Prof. Woon Chia LIU
Re-thinking teaching and learning
The 21st Century is characterized by relentless change, explosion of information, and proliferation of technological innovations. Today’s youths will solve problems with complex solutions, and face challenges not found in manuals and textbooks. In this era, education must evolve from one that is ‘content-focused’ to one that emphasizes guiding and facilitating inquiry and discovery, as well as identifying and addressing real-world problems.
Drawing from Singapore’s experience of preparing teachers for the digital era, the speaker will share four guiding principles of learning that reflects the needs of the learner in the Knowledge Age — a notion that learners are not empty vessels waiting to be filled with knowledge and that knowledge building and learning are different. Building and extending on the initial ideas of Elmore (2010) and Sweet (2001) on the learners of the 21st Century, she will also talk about a set of learning experiences, known collectively as “E-M-I-C”, that is, Experiential, Multimodal, Inquiry-Based and Connectedness, that are recognized as being highly conducive to effective learning in the 21st Century.
Biography
Woon Chia LIU is an Associate Professor with the Psychological Studies Academic Group at the National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. She is a founding member of NIE’s Motivation in Educational Research Laboratory (MERL), and the Immediate Past Dean of Teacher Education. During her deanship, she led and developed the NTU-NIE Teaching Scholars Programme, reviewed and enhanced the Bachelor of Arts (Education)/Science (Education) and the Postgraduate Diploma in Education programmes, and conceptualised and launched the IoT@NIE Learning Lab in collaboration with Info-communications Media Development Authority (IMDA), Singapore. In addition, she was a key member of the steering committee and a co-chair of the working committee that shaped the Singapore Teaching Practice model that makes explicit how effective teaching and learning is achieved in Singapore schools.
She was previously the Associate Dean of Practicum and School Partnerships (2009 to 2014) and the Sub-Dean of Diploma Programmes (2008 to 2009). From 2008 to 2009, she served as a co-chair of the Theory-Practice Task Force in NIE’s Programme Review and Enhancement (PRE) initiative, which culminated in NIE’s Teacher Education Model for the 21st Century (TE21). Thereafter, she was a co-chair of the Theory-Practice Core Team for the TE21 implementation steering group. She led her team in conceptualising and implementing the enhanced practicum model, with its use of professional focused conversations to deepen inquiry and strengthen theory-practice nexus, and the use of purposeful mentoring to help pre-service teachers improve their teaching competencies whilst developing their sense of teacher personhood. Furthermore, she was instrumental in advocating and shaping the Professional Practice and Inquiry portfolio in all pre-service programmes that allows pre-service teachers to aggregate and integrate their learning.
She is the Immediate Past President of the Educational Research Association of Singapore (ERAS), and represented Singapore in the World Education Research Association (WERA) Council. She was also the co-convener of the WERA-IRN (International Research Network) titled “Teacher education for the 21st century: Developing teachers who are thoughtful, reflective, and inquiring.”
Her research interests include motivation, teacher education, innovative pedagogy, e-portfolio and clinical practice.