiences as a university instructor, to talk about: why experiential education is so popular now, what proponents hope to achieve, and conceptual ideas that inform and shape the work. In addition, I address some of the institutional challenges as well as guiding principles for experiential education in a time of Covid-19 at my own university. |
Friday, 2 October 2020
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| 9.05 am | Preparing NTU Graduates for Industry 4.0 and Beyond Presentation by Professor Gan Chee Lip Associate Provost (Undergraduate Education); Executive Director, Office of Research & Technology for Defence & Security; Professor, School of Materials Science & Engineering, College of Engineering Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Industry 4.0 will reshape how we think about work, what constitutes work, and how we learn and develop the skills to work in the future. Hence it will also reshape higher education fundamentally, raising the question: What does it mean to be an educated person? Technological disruption is compounded by current global and societal challenges, which the Covid-19 pandemic has made even more apparent. Not only has online learning become indispensable and the new normal, graduates will have to adapt to several career changes over their lifetime, requiring fundamental re-educating, whilst the relentless speed of innovation will constantly demand new knowledge and skills to be developed just to keep pace. In addition to deep knowledge in specific disciplines, our graduates will also need to develop multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary competencies grounded on future-ready skills, preparing them to become lifelong learners and culturally adaptable global citizens. They will need to be adept at reflecting on their experiences and to learn, conceptualise and experiment with new ideas as part of an ongoing experiential learning process. The end goal for our graduates is thus not about securing the first job, but to be adequately equipped and positioned for lifelong success and to create value and ultimately have a positive impact on the local and global economy, society and world at large. In this talk, some of the strategic initiatives that NTU Undergraduate Education will embark on in the next 5 years will be presented. |
| 9.10 am | Developing
General Education Requirement electives using the Deeper Experiential
Engagement Project (DEEP) Scaffold – Merging the Curricular/Co-curricular
Boundary Presentation by Dr Sze Chun Chau Director, Student Experiential Learning, Senior Lecturer & Assistant Chair (Undergraduate Education), School of Biological Sciences Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Co-curricular activities (CCAs) potentially offer opportunities for innovation and creativity in a cross-disciplinary context, more so than “in classroom” settings as they are driven by students’ personal interests. The Deeper Experiential Engagement Project (DEEP) scaffold was developed for General Education Requirement (GER) electives to take advantage of the informality of CCAs to propel learning in Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Key design elements of the experiential learning scaffold include: (1) maintaining informality and hobby-like nature of the setting, I will present our experience in the implementation, and highlight potential challenges for the future. |
| 10.00 am | Knowledge building: technology-supported pedagogy for student-driven collaborative learning Presentation by Associate Professor Tan Seng Chee Associate Dean (Higher Degrees), Office of Graduate Studies and Professional Learning, National Institute of Education We are living in the Knowledge Age where the health and wealth of the society is dependent on knowledgeworkers: people who can process and integrate new information to create new values, and the cognitive agility to examine an issue from various levels and perspectives. Education in the Knowledge Age, likewise, needs radical transformation, from one that emphasizes the acquisition of knowledge to one that empowers every learner to be a knowledge creator. The vision of NTU Education 2025 reflects this transformative ambition. This talk introduces knowledge building as an approach that engages students directly in knowledge work, a collaborative process of co-creating knowledge artefacts and improving the ideas embedded in these artefacts. It is a student-driven learning approach that prizes students’ ideas and inquiry by giving students legitimate voices in shaping their learning trajectory.Knowledge Forum technology plays a critical role in supporting this learning approach by providing a networked platform for students’ to communicate, share their ideas, improve their ideas, and make their learning visible; it also provides learning analytics that can be leveraged for self-and peer-assessment. |
| 10.30 am | Transitioning to Digital Only - Panel Discussion by NTU Libraries |
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