GET1050 – Jonathan Y. H. Sim

How to Design Unforgettable and Satisfying Learning Activities that Help Students Learn Better

One of the interesting topics that arise when I converse with students is how many of them struggle to remember what they did in modules from previous semesters.

Such discussions got me thinking about how to design learning activities that are unforgettable. There is a quote famously attributed to Albert Einstein who said that “education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learnt in school”. And I want to ensure that my students remember what they have learned from me especially after all the hard work that they have put into my course.

I began experimenting by implementing techniques that I myself used as a student. I had a very unorthodox method that was very much inspired by the comedian and counsellor, Mark Gungor. He had said that if you take an event and attach a strong emotion to it, that event will be seared into you for good. I applied this principle to my learning by creating jokes for everything I wanted to remember. The funnier the joke, the stronger the emotion, and the better my memory of it.

Activities to Reinforce Learning

I thought it would be interesting to apply this approach to my own teaching, regardless of whether it was a quiz, a group project, or a tutorial activity. So every learning activity I created came packaged with its own scenario. The more fun the scenario was, or the more shocking the conclusion was, the better the students remembered the learning points and what they did to achieve it.

And you can tell how effective this approach has been, when students consult me for help. Instead of explaining the concept, I can just invoke the name of the relevant learning activity. For example, I could say: “Do you remember how you found the spy in the ‘Who’s the spy?’ activity?” Immediately, students light up as they suddenly recall the concept or what they did previously.

Engaging the Imagination

And this is not the only ingredient for making learning activities unforgettable. The other reason why I create fictitious scenarios and situate learning activities in them is that it provides fertile soil for the students’ imagination. This is very powerful especially when we invite them to role-play. There, students step out of their identities to be someone else – which enables them to have more fun learning.

This is especially useful for group projects and discussions, where students within the group may differ in abilities and competencies. Fast learners may not feel a need to help their slower counterparts, and slower learners may be too embarrassed to seek help. In the context of the role play, learners become united by a common mission to save the day by solving a problem for a group of people.

This common mission prompts learners to emotionally invest themselves into the topic and to collaborate with each other in order to solve the problem. And because they are given the chance to momentarily be someone else, they can put aside the stress that they tend to impose on themselves and have fun. As someone else, students are more inclined to engage in peer teaching and learning with each other. They can contribute their own insights on the matter and help one another out (whether technical or not) if they find themselves lost without additional promoting. This helps to further reinforce the culture of collaboration that we try to foster in the module.

Difficulty and Challenge

However, there is another issue. If we design activities meant for stronger students, the weaker students will feel lost and end up disengaging themselves from class. If we design for the weaker students, the stronger students will complete the task quickly on their own, get bored and disengage from the class.

To solve this conundrum, I found it effective to borrow two categories from game design: “difficulty” and “challenge”. A problem can have a low difficulty (be easy) but be challenging; or it can be difficult but not challenging at all.

A problem is difficult when it is hard to accomplish, and it depends very much on the learner’s ability to be able to succeed. A sharp learner, for example, may not struggle very much with a difficult problem, but a slow learner may feel very lost and be unable to solve the problem unless someone steps in.

On the other hand, a problem is challenging when it requires effort rather than ability to solve it. Hence, a challenging yet easy problem can be solved by both fast and slow learners, and they will both need to work hard to find the solution since the answer is not immediately obvious.

With these categories in mind, we can design learning activities that have low difficulty but are still challenging enough for stronger students. This is achieved by providing just enough scaffolding and guiding resources (such as a Q&A resource page) that weaker students can refer to for help. This mirrors the way computer games leave clues and hints lying around.

For formative activities, I will calibrate them to be easy yet challenging. In my course, this means that someone who has just learnt Microsoft Excel will be able to solve the problem even with minimal experience. But it is challenging in a sense that the most experienced Excel user will not find the answer immediately and will have to work for the answer too.

For summative assessments, I will calibrate them to be just as challenging but with a higher difficulty level. There will be fewer scaffolds and guiding resources available. I typically achieve this by picking out scenarios where there are no clear answers, and so students will have to discuss within their groups to convince themselves of the right solutions.

Ensuring Satisfaction

One thing to note is that the greater the challenge of the activity, the more we need to ensure that students find the activity satisfying, as a reward for completing the challenge. Some activities are already satisfying once the learner completes them. But sometimes the satisfaction may not be enough. To combat this, I usually test these activities with my Teaching Assistants (all undergraduates). I will observe their behaviour and note their feedback for improvement.

Role playing is useful in augmenting the level of satisfaction. Depending on their assigned scenario, accomplishing the task can leave students feeling as if they’ve just solved one of humanity’s greatest dilemmas, or that they have just made the world a better place with their solution.

Or sometimes, we can conclude the activity with a shocking revelation or a mind-blowing learning point that they least expect. For example, in one of my learning activities, students felt accomplished that they had allocated students to limited enrichment programme slots. At the end, we got them to reflect on the criteria used and how that could favour wealthier demographics.

