Think Teach Academy’s PhD Approach to PSLE

A PhD student requires a high level of discipline and hard work to complete their studies. In Think Teach, we apply PhD standards to our PSLE approach, ensuring that our teachers are well updated and putting our curriculum through rigorous testing. In order to reach their fullest potential, our students are encouraged to think smart and study smart, much like a PhD student.

This arti­cle is writ­ten by Dr Teo Boon Heng. Dr Boon is the Aca­d­e­m­ic Direc­tor at Think Teach Acad­e­my. He com­plet­ed his PhD in Pas­si­vat­ed Con­tact Solar Cells under the NGS-PhD schol­ar­ship, spon­sored by the Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty of Sin­ga­pore (NUS) and Singapore’s Nation­al Research Foun­da­tion (NRF) through the Sin­ga­pore Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Board (EDB) and Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). Pri­or to that, Dr Boon grad­u­at­ed from Impe­r­i­al Col­lege Lon­don with a Mas­ter of Engi­neer­ing in Mate­ri­als Sci­ence & Nuclear Engi­neer­ing.

What is a PhD?

A PhD (Doc­tor of Phi­los­o­phy) is a doc­tor­al research degree and the high­est lev­el of aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tion one can achieve. It is an abbre­vi­a­tion of the Latin term Philosophi­ae Doc­tor which direct­ly trans­lates to “lover of wis­dom” and “to teach”.

Although PhD can­di­dates may embark on a pletho­ra of sub­jects and fields of research, they all share a com­mon set of pre-req­ui­sites, intrin­sic qual­i­ties and approach­es that sup­port them to achieve their goals. In this arti­cle we share how the PhD mind­set, strate­gies and meth­ods are imple­ment­ed in our teach­ing meth­ods and cur­ricu­lum. Also, we share how we encour­age and instill in our stu­dents the use­ful PhD-lev­el traits and habits that will pre­pare them not only for the PSLE, but as they nav­i­gate the many chal­lenges that will arise in the years beyond pri­ma­ry edu­ca­tion.

PhD Approach to PSLE

State-of-the-Art Research & Knowledge

Every PhD hold­er relent­less­ly pur­sues a deep under­stand­ing of their area of study. They con­duct exten­sive read­ing and analy­sis into the most nov­el and cur­rent research find­ings and results via con­fer­ence and jour­nal pub­li­ca­tions. They engage deeply and inter­act with their peers in the field through aca­d­e­m­ic events and col­lab­o­ra­tion projects. They are at the fore­front of the­o­ries and tech­nol­o­gy for their research field, engag­ing in fre­quent debate and dis­cus­sion. The Aca­d­e­m­ic Tribe mem­bers of Think Teach Acad­e­my strive towards this every year. Our teach­ers take own­er­ship of the scope of work and cur­ricu­lum by updat­ing them­selves with sub­ject syl­labi, imple­ment­ing recent changes to the top­ics and for­mats into our Think Teach Approach (Think Smart, Teach Smart) and 3D (Decode, Devise & Deliv­er) Method.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

“If I have seen fur­ther it is by stand­ing on the shoul­ders of Giants” – Sir Isaac New­ton (1675)

PhD can­di­dates need to not only work hard, but also to work smart. With the advent of tech­nol­o­gy and the inter­net, gone are the days where PhD stu­dents trawl through large vol­umes of hard­copy books and jour­nals to dis­cov­er and learn about nov­el research and the­o­ries. Today, PhD stu­dents lever­age on read­i­ly and well-com­piled resources online for the lat­est pub­li­ca­tions and ref­er­enc­ing.

At Think Teach Acad­e­my, we also strong­ly believe in think­ing smart and teach­ing smart. Our teach­ers lever­age on a vari­ety of open-source infor­ma­tion from schools, edu­ca­tion insti­tu­tions and pri­vate edu­ca­tion enti­ties to col­late, com­pile, and make sense of today’s edu­ca­tion scene and rubrics. From there, we devel­op our own set of pro­pri­etary ped­a­gogy and cur­ricu­lum for deliv­ery to our stu­dents.

Planning & Time Management

One of the key tenets of a PhD grad­u­ate is the abil­i­ty to man­age their time. Over the span of their 3 — 5 years as a PhD stu­dent, there is min­i­mal “hand-hold­ing” or “spoon-feed­ing”. The over­all respon­si­bil­i­ty lies with the PhD stu­dent, to opti­mise the lim­it­ed time for read­ing, the­o­ris­ing, exper­i­men­ta­tion, analy­sis of results and infer­ring con­clu­sions. In addi­tion, the stu­dent also needs to incor­po­rate time for meet­ings, sem­i­nars and dis­cus­sion, writ­ing abstracts for jour­nals and arti­cles for peer review. There is also a need to bal­ance time for rest and play, while man­ag­ing oth­er com­mit­ments (co-cur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ties, lead­ing projects and fam­i­ly).

