MEETING /
HEATED CONVERSATION ON TEACHING STANDARDS AT FASS NGUYEN THI HONG-PHU |
10.10.2011
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Credit: Ho Kinh Dat
The lack of qualification of some teaching assistants and tutors at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore, is a long existing problem that the faculty has not been able to solve, according to Associate Professor Ong Chang Woei during conversation with students at the Deanery Connect session held on Oct. 3 2011 at FASS.
“We still haven’t really been able to find a good way to solve it,” Ong, Assistant Dean, said. “So you can see the questions about teaching assistants and tutors are coming out again and again in every Deanery Connect.”
Deanery Connect is a one-hour dialogue for FASS students to converse with deanery members to share their expectations and learning experience in the faculty. Three to four sessions are held per semester with 10 to 15 students each session.
The Deanery Connect session was chaired by Ong and saw the attendance of nine students across departments.
During the dialogue session, Naman Shah, 19, a second-year student majoring in economics, questioned the qualification of some tutors in the Department of Economics, sparking a heated conversation on the lack of experience of the tutorial teaching staff.
“Tutors merely get the tutorial answers from the lecturers and pass them to students,” Naman said. “When asked something beyond the tutorial questions, they have to go back to the lecturers to seek the answers.”
Huang Sihui, 22, a fourth-year student majoring in history, then questioned the method of choosing teaching assistants in the faculty.
“I don’t really know how some of them become our teaching assistants besides the fact that they are master’s or Ph.D. students,” she said.
In response, Ong said that graduate students are appointed as tutors and teaching assistants because teaching is part of their training. All of them are required to attend the lectures and work closely with the lecturers to provide students with the most accurate answers.
Yet Huang said attending classes or working with lecturers did not guarantee that teaching assistants or tutors would bring a fruitful learning experience to students in tutorials.
“The teaching assistants are left on their own during tutorial,” she said. “If they say something wrong, sometimes we, especially first-year students, are not able to correct it as we might not even know the answer.”
Ong said that the faculty welcomes students to think critically and to challenge people’s mindset.
“If you disagree with what the teaching assistant, tutor or even lecturer says, we do encourage you to help us question and challenge him or her,” he said. “This is the purpose of education.”
The issue of the tutorial staff’s lack of qualification was already discussed in previous Deanery Connect sessions. It was mentioned in the first session held in 2009 and raised again in the session held on Sept. 1, 2011. During this session on Oct. 3, 2011, it was still the issue that heated the conversation.
Yet the faculty still has not been able to provide a satisfactory solution, according to Ong.
“We still haven’t really been able to find a good way to solve it,” Ong, Assistant Dean, said. “So you can see the questions about teaching assistants and tutors are coming out again and again in every Deanery Connect.”
Deanery Connect is a one-hour dialogue for FASS students to converse with deanery members to share their expectations and learning experience in the faculty. Three to four sessions are held per semester with 10 to 15 students each session.
The Deanery Connect session was chaired by Ong and saw the attendance of nine students across departments.
During the dialogue session, Naman Shah, 19, a second-year student majoring in economics, questioned the qualification of some tutors in the Department of Economics, sparking a heated conversation on the lack of experience of the tutorial teaching staff.
“Tutors merely get the tutorial answers from the lecturers and pass them to students,” Naman said. “When asked something beyond the tutorial questions, they have to go back to the lecturers to seek the answers.”
Huang Sihui, 22, a fourth-year student majoring in history, then questioned the method of choosing teaching assistants in the faculty.
“I don’t really know how some of them become our teaching assistants besides the fact that they are master’s or Ph.D. students,” she said.
In response, Ong said that graduate students are appointed as tutors and teaching assistants because teaching is part of their training. All of them are required to attend the lectures and work closely with the lecturers to provide students with the most accurate answers.
Yet Huang said attending classes or working with lecturers did not guarantee that teaching assistants or tutors would bring a fruitful learning experience to students in tutorials.
“The teaching assistants are left on their own during tutorial,” she said. “If they say something wrong, sometimes we, especially first-year students, are not able to correct it as we might not even know the answer.”
Ong said that the faculty welcomes students to think critically and to challenge people’s mindset.
“If you disagree with what the teaching assistant, tutor or even lecturer says, we do encourage you to help us question and challenge him or her,” he said. “This is the purpose of education.”
The issue of the tutorial staff’s lack of qualification was already discussed in previous Deanery Connect sessions. It was mentioned in the first session held in 2009 and raised again in the session held on Sept. 1, 2011. During this session on Oct. 3, 2011, it was still the issue that heated the conversation.
Yet the faculty still has not been able to provide a satisfactory solution, according to Ong.