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OHR Paper HR 092/02. Procedure for Promotion and Tenure. https://wws.nus.edu.sg/staff/ohr/acad/apt/promo_tenure/

procedure-promo_tenure-HR092.doc.

Teaching at

NUS:

Aims & Objectives of Effective

Teaching

Education is not the f illing of a pail, but the lighting of a f ire.

W.B. Yeats

What constitutes effective teaching may be subject to debateit would be simplistic

and reductive to insist on a monolithic definition of effective teaching, considering

the multiplicity of factors that come into playbut most would agree that the basic

purpose of teaching is to enable learning. The most effective teaching is that whichresults in the most effective learning. An elaboration on this is provided in CDTL

Paper (T102)5. Briefly, it may be said here that higher education must do more than

provide information and training, although undeniably these are relevant concerns.

Higher education, in particular, should move beyond the lowerorder skills of

acquisition and reproduction of facts.

Indeed, in a knowledge-driven society where information having increasingly short

shelf life, it is important for teachers to focus on the longer-term goal of preparing

our students for life, equipping them with more than a finite and rapidly obsolescentbody of knowledge, and developing their faculties for understanding, applying and

creating knowledge, as well as their ability to constantly refresh and upgrade their

knowledge. A quality graduate is life-skills oriented, learning-enabled and lifelong

capable. The aims and desired learning outcomes of effective teaching may thus

effect positive changes in the following:

Knowledge

Discipline/profession-specific knowledge.General knowledge: fundamental concepts that an educated person/university

graduate should have, regardless of area of specialisation.

Awareness/familiarity across knowledge domains (i.e. rounded education).

Abilities

Ability to identify what information is needed and where to find it.

Evaluation of information and discrimination of what is valid and useful from

Home

Teaching at NUS

Facilitating Learning

Lectures

Tutorials

Questions

Independent Learning

Assessment

Discipline & Counselling

Instructional Media

Evaluation of Teaching

Internet Resources

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Preface

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what is not.

Application/adaptation of knowledge to problem solving and making of

informed judgements.

Self-directedness in learning and the ability to sustain lifelong learning.

Capacity for independent research and knowledge.

Ability to communicate ideas clearly and structure arguments convincingly.

The most socially useful learning in the modern world is the learning of

the process of learning, a continuing openness to experience and

incorporation into oneself of the process of change.6

Mindset

Questioning habit of mind with readiness to seek evidence/support for

ideas/concepts presented, and to investigate/challenge established and

controversial views including those which are generally taken as knowledge.

Awareness of the complexity and dynamic nature of human knowledge and

the need for evaluation and re-evaluation of knowledge.

Enjoyment of learning.

Learning as a lifelong habit.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to

time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

Oscar Wilde

5. Prof. K.P. Mohanan. (July 1999). Concept Paper on Assessing Quality of Teaching in

Higher Education. Centre for Development of Teaching and Learning, Doc. No. T102.

http://www.cdtl.nus.edu.sg/publications/assess/.

6. Carl R. Rogers. (1969). Freedom to Learn. Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill Publishing

Company. p . 163.

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