Synopsis:
Being educators in the University, there are many different roles that we may play at different stages of our students’ learning journey.  In this talk, various challenges, developments and aspects related to our roles as educators will be highlighted.  These include managing students’ aptitudes and learning mindsets; challenging students effectively; generating interest and inspiring students; using modern advances in technology to facilitate learning; and contributing to the entire education ecosystem.  Strategies drawn from personal experiences will also be presented.  These approaches aim to educate and inspire students with different strengths and from different backgrounds.  The ideas are illustrated by specific examples from the teaching of mathematics.

About the Speaker:
Associate Professor Goh Say Song received his B.A. (Hons) degree from the University of Oxford in 1988 and his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1990 and 1992 respectively.  He joined the Department of Mathematics in 1994.  He received multiple teaching awards from the University and the Faculty of Science continuously from 1997 to 2008.  He has successfully made various modules in mathematics accessible to students from different faculties and backgrounds, and inspired many of them to enjoy mathematics. 

Say Song’s research interests are on the theory and applications of wavelets, and he engages actively in multi-disciplinary research.  He is currently an Assistant Head of the Department of Mathematics and the Deputy Director of the Centre for Wavelets, Approximation and Information Processing.  He is a firm supporter of mathematics education and has given numerous mathematics enrichment lectures to schools and junior colleges.

Lecture 2:
Against Uncritical Pragmatism: Education for Doers Who Can Think and Thinkers Who Can Do
Associate Professor Kenneth Paul Tan
Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy

Synopsis:
Pragmatism is popularly celebrated as a virtue of contemporary decision-making, where adaptability, a comfort with the eclectic, a focus on results, and faith in the cost-benefit calculus are valued over inflexible obedience to totalizing dogma. In Singapore, pragmatism is held up as a pillar of governance and a cultural reason for the nation’s widely acknowledged success. However, pragmatism can, in practice, degenerate into an “anything goes” attitude that replaces decision-making practices that are informed by an expanded rationality and deep knowledge of the significant ideas and values that have shaped the world. An uncritical pragmatism can limit human aspirations to a very narrow set of ends, obscured and protected from philosophical reflection, moral reasoning, and critique. Thus, ironically, pragmatism can turn into yet another dogma. In this lecture, I will argue for an educational approach that opposes uncritical pragmatism, suggesting from my own practice how curriculum and pedagogy can be designed to build capacity for philosophically informed critical thinking, a vital skill and habit for today’s leadership in the public, private, and people sectors.

About the Speaker:
Kenneth Paul TAN is Assistant Dean (Academic Affairs) and Associate Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy where he has taught since 2007. From 2000 to 2007, he taught at the National University of Singapore’s Political Science Department and University Scholars Programme. Since 2000, he has received more than 10 teaching awards. His research interests have been in the fields of political theory, comparative politics, and cinema studies, specializing in Singapore studies and focusing on topics such as democracy, civil society, media, the arts, multiculturalism, and meritocracy. He publishes in journals such as Asian Studies Review, Critical Asian Studies, International Political Science Review, and positions: east asia cultures critique, and has authored two books: Renaissance Singapore? Economy, Culture, and Politics (edited volume, NUS Press, 2007) and Cinema and Television in Singapore: Resistance in One Dimension (Brill, 2008). In 2008, he received a Fulbright Award to be a visiting researcher at Georgetown University (US). In 1995, he received a Lee Kuan Yew Postgraduate Scholarship to read for a Ph.D. in social and political sciences at the University of Cambridge (UK), which he completed in 2000. In 1994, he obtained a first class honours degree in the joint school of economics and politics at the University of Bristol (UK) on a Public Service Commission overseas merit (open) scholarship. He is the founding chair of the Asian Film Archive's board of directors, sits on the board of directors of theatre company The Necessary Stage, and has composed music for some of its performances. He is married to Clara Lim-Tan, principal of CHIJ (Kellock).