My teaching style, much like my research, reflects my desire to innovate and remain relevant in constantly changing times. Throughout my career I have been able to achieve this by maintaining an open mind to innovative methods, and by being flexible in approach to discover more effective pedagogies.
TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
My aim and the aim of anyone involved in any kind of learning/teaching process is for it to be successful. However, the apparently simple task of transferring knowledge can easily turn into a herculean labour. Learning methods and styles, abilities, disabilities and expectations usually fluctuate from one student to the next. Good practice in teaching cannot be attained through a unique or straightforward “cookie-cutter” approach but comes with many challenges that we as educators must solve.
The road to effective pedagogies is littered with challenges and potential failures which are the foundations and propellants to future improvement and success. This is the reason for which I believe in a 4-pronged observation, experimentation, analysis and self-reflection approach to the educational environment in our charge, and not just within the context of our own research areas.
I believe that teaching at its best is delivered with passion and dedication; embodying a continuous two-way learning process that challenges educators and students alike. Effective communication, clarity of ideas and constructive timely feedback are critical if students are to fully understand the content, expectations and evaluation processes clearly. This is what I continually strive to deliver.
INNOVATION IN TEACHING
Several factors led to me becoming a firm believer in the necessity of innovative teaching. Traditional methods are not suited to all students and do not tend to promote deeper levels of understanding and higher levels of thinking such as creativity or evaluation. Sole reliance on traditional methods is likely to fall short of meeting the evolving needs and demands of the new generations of students – who are “multimedia and interactively hungry” due to our increasingly hyper-connected world – therefore there is a need for alternative strategies designed to achieve high levels of engagement, motivation and academic success.
In conjunction with the recent discovery of my own personal learning difficulties sparked my desire to veer away from traditional pedagogical methodologies towards an approach better suited to a larger segment of the student population.
I began to explore innovative alternative pedagogies, and came across team-based learning (TBL) that is gaining increasing support from academic institutions. Since pioneering the use of TBL methodology in SPMS, I have expanded the program to introduce the use of multimedia platforms to enhance engagement in student self-study experiences. This has been achieved by the use of “WordPress blogs” and video platforms throughout the courses I teach (ranging from ~50 to ~300 students).
My efforts in teaching innovation were recognized when selected and showcased in the international WordCamp meeting 2016 held in Singapore, in an oral presentation entitled “Using blogs in Classrooms: an NTU case study”, in addition to being highlighted as an example of successful implementation of Technology Enhanced Leaning at NTU .