Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a growing sense of urgency on the need to rethink and perhaps even redefine education if the nation were to develop resilient, confident and adaptable young people in the face of complexities. Despite the challenges that accompanied the pandemic the past two years, many educators have adopted a positive mindset, turning those adversities into opportunities for teaching and learning. At the recent ninth edition of NIE’s Redesigning Pedagogy International Conference (RPIC), educators from all walks of life came together to share their journey and experience in teaching and learning amidst these changing times. We speak to RPIC Conference Convenors Professor Tan Oon Seng and Dr Dennis Kwek on the need to reinvent education in Singapore for an ever-evolving tomorrow.

RPIC Conference Convenors: Professor Tan Oon Seng and Dr Dennis Kwek

At the opening ceremony of NIE’s flagship international conference on 30 May 2022, Minister for Education Mr Chan Chun Sing calls for teachers to change the way we learn and teach, given that the world has changed and will continue to change at an unprecedented rate. “Among the many changes, we must also recognize the key ones for us to apply our minds incisively and focus our efforts on finding new ways to help our people learn and teach better,” he says in his opening address to over 1,000 teachers attending the conference virtually. This brings light to the theme of the conference, “Transforming Education and Strengthening Society”, which hopes to focus on pertinent education and societal issues through its virtual keynote addresses, paper presentations and symposiums, as well as in-person workshops and masterclasses.

Transforming Education and Strengthening Society

“Rapid changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic have caused educators everywhere to rethink and re-examine fundamental issues about education. This is something that we, at NIE Singapore, are deeply concerned about too,” NIE Director Professor Christine Goh says at the opening ceremony of the conference at Nanyang Technological University’s (NTU)’s Nanyang Auditorium.

As Singapore’s sole national institute for teacher education and accreditation, Prof Goh shares that the NIE mission is to inspire learning, transform teaching and advance research. “Research at NIE is carried out with a view to supporting the Singapore education system to develop future-ready learners and teachers, inform policy formulation and programme design, and to build on the best educational practices with the future in mind,” she adds.

According to RPIC Conference Convenor Professor Tan Oon Seng, who is also Director of the Centre for Research in Child Development at NIE, the future of education also lies in the development of character and competence. “These two Cs are important anchoring pillars of education,” he says.

As such, the three-day conference aims to highlight the need and urgency for educators to develop in learners the relevant competencies that can help them navigate this new complex era while also strengthening society at the same time through values and character education. Prof Tan also asserts that developing character and building resilience in young children today are crucial especially in a digitized environment where the profile of young learners is rapidly changing.

Social Emotional Learning: The Foundation of a Good Society

“In the past, schools tend to pay more attention to the mental aspects of learning, but now, we begin to realize that actually, the cognition and emotional interface are all linked together. That is why there is a need to pay attention to the social and emotional aspects of learning,” Prof Tan says.

Fellow Conference Convenor Dr Dennis Kwek, Director of the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice at NIE, also shares the same sentiment. “School is one of the primary places where students learn social and emotional skills. Research has also shown that acquiring such skills increase pro-social behaviours and decrease negative outcomes later in life, which contribute greatly to the foundations of a good society,” Dennis shares.

So how can schools strengthen the social and emotional aspects of learning?

According to both Prof Tan and Dennis, this can be done by raising awareness of the various developments and interventions that inform both curriculum and classroom practices about creating a more positive environment for learners.

“While foundational skills are essential for children to navigate the complexity of their lives, I also hope that the paper presentations at this conference can offer our educators fresh insights and knowledge into how we can help create that right environment for our learners to develop empathy and manage emotions,” Dennis shares.

He also notes that the importance of developing social emotional learning skills extends to not just the students but also to educators especially when COVID-19 has changed the entire educational landscape. “It is equally crucial for teachers to learn how to manage stress and emotions to be able to create a safe and supportive environment for their students in return,” he explains.

The Ever-Evolving Education Landscape

The rise of online learning the past two years has inadvertently resulted in a completely different learning experience for students.

“Some of the schools that I work with have shared that online learning has afforded them with the opportunity to reinvent their lessons to one that can engage learners at a level that is very familiar to them,” he shares. “Teachers began to pick up more digital-related skills in order to deliver their lessons which can highly appeal to our Generation Z learners.”

One of the biggest and most important changes in the Singapore education, according to Prof Tan in his 40 years of experience, was the emphasis on meeting the different needs of every child. While factors such as curriculum, reduced class size, and family and community involvement contribute to student success in and out of classrooms, research have also shown that teacher effectiveness is one of the most influential factors.

“The student-centric, values perspectives in which every child is different was one of the most recent emphasis we had in Singapore education,” he shares. “We have to acknowledge and understand that there are multiple pathways to learning and that children may be strong in various and different aspects of learning. As educators, it is our duty to help them see all these diverse pathways.”

With changes constantly occurring and often almost unpredictably, how can teachers respond to these growing demands while seeking opportunities for professional learning?

Learning and Re-Learning for Educators

This biennial education conference has only one end in mind: the learners. “The conference is called ‘redesigning pedagogy’ simply because we want our teacher participants to understand how crucial it is to always relook, rethink and then redesign classroom practices all in the name of our learners,” Dennis explains.

“We cannot deliver lessons the same way we were doing it two years ago. As the world changes, so must our pedagogies, so it is important that we learn and relearn what we already know.” Thus, it becomes crucial for teachers to constantly develop themselves with both the hard and soft skills required to engage students as the world changes and progresses.

“I hope every participant had the opportunity to be exposed to the various research strands and paper presentations, so that they are exposed to the different perspectives of best practices,” Prof Tan says. “The conference hopes to afford teachers the opportunity to see a bigger picture of how we can best bring Singapore education forward.”

Some of the notable research strands at the RPIC include the following: Artificial Intelligence in Education, ICT in Education, Curriculum Development, Science of Learning, Character, Citizenship & Moral Education, Motivation, and Social Studies Education. After RPIC’s last edition in 2017 before COVID-19 hit, it is now both Prof Tan and Dennis hopes that teachers will bring back to their respective schools the learning points that are useful for their classroom practices as well as for their professional development.

“We hope that this gathering of over a thousand practitioners near and far can help shape the road ahead for Singapore education,” Dennis concludes.