Assoc Prof Dr Ng (4th from left) with other delegates at the Belt and Road Forum for Education Development.
As part of the initiative to deepen the co-operation and promote exchange of ideas in education for the implementation of Belt and Road plan, TAR UC participated in the Belt and Road Forum for Education Development which was held from 23 – 25 July 2018 at Hebei Zhengding High School, Shijazhuang, China.
Assoc Prof Dr Ng Swee Chin, Vice President of TAR UC as well as Ms Ng Chiah Yee, Acting Director of Centre for Continuing and Professional Education (‘CPE’) attended the event to represent TAR UC at the forum.
During the forum, Assoc Prof Dr Ng gave a talk entitled “The Strategies and Approaches to Improve Science Literacy” where she highlighted the importance of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathemetics (‘STEM’) as well as the need to improve the level of science literacy in the nation so as to embrace science in day-to-day living and increase problem solving skills.
“There is no denying that some practices have now become irrelevant and we need to innovate and adapt to changes. Scientific literacy is not merely about teaching scientific facts, methodology or processes. What we need to do is to ensure that students are able to appreciate science and solve problems using scientific approaches,” said Dr Ng while presenting on long term strategies to improve science literacy. “Students should be taught to be curious, be able to receive constructive criticism and have the ability to identify problems surrounding them and troubleshoot for solutions.”
“My research team is now advocating Computational Thinking (‘CT’) skill which is a problem-solving process that includes a number of characteristics such as logically ordering and analysing data and creating solutions using a series of algorithms and the ability to confidently deal with complex and open-ended problems. Students who learn CT will be able to identify relationships between subjects taught in the classroom as well as between schools and life outside of the classroom,” she added.
