Yan, Yaw Kai

In this paper, we discuss our efforts in curriculum development of an environmental science module that will be conducted in a networked teaching and learning environment, complemented by laboratory sessions and field work. The aim of the curriculum is to promote collaborative and distributed learning of environmental science that emphasizes the acquisition of higher order thinking skills. Some aspects of the curriculum that will be highlighted include the contents of an interactive multimedia teaching system for self-paced learning, and scenario generators that allow the participants to experiment with hypothetical environmental situations.

This edited volume explores key areas of interests in Singapore math and science education including issues on teacher education, pedagogy, curriculum, assessment, teaching practices, applied learning, ecology of learning, talent grooming, culture of science and math, vocational education and STEM. It presents to policymakers and educators a clear picture of the education scene in Singapore and insights into the role of math and science education in helping the country excel beyond international studies such as PISA, the pedagogical and curricula advancements in math and science learning, and the research and practices that give Singaporean students the competitive edge in facing the uncertain and challenging landscape of the future.

The learning and studying approach of NIE students was studied using the Bigg' s Study Process Questionnaire (SPQ). Results showed that the SPQ is a good instrument with good psychometric properties for studying the three approaches to learning namely: surface, deep and achieving approaches. Students in NIE generally adopt deep approaches more than surface approaches to their learning. Focused interviews were used as follow-up procedures to further probe into their learning and studying behaviour. Students indicated that the teaching and learning process, the assessment mode and the learning environment all contributed to their approaches to learning and studying.

Despite Singapore’s excellent science achievements in international benchmark tests such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), little is known about Singaporean children’s (aged 4-8) emerging science conceptions as formal science schooling begins at Grade 3 (aged 9). This paper builds on the well-established literature on preschool children’s emerging conceptions and play to illuminate children’s ideas about floating and sinking. Using narratives of a 90-minute activity involving a group of Singaporean children aged 6, we surfaced emerging conceptions that an object floats or sinks due to its weight, and that objects sink because water is “soft”—a conception that has not been reported in previous literature.We also observed a shift from binary discourse about floating and sinking to more graded descriptions (e.g. “sink a bit”) as the children played more. The play-based activity provided opportunities for the children’s emerging conceptions to be elicited because it was conceptually-oriented and created opportunities for social interactions. It allowed children who were not proficient in standard English to express their thinking in actions. In sum, this paper illustrates how play-based contexts could be used to identify children’s emerging conceptions. Early childhood educators in Singapore could pay greater attention to what children say and do during play as these offer rich grounds for identifying and developing children’s emerging conceptions.

This paper concerns curriculum redesign for active learning in two chemistry courses at the National Institute of Education. The redesign involves mainly the re-structuring of content to emphasise the essential knowledge. Teaching strategies, learner activities, and instructional media that facilitate student engagement with the course material and encourage the adoption of scientific reasoning and problem-solving approaches are also suggested. In addition, changes in the mode of assessment of the courses that reflect the new foci of the curricula are proposed.

Children are by nature curious and they are motivated to explore the world around them. Their science process skills develop as early as infancy and throughout their informal schooling years. A lack of external stimuli in the environment which allow them to actively engage in science learning may result in them not developing fully in the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective aspects. As such, science education at early childhood is of great importance to many aspects of a child's development and researchers have suggested that children should begin learning science in their early years of schooling. In Singapore, science is not formally introduced to the Singapore school curriculum until primary three. However, some teachers do teach science to primary one and two students. In the MOE Kindergarten Curriculum Framework, the espoused views about the roles science teachers should undertake and the learning outcomes of science learning can be found in the learning area ''Discovery of the World''. This is a proposal for an exploratory two-year research study ''Children are Natural Scientists'': Learning Science in Early Childhood and Early Primary Years that aims to examine how Singapore young children (ages 4-8) engage in science learning. The research question and sub-questions we want to address are: How do young children engage in science learning? 1. How science process skills do they use as participated in the science activities? 2. What forms of science talk do they use as they participated in the science activities? This is a first Singapore study that introduces science to preschool and early primary children. The short-term goal of the study is to develop knowledge about ways preschool and early primary Singapore children engage in science learning. Our long-term goal is build on the work done in this exploratory study to conduct a larger scale study with more science activities. The repertoire of science activities can become resources for Singapore preschool and primary teachers. The research findings will become resources for us to conduct teacher professional development courses for teachers so that they may learn how to use the science activities in their own classrooms. The intellectual merit of this study is that it contributes to the existing early childhood science education literature which is mostly based in western contexts and does not contain any studies about Singapore students at these grade levels. The broader impact of this study is that can provide empirical evidence showing the importance of science education at early childhood/primary levels to local science educators and policy makers.

This Report describes the design and implementation of a curriculum that promotes active learning for an Honours module on organometallic chemistry at the National Institute of Education. An integrated, thematic, and interactive approach to the design and implementation of the curriculum was adopted. In this approach, the principles of thermodynamics, chemical kinetics, and chemical bonding theory were employed to explain the reactions of various types of organometallic compounds, which in turn form the basis for the understanding of the main theme of the module, transition-metalcatalysed organic reactions. The opinions of the students on how the module should and should not be taught were gathered before the commencement of the module and these were taken into account during curriculum design and implementation. The instructional strategies employed were interactive and collaborative, and opportunities for the practice of high-level thinking skills were provided. The students responded positively and enthusiastically to the above efforts to promote active learning in the module.

In this paper, we define flip teaching as a curricular platform that uses various strategies, tools, and pedagogies to engage learners in self-directed learning outside the classroom before face-to-face meetings with teachers in the classroom. With this understanding, we adopted flip teaching in the design and enactment of one Year 1 and one Year 2 undergraduate chemistry laboratory session at a higher education institution. The undergraduates viewed videos demonstrating the practical procedures and answered pre-laboratory questions posted on the institution's mobile device application before the laboratory lessons. Analyses of the lesson videos, interviews with the undergraduates and instructors, and undergraduate artefacts showed that the undergraduates had developed a better understanding of the theory undergirding the procedures before they performed the practical, and were able to decipher the complex practical procedures. They also experienced less anxiety about the complex practical steps and setup, and subsequently, improved work efficiency. The findings of this study have implications for chemistry educators looking for ways to improve on the design and enactment of the laboratory curriculum to enhance the undergraduates' self-directed learning.

Copper complexes with potent anti-tumor effect have been extensively developed. Most investigations of their modes of action focused on the biomolecular targets but not the signal transduction between target binding and cell death. We have previously shown that the cytotoxic complex pyridine(2,4-dihydroxybenzaldehyde dibenzyl semicarbazone)copper(II) (complex 1) shows selective binding to human telomeric G-quadruplex DNA over double-stranded DNA in vitro. Herein, we elucidate the mechanism of action by which complex 1 induces apoptosis in MOLT-4 cells. Complex 1 accumulates in the nuclei and differentially downregulates the expression of c-Myc, c-Kit and KRAS oncogenes. Chemical affinity capture assay results show that the complex is associated with c-Myc and KRAS quadruplex sequences in MOLT-4 cells. We further showed that the reduction in Ras protein expression resulted in attenuated MEK-ERK and PI3K-Akt signalling activities, leading to the activation of caspase dependent apoptosis. Notably, complex 1 increased the sensitivity of MOLT-4 cells to cisplatin and vice versa. Overall, we demonstrated that complex 1 induces apoptosis, at least in part, by suppressing KRAS, c-Kit and c-Myc oncogene expression and the pro-survival MEK-ERK and PI3K-Akt signalling pathways.