Each semester, the Departments of Building and Real Estate organise a teaching development seminar which provides an opportunity for faculty members to gather together, listen to an invited speaker, and share tips and ideas on teaching. On 30 August 2006, Assistant Professor S. Lakshminarayanan, winner of NUS Outstanding Educator Award Winner (2005/2006) from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, was invited to share his ideas on what he termed as the 'favourable' and 'unfavourable' directions in the learning process.

In his talk, Dr Lakshminarayanan suggested the use of teaching strategies which can help guide the learner along favourable directions. He drew an analogy between learning and a shopping trolley system. A shopping cart is characterised by directionalities. It has some preferred directions in which it easily moves, and also a tendency to avoid certain other unfavourable directions. While it takes very little input effort to move this system along its preferred directions (such as moving the shopping cart forward/ backward), a very large input effort is required to make it move along its unfavourable directions (e.g. try moving the cart sideways or upwards).

As education is a complex and multivariable process, Dr Lakshminarayanan suggested that the teacher should first decide on the desired outputs from students. Based on the outputs identified, specific practices can be built into students' teaching and learning process, right from the first year that they enter NUS. Students cannot be expected to exhibit the desired outcomes without being taught how to achieve these outcomes. Dr Lakshminarayanan suggested the following directions for teaching that could lead to favourable learning outcomes: (1) setting out instructional objectives, implementing teaching practices to achieve those, and providing feedback to students; (2) when possible, using the inductive method to help students to learn; (3) promoting active learning such as getting students to 'say as they do something'; (4) designing appropriate tests and examinations that are consistent with the objectives; (5) providing students with reasonable workload, (e.g. by coordinating with other lecturers teaching the same level within the department); and (6) providing students with choice over their learning tasks.

Figure 1. Dr Lakshminarayanan, invited speaker for a Teaching Development Seminar at the Departments of Building and Real Estate, 30 August 2006

Figure 2. Interactive Q & A session with Dr Lakshminarayanan

Dr Lakshminarayanan's talk was followed by a thought provoking Q&A session in which he responded candidly to the many delicate questions that arose relating to balancing teaching and research.