The prospect of continuously interacting with fertile young minds and the possibility of creating professionals who are better equipped (than I am) in dealing with the engineering and societal problems brought me to an academic setting after a intellectually rewarding three and a half years of R&D at Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, Japan. Looking back, the working experience has helped me to teach with a definite purpose.

Over the past five years at NUS, I have been involved in teaching several modules and as a result, I have become more experienced in teaching classes of different sizes at various levels. While classes of 50 students had seemed large to me in the beginning, classes of 300 no longer intimidate me now. While I was essentially a pen-and-board teacher before arriving at NUS, I had to quickly embrace Microsoft PowerPoint, live computer demonstrations, IVLE and webcasting to be effective at NUS. NUS has definitely made me tech-savvy!

To further facilitate student learning, I adopt a two-tiered objective as part of my pedagogical efforts at NUS. I make use of both the Integrated Virtual Learning Environment (IVLE) and the first lecture of each module to communicate two important learning objectives to students (Table 1).

I emphasise to students that while quizzes and exams may test basic concepts they need in the future-and it may well be argued that quizzes and exams alone had produced good engineers in the past-it is no longer adequate by current industry standards and it is possible to do even better, given today's technological advances.

The widespread use of personal computers and several simulation packages now allow a more 'hands-on' approach in teaching and learning chemical engineering. Processes ranging from the more conventional chemical engineering systems to the increasingly popular biological systems can now be simulated with appropriate software on PCs. Even processes with nonlinearities and multivariable interactions can be simulated with relative ease. For instance, it is easy to generate 'what-if' scenarios or study the effects of parameters on system responsiveness with the right software. Students get to reinforce their theoretical understanding of the subject by 'doing' an engineer's job on these virtual processes. This approach eliminates needless approximations and over-simplifications that classical pen-and-paper approach requires.

Table 1. Short-term vs long-term learning objectives.

I also align student assessment with the overall objectives of the module. With a view to shape students' long-term learning attitudes, I have arranged for a higher percentage of students' continuous assessment to count towards their final grade. Examinations are also open book to further discourage rote-learning. While students are well-adapted to making proper 'parametric' decisions that optimise a certain quantitative performance measure, they are not as comfortable in providing qualitative explanations or dealing with situations where 'structural' decisions need to be made. I try to set exam questions that equally emphasise both the qualitative and quantitative aspects by getting students to articulate opinions on situations rather than punching into their calculators ceaselessly during the exam.

Even at the undergraduate level, research is becoming more important. To impart the desire for both independent learning and learning from others, I arrange for students to work on projects and they are given the following choices:

1. Read up on a research topic, learn about the latest developments in that area and check how well the industry is adopting these developments,
   
   
2. Work with provided industrial data sets to develop suitable mathematical models,
   
   
3. Choose a physical system or develop a product development idea. Plan and execute experiments and analyse resulting data to optimise performance.

These projects provide students with the opportunity to do something beyond what they have learnt from lectures. Students learn by experimenting and experiencing, discussing with their group members as well as consulting research articles from journals. As part of the project work, students turn in a report with their results and photographic record of the experiments they have conducted. Through project work, students learn essential lifelong skills (e.g. group work and its dynamics, understanding the uncertainties of experiments) which prepare them for the workplace.

Of course, some students do not like my teaching approaches. To them, these measures are 'different', 'intimidating' and 'aggressive'. But from both emails and student feedback, the majority of students seem to enjoy them. Winning the NUS Outstanding Educator Award has been a delightful achievement for me. Help and support from my family members, department and university colleagues (CDTL provided a great platform to interact with superb teachers from various NUS Faculties), my teachers, friends and most importantly, my students are gratefully acknowledged. Still one thought always lingers in my mind-"I wish I can teach as well as my teachers did."