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REFLECTIONS ON TEACHING
BY ATEA & HONOUR ROLL RECIPIENTS |
In their own words, some of this year’s ATEA and Honour Roll recipients share their
perspectives on good teaching, including advice for new colleagues and what they find
most (or least) fulfilling about teaching. |
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Ms Peggie Chan
Centre for English Language Communication, ATEA winner |
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My chief message to the Engineering students I have taught over the years has been
this: engineers have a responsibility to society. As the interface between technology
and society, they should be concerned about whether technology poses problems to
people who use it. Safety is an important aspect in this—unsafe bridges, systems (e.g.
circuits), workplaces—these should be their concern even as engineers-to-be. Likewise,
university students in general should have a keen awareness about controversial issues
that the society at large is debating about. My experience is that students know little
about the world beyond their own. As instructors, we can change that! We need to shake
students out of this complacency and ‘teach’ them that they have a social responsibility
to society and the world. Today’s students do not seem concerned enough about issues
around them—it could be because there are few platforms to engage them in a problem
solving stance. Instructors can give them opportunities to do so through teaching materials
that require them to grapple with such problems and devise solutions.
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Ms Izumi Walker
Centre for Language Studies, ATEA winner |
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We want our students, as much as possible, to be active, innovative
and creative. To make that happen, teachers need to be the same.
However, there is a tendency for teachers to rely too much on
ready-made teaching materials. It is indeed efficient and effective
to have materials already customised for NUS students, which
require little time and effort for lesson preparation. However, it
is also important for teachers to innovate and create something
from scratch. For the process of development to be successful, we
really need to have thought about what to teach and how to teach
it. Through this thinking process, we will understand the content
better as well as ref lect more deeply on our own teaching, since
we have ownership of the idea and materials. Eventually, the process will make us better
teachers. One of my mottos is ‘practice makes permanent’. If we rely on old materials,
our teaching loses its freshness and becomes boring. I learnt this some 20 years ago
from Professor Eleanor Jorden of Cornell University, a pioneer of Japanese language
education, and I am assured that this is really true. Being active, creative and innovative
is not only important for students, but for teachers too.
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Assoc Prof Milagros (Millie) Rivera
Communications & New Media Programme, ATEA winner |
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New teachers tend to spend most of their effort and creative energy developing the content
of their lectures and often forget that the way the information is conveyed to their
students is also very important. My advice is this: when you are planning your lectures,
ALWAYS incorporate ways to present the information in engaging, interactive, and fun/
creative ways. It does not matter how large the class is, as this will probably require a
shift in your teaching approach. It might also force you to get out of your comfort zone.
But the payoff is awesome! When students become actively engaged in learning, they will continue learning even after the lecture is over. They will talk to their friends about
what they learnt and will remember the material more vividly than if you had presented it
in a traditional way. The best part is that after a while, devising interesting and engaging
ways to deliver your lectures will become second nature to you. An added benefit is
that YOU will also enjoy teaching a great deal more.
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Mr Alexander Ian Mitchell
Communications & New Media Programme, ATEA winner |
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For me, what I find most rewarding about being an educator is when an ex-student comes
back to visit. Seeing how an ex-student is doing after graduation, and how he or she is
(hopefully!) making use of what I’ve tried to teach, makes all the hard work worthwhile.
It’s very difficult to think of what is least rewarding. I think I’d have to say that having to
fail a student in a module is the least rewarding part of being an educator. Unfortunately
this is sometimes necessary, but I much prefer to work with a student to try to help them
to understand the material and learn something from the module. Failing a student means
that, in some way, I’ve failed too. Fortunately, this doesn’t happen very often.
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Assoc Prof Philip Holden
Dept of English Language & Literature,
ATEA winner |
When I first started teaching full-time after graduate studies,
I was eager to share the knowledge that I was excited about with
my students: I would skip over details in the literary texts I taught
in order to cram in as much historical, critical, and theoretical
material as possible. In time, I realized that I was following what
radical Brazilian educationalist Paulo Freire has characterized as
the “banking method” of education in which I thought of students
as possessing savings accounts to which I might simply transfer
knowledge from my own more plentifully endowed central fund.
My efforts in teaching over the years have thus aimed to challenge
this model, and to create a space of learning and critical pedagogy
within institutional constraints, in which students may appropriate and create knowledge
for themselves. I’m not sure I have always succeeded, but I continue to try.
My advice to a graduate student or a young faculty member would thus be to maintain a
critical self-awareness and, above all, to develop an autonomous sense of vocation as a
teacher. This sense of autonomy ultimately won’t rely on formal awards or incentives, or
meeting key performance indicators specified by institutions. Rather, it will evolve from
ref lection on teaching experiences, and interaction with communities of teachers and
learners both inside and outside the university. It will be enhanced by a recognition that
as teachers we are all students, and that as we teach we continue to learn.
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Dr Simon Avenell
Dept of Japanese Studies, Honour Roll recipient |
For me, quality teaching and meaningful research contain essentially the same ingredients:
clarity, coherence, originality and a digestible take-away message. I have found that
students respond very positively to modules organised around these intuitive—yet
fundamental—principles. Personally, these principles remind me to consider not only
the message I want to deliver but also—and importantly—the perspective of my audience.
They underscore the necessity for empathy in all effective communication processes.
I see teaching as one pillar of the communicative aspect of academic life—the other
three being written publications, spoken research presentations and public outreach. I am
convinced these four activities can be mutually reinforcing and produce synergies that
result in improved overall performance. In other words, their combination makes me a
better teacher, researcher and communicator. So my advice to those teaching for the first
time would be to always keep your audience in mind and never forget that teaching can
enhance other aspects of life as an academic.
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