Geography lecturers face increasing teaching challenges from the state, institution, department, and students to better equip undergraduates for their subsequent careers. I argue that the primary objective in geography curriculum should be exposing undergraduates to a mixture of both applied and theoretical perspectives, which, among other…

The medium of instruction is English in all universities in Singapore. Typically, in engineering, science, and technology degree programmes, academic writing is taught through one or two distinct or 'stand-alone' modules delivered in the first year of students' undergraduate programmes to help them cope with the writing needs of assignments in…

Laboratory pedagogy is moving away from step-by-step instructions and toward inquiry-based learning, but only now developing methods for integrating inquiry-based writing (IBW) practices into the laboratory course. Based on an earlier proposal (Science 2011;332:919), we designed and implemented an IBW sequence in a university bioinformatics…

This paper reports on an interdisciplinary pedagogical research project involving academic literacy experts and lecturers at a School of Nursing. Specifically, the paper focusses on the development of a data-driven analytical rubric to teach and assess critical reflections in year-one nursing. The purpose of the project was to support the teaching…

Learning basic cell biology in an essential module can be daunting to second-year undergraduates, given the depth of information that is provided in major molecular and cell biology textbooks. Moreover, lectures on cellular pathways are organised into sections, such that at the end of lectures, students might not see how various processes are…

Conventional graded assignments are commonly structured in a format where students attempt a prescribed question and are graded based on the completeness of their workings rather than the understanding of concepts. An alternative assignment format was proposed which requires students to identify and explain mistakes in a given set of workings…

Currently, there is widespread interest in how Web 2.0 tools can be used to improve students' learning experiences. Previous studies have focused either on the advantages of wikis or on concerns over the use of Wikipedia. In this study, we propose to use Wikipedia as a classroom wiki. In doing so, we discuss how students can improve their standard…

Online students use highly emotional language to describe their experiences, indicating that learners do feel a great deal online. This paper draws on Wetherell's exploration of affective practice to theorise learners' responses to the pedagogical and technological online environment. Findings of a research project that focused on two cohorts of…

Much research work on teacher feedback has concentrated on the perceptions of students and teachers on feedback, but few studies have addressed the extent to which students respond to their teachers' written feedback, particularly at the tertiary level. This study analysed the extent to which students made appropriate revisions based on the…

The transnational classroom can be complex and particularly challenging for both lecturers and students. The aim of this study was to provide insights into transnational student perceptions of the quality of pedagogical engagement and preferred teaching and learning modes. Interviews were conducted with nineteen students enrolled on one…

Differentiated instruction in the form of tiered take-home lab exercises was implemented for students of an undergraduate-level programming course. This paper attempts to uncover the perceptions and usage patterns of students toward these new lab exercises using a comprehensive survey. Findings reveal that these tiered exercises are generally very…

This paper explores the expression of certainty in a set of high- and low-rated Geography argumentative essays. Using one aspect of Hunston's (1989, 2000) concept of the evaluation of status, the paper compares the statement types used to construe the writer's expression of certainty in the construction of arguments. Drawing on the framework,…

This study explores pre-service teachers' beliefs about citizenship across two nations, the United States and Singapore; the nature of their conversation about those beliefs; and the impact of their cross-cultural dialog on their reflections about the citizenship goal of social studies. Data is based on a Black Board-based threaded dialog, over…

Much of the work in academic writing has focused on the cognitive rather than the affective and social aspects involved in project-based writing. Emphasis in past research has been on skills and processes of writing rather than on affective factors such as motivation, attitudes, feelings or social factors involving intrapersonal and interpersonal…

This paper reports on a study designed to investigate (a) whether peer review is an effective pedagogical activity with adult Chinese students in the teaching of second language (L2) academic writing and (b) how factors such as perceptions of the influence of peer reviewers' L2 proficiency, previous experience with peer review, feedback…