News
Sometimes, a bright idea is all it takes to spark a global transformation. Here are six outstanding proposals from recent graduates to the NUS Resilience and Growth Innovation Challenge.
For students to learn well, educators must first help to mitigate the fear and anxiety that impede their learning, said Mr Jonathan Sim, National University of Singapore (NUS) Department of Philosophy instructor, when outlining his teaching philosophy.
He was one of 36 Faculty Teaching Excellence Award (FTEA) recipients, awarded to outstanding Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) faculty in recognition of their high level of commitment in Academic Year 2019/2020.
When Assistant Professor Alex Mitchell first began teaching at the then-newly minted NUS Department of Communications and New Media (CNM) in 2005, he had to overcome traditional barriers to introduce a practice-based teaching approach within a “largely theory-based faculty.”
“In the early days of CNM there was hesitation towards, for example, two-hour design-based tutorials and 100% Continuous Assessment (CA) modules. But over time this has changed, and alternative approaches are now very much welcome,” explained Dr Mitchell, now an Assistant Professor specialising in Interactive Media Design education.
For him, it is essential to incorporate experiential learning by allowing students to apply theory through hands-on practice, as students only truly understand concepts such as interactivity when they see how and why something works or does not work.
Associate Professor Ja Ian Chong (NUS Political Science) explains, in The Diplomat, why support for Trump among Taiwanese and Hong Kongers is both unsurprising and misguided. He notes that citizens of Hong Kong and Taiwan view Republicans as strong on China and democrats as the opposite. Along with many other examples, the Trump administration-led trade war, its efforts against Chinese technology companies ByteDance, ZTE, and Huawei, and sales of arms to Taiwan bolster this line of thinking.
Fears are mounting over the prospect of a “lost generation” in Asia as economies are still reeling from the fallout of the pandemic. This lost generation may be scarred economically, socially and psychologically by the far-reaching effects of the coronavirus crisis. “The longer the current crisis lasts, the harder it is for the youth to recover from its negative impact. With no effective interventions, they could very well become a lost generation” warns CFPR’s Founding Director Professor Jean Yeung (NUS Sociology) in The Straits Times.
Professor Jean Yeung (NUS Centre for Family and Population Research (CFPR) and Department of Sociology) discusses ways the pandemic is making the impact of economic recession on young people much worse compared to other age groups in a piece in Bloomberg. She warns that the impact of this crisis may strain relations with older generations and put young people’s mental health at risk.
Associate Professor Albert G. Z. Hu (NUS Economics) writes in The Straits Times about how the nature of basic science makes it harder for sanctions to work. Discussing whether the United States’ sanctions will stunt the ascent of Chinese science, he first states that China ranks second globally in the world league table of science, with the US ranked first, and has been swiftly catching up. A/P Hu reports that his research reveals that China’s top scientists have benefited from their academic training in US universities.
For students to learn well, educators must first help to mitigate the fear and anxiety that impede their learning, said Mr Jonathan Sim, National University of Singapore (NUS) Department of Philosophy instructor, when outlining his teaching philosophy.
He was one of 36 Faculty Teaching Excellence Award (FTEA) recipients, awarded to outstanding Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) faculty in recognition of their high level of commitment in Academic Year 2019/2020.
NUS Southeast Asian Studies Master’s student Poh Yong Han has been named the 2021 Singapore Rhodes Scholar. With this prestigious scholarship she will pursue a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in Anthropology at the University of Oxford, matriculating in October 2021.
Professor Jean Yeung (NUS CFPR and Sociology) was interviewed on Channel 8’s Hello Singapore about Singaporean fathers taking paternity leave on Tuesday, 27 October. She shared results from the 2019 SG LEADS (Singapore Longitudinal Early Development Study). They included the fact that 66.4% of the dads in families with a child under 7 took the paid paternity leave when their child was born. Of them, 59% took 2 weeks, 37% took less than 2 weeks and less than 4% took more than 2 weeks. Prof Yeung pointed out that fathers with higher education and occupational status are more likely to take paternity leave.