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About PDP-T

This programme is offered to NUS early-career academics, typically those with fewer than 3 years full-time teaching experience in higher education. It provides a collegial environment to explore and reflect critically on participants’ teaching practice with the aim of improving the quality of their students’ learning. The programme introduces a variety of topics to help develop and refine fundamental, research-informed, evidence-based teaching skills and strategies. It also serves to assist faculty in preparing for promotion and tenure.

For further information about the PDP-T, please contact:

Kiruthika RAGUPATHI
Senior Associate Director, CTLT
e-mail: cdtkdr@nus.edu.sg

 Doreen THIA
PDP-T Programme Coordinator
e-mail: cdttyy@nus.edu.sg

Course Structure

The Professional Development Programme-Teaching (PDP-T) consists of two components: the PDP-T Core and the PDP-T Seminar Series. 

 

PDP-T: Core

The Core consists of a 24-hour intensive programme which runs over 3 consecutive days. It focuses on helping participants become more familiar with the teaching and learning process and the various components that go into teaching. 

By the end of the Core, you should be able to:

  • compose and critically examine the intended learning outcomes for one of your modules;
  • design teaching and learning activities in order best to achieve your learning outcomes; and,
  • design assessments to determine how well each of your learning outcomes has been achieved

The Core aims to help you appreciate that the nature of higher education extends beyond discipline or module specific outcomes. The specification of broader outcomes of higher education not only help give direction for teachers when planning learning experiences but it also helps to ensure a higher education that remains valuable and relevant to the individual and society. In addition to understanding what it is the University wants the learner to learn, it is also critical for a teacher to understand the process of learning and the role various approaches to teaching have upon the quality of learning. This would include understanding learning as more than the successful transmission of information from expert to novice. Rather, learning is the act of the individual constructing knowledge on the basis of interaction with their environment.

Course Leaders

  • Kiruthika RAGUPATHI, Senior Associate Director, CTLT
  • SOO Yuen Jien, Director, Teaching & Learning, CTLT
  • Mark GAN, Associate Director, CTLT
  • Verily TAN, Senior Education Specialist, CTLT
  • YEO Zi Hui, Education Specialist, CTLT


Schedule

The next PDP-T Core will be held in May and July 2024.

Schedule (May 2024) Schedule (July 2024)
   

 

PDP-T: Seminar Series

The Seminar Series is designed to engage participants in a faculty-mentored community of practice that culminates in the completion of a teaching statement. This community will meet as a group for 2-hour sessions every couple of months or so over the course of a year. Sessions aim to integrate and develop the concepts and ideas introduced during Core into the participants’ teaching practice. Reflection on each session will aid in the development of a teaching philosophy statement. Participants will also take part in formative peer observation of classroom practice.

By the end of the Seminar Series, you should be able to:

  • describe teaching and learning strategies relevant to your own disciplinary context with reference to learning outcomes, teaching and learning activities, and assessment;
  • assess those strategies with reference to your students’ learning needs and your teaching; and,
  • critically apply the strategies in the context of your own teaching and your students’ learning.

 

Course Leaders
• Kiruthika RAGUPATHI, Senior Associate Director, CTLT
• SOO Yuen Jien, Director (Teaching & Learning), CTLT
• YEO Zi Hui, Education Specialist, CTLT

 

Listed below are the seven seminar series sessions and their respective intended learning outcomes.

# Intended Learning Outcomes of Seminar Series Sessions
1. Understanding How Students Learn
By the end of this session, you should be able to:
  • describe the role of assessing and building on students’ prior knowledge for new learning; and,
  • review strategies to help student acquire and activate relevant schemata in participants’ own contexts.
2. Uncovering Pedagogical Content Knowledge
By the end of the session, you should be able to:
  • describe pedagogical knowledge and content knowledge and the interplay of these elements to form pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) within your discipline;
  • analyse a big idea from the teaching of a course within your own discipline so as to uncover the PCK required in the teaching and learning of that idea; and,
  • use their PCK to transform your content knowledge into students’ content knowledge.
3. Preparing for Peer Classroom Observation
By the end of this session, you should be able to:
  • communicate your intended learning outcomes, teaching/learning activities, and assessment tasks;
  • apply to your teaching what you have learnt in PDP-T Core;
  • prepare for peer reviews of your and your colleagues’ teaching;
  • provide and receive feedback on teaching; and,
  • revise your teaching practice on the basis of feedback from peers.
4. Formulating Assessments
By the end of this session, you should be able to:
  • discuss issues and devise solutions on assessing and interpreting student
    responses based on criteria for evaluating assessments.
  • critique assessment tasks and explain how you ensure validity, reliability and fairness; and,
  • synthesise key ideas on designing assessment tasks to review and reinforce the holistic nature of assessment practices.
5. Enhancing Learning Using Technology
By the end of this session, you should be able to:
  • develop a pedagogical rationale of using technology in your courses and what the implications of your choices are on students and resources; and,
  • explain the affordances and demonstrate strategies to use appropriate technology tools to enhance learning in your specific subject areas/domains.
6. Reflection on Students’ Learning, Connecting With Teaching Practice
By the end of this session, you should be able to:
  • reflect on evidence relating to your teaching practice and be able to operationalise such evidence to inform on changes to your teaching practice; and,
  • articulate plans for future actions to improve current teaching practice.
7. Developing a Teaching Statement
By the end of this session, you should be able to:
  • reflect on your personal beliefs and teaching perspectives;
  • explain what you do in the classroom to support those beliefs, based on relevant and sound pedagogical strategies; and,
  • identify areas for development and feedback.
 

Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology

National University of Singapore


    For Teaching & Learning matters:
  • 15 Kent Ridge Road
    Singapore 119225
  • +65 6516 2071
  • cdtsec@nus.edu.sg

    • For Instructional Technology matters:
  • 2 Engineering Drive 4
    NUS IT Building Level 3
    Singapore 117584
  • +65 6516 1637
  • syafina3@nus.edu.sg
 
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