Both practice and research increasingly confirm the usefulness of project work in effecting desirable learning outcomes. Properly designed and executed, project work can promote the development of higher cognitive and processing skills and inculcate in our students, among other things, intellectual curiosity, self-directed learning, intellectual rigour and tenacity, and mental exactitude and sophistication.

A survey of the various faculties at NUS shows that the use of project work is quite widespread, with considerable variation in form, magnitude, level of sophistication, degree of supervision and collaboration, and percentage of the curriculum. Within the local context of a highly competitive educational system coupled with a tradition of terminal assessment by strictly invigilated performance at examinations, there are culture-specific conditions which preclude simple importation of practices use elsewhere and necessitate careful thought in their adoption and application.

The booklet on Project Work, the latest addition to NUS Handbook on Teaching, considers some key issues The booklet was distributed to all faculties in December. Please contact the CDTL office at 6874 3052 if you have not received your copy.