At Think Teach Acad­e­my, our teach­ers deep-dive into the scope of work and plan out the most opti­mal learn­ing process for our stu­dents. Our top­ics and con­cepts are care­ful­ly select­ed and curat­ed through­out the aca­d­e­m­ic year, prepar­ing our stu­dents for the var­i­ous for­ma­tive and sum­ma­tive learn­ing mile­stones. We keep our class­es con­cise and effec­tive, bal­anc­ing class teach­ing and after-class revi­sion accord­ing­ly.

Communicating Effectively

Being able to trans­late your thoughts into words is a para­mount skill for any PhD can­di­date. PhD research stu­dents under­go a con­stant process of absorb­ing infor­ma­tion, think­ing deeply about the sit­u­a­tion, and deliv­er­ing their thoughts into eas­i­ly under­stood words. This immense­ly time con­sum­ing and tire­less process allows PhD stu­dents to artic­u­late them­selves and con­vince their supe­ri­ors and peers about their ideas. Most of the time, this lev­el of inter­ac­tion takes place with peo­ple with more knowl­edge than them­selves.

At Think Teach Acad­e­my, we also empha­sise the need to com­mu­ni­cate effec­tive­ly with all stake­hold­ers: stu­dents, col­leagues and par­ents. Our teach­ers reg­u­lar­ly prac­tice effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion through Les­son Obser­va­tions (LO) and Super­vised Teach­ing (ST) with stu­dents. We con­duct train­ing ses­sions where teach­ers present mate­r­i­al to their col­leagues and to a large audi­ence. Our trans­par­ent method of learn­ing allows every­one to gain, through feed­back and insights.

Proof Reading

The edi­to­r­i­al process of proof­read­ing is cru­cial to any PhD student’s dis­play of qual­i­ty work. Every arti­cle or jour­nal paper that is pub­lished will have gone through mul­ti­ple lev­els of peer or super­vi­so­ry read­ing, cor­rec­tion and amend­ment. Only through this ardu­ous process can the stu­dent jus­ti­fy his piece of work fit for show­case to the aca­d­e­m­ic fra­ter­ni­ty.

Think Teach Academy’s cur­ricu­lum sim­i­lar­ly goes through sev­er­al iter­a­tions of feed­back and cor­rec­tion with­in the sub­ject team before they are deliv­ered to stu­dents for their learn­ing.

Instilling PhD Qualities in Our Students

Defining Your Own Success

The PhD jour­ney is pre­dom­i­nant­ly a lone­ly one. A PhD super­vi­sor can only guide you in a broad direc­tion. The PhD can­di­date needs to find his own path of suc­cess. There are many occa­sions where road­blocks seem unmount­able, and there are also few­er occa­sions where there is light at the end of the tun­nel. Some­times we can­not help but com­pare and look beside us to see the leaps and bounds that some oth­er PhD can­di­date has achieved. It is only on hind­sight that we tru­ly see how the dots con­nect for your­self in the most unique way.

At Think Teach Acad­e­my, we believe that every stu­dent can find their own unique path to suc­cess. There is no need to com­pare one­self with your peers. Although every Pri­ma­ry 6 stu­dent aims to excel in the PSLE, every sin­gle one of them will com­plete this mile­stone in their own unique way. We encour­age every one of our stu­dents to achieve self-real­i­sa­tion, to know their strengths and main­tain them, while under­stand­ing their weak­ness­es and con­tin­ue to hack at it.

Think Smart, Study Smart

The abil­i­ty to be inno­v­a­tive and flex­i­ble are impor­tant traits in the PhD jour­ney. Repeat­ing the same exper­i­ment 1,000 times over will only yield the same results. PhD stu­dents need to know when it is time to move on, or to adapt, mod­i­fy, and try some­thing else.

At Think Teach Acad­e­my, our Aca­d­e­m­ic Per­for­mance Team close­ly mon­i­tors the apti­tude and progress of all our stu­dents. This is achieved through sum­ma­tive and for­ma­tive assess­ments, under­stand­ing the stu­dents’ strengths and weak­ness­es, and imple­ment­ing a strat­e­gy for them to progress and improve. We com­mu­ni­cate with par­ents and stu­dents through our Stu­dent Progress Report updates and Par­ent-Teacher Meet­ing ses­sions. We advise par­ents and teach­ers on how to move for­ward for each stu­dent, which areas they are already strong at, and which areas they need to work on for the next quar­ter or 6 months.

Discipline

The true test of a PhD candidate’s suc­cess and com­mit­ment is in the way they man­age their time. Being left alone to man­age your own time requires a high lev­el of dis­ci­pline and self-con­trol. It is easy to pro­cras­ti­nate and move non-urgent tasks to anoth­er day and head out to relax and play. But there is a time for all things.

The Think Teach stu­dent is encour­aged to man­age study and play effec­tive­ly. We live in a unique time of social media and smart­phones. Our teach­ers empha­size the need for our stu­dents to focus when study­ing (to put their phones away), and to focus on play­ing when it’s time to take a break.

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