Think Teach Academy’s PhD Approach to PSLE

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.