Our learning activities may be somewhat theatrical. But they do help in generating strong emotions, which help to sear students’ learning deeply into their memories. The result: an unforgettable learning experience. I stay in touch with many of my former students from two years ago and they still fondly remember the various activities and learning points from my module. I believe this is an education that Einstein would be proud of.

This article is part of a series of articles on pedagogical methods and education.

How to Effectively Induct Students into the Flipped Classroom Paradigm

The flipped classroom format is a type of blended learning where students are required to do some preparatory work – such as watching lecture videos or completing some assignments – before coming to a face-to-face class to work on more challenging problems with the facilitation of an instructor.

However, one challenge of teaching flipped classroom modules is that a big proportion of students often came to class unprepared. They either do not watch the lecture videos or they quickly skim through them before the tutorials. Thus they lack a proper understanding of the content. The tutorial ends up becoming a lecture where we go over the lecture content instead of challenging them to go further, as many students are unable to participate in the activities.

When I asked my students why this happens, the most common reason was their unfamiliarity with this new learning paradigm. Raised in the traditional classroom paradigm, almost all students are not used to the flipped classroom. They enrol with the expectation that they can learn more effectively in the presence of a live teacher, where they can pick up hints and clues on what they should be focusing on when they review the course materials. This way, they feel assured that they are “on the right track” when they revise the course materials on their own.

Limited Effectiveness of Quizzes

One of the most common solutions is to implement graded online quizzes that are due right before face-to-face classes. I experimented with this and found the effects quite limited. Quizzes alone are insufficient in inducting students to this new learning paradigm.

Also, students can score well at online quizzes but still retain many defects in their learning. I like to think of the flipped classroom as analogous to learning to drive by watching videos. It is not possible to drive well from watching videos alone. Quizzes are insufficient in testing or reinforcing their driving abilities. More needs to be done to facilitate the student’s learning. The student cannot know what he or she does not know until the student has had the experience of being on the road, so to speak.

The Benefits of Pre-Tutorial Discussions

Over the semesters, I have found that a really effective way to induct students into the flipped classroom paradigm and ensure higher levels of pre-class preparation. This is achieved by introducing the Pre-Tutorial Discussion – an open-ended assignment of 600 to 800 words – that is due before each tutorial.

Students are given a scenario and a problem to solve. The discussion invokes their imagination by inviting them to role play. For example, an assignment topic could be: “Imagine that you are an intern and your boss has tasked you with developing an algorithm to determine a delivery route for emergency medical supplies.”

Role playing is powerful because it invokes the student’s imagination, forcing them to step out of themselves and, for that moment, pretend to be someone else. This compels them to feel a strong vested interest to solve the problem to the best of their abilities as they can sympathise with the people they are tasked to help. Furthermore, the sense of accomplishment for completing the task is a lot greater, making the activity very satisfying (almost like playing a game).

The scenario is designed such that it requires students to creatively apply what they learn in the lectures. This compels students to ensure that their understanding goes beyond a superficial level of comprehension as they try to apply their theoretical learning into something practical (analogous to attempting to drive a car instead of having the idea of driving it). It helps students discover and rectify defects in their learning. Students have provided feedback on how this has helped them think more deeply about the course materials as they revise the lectures and quizzes, or seek clarifications from my teaching team.

The scenario is designed such that there is no one clear answer. Instead, there are a myriad of possible solutions. This point is emphasised by basing assignment grading not on getting the right answer (because there are many possible ones), but on the way they explicate their thought process to demonstrate reflective, self-critical awareness. This encourages students to experiment and explore various approaches before presenting what they think to be the best solution.

I inform students that tutorials are built on what they have done for the Pre-Tutorials. This sets expectations on what needs to be prepared before coming to class. And when students see what is expected of them in the Pre-Tutorials, they put in more effort in ensuring that they are well-prepared for the greater challenge that awaits them later.

The introduction of the Pre-Tutorial has been very effective in flipped classroom courses. With a well-designed Pre-Tutorial activity, I was able to get about 80% of my students to come to class well-prepared for the challenging tutorial activities in Semester 2 of Academic Year 2020/2021. This is compared with about 40% to 50% of students in the earlier semesters when I was still experimenting. As a result, we were able to take their learning a lot further in class.

More importantly, students provided feedback that the Pre-Tutorial Discussions have helped to induct them into the flipped classroom paradigm. This has helped them learn to become more independent learners as the discussions provided them with the structure to confidently pursue self-directed learning and exploration.

This article is part of a series of articles on pedagogical methods and education.

Alleviating Student Anxieties in Interdisciplinary Learning and Empowering Them Through the Telegram Messaging App

Since I began teaching in 2017, I found that there are other challenges to interdisciplinary learning unique to this generation of students. The challenges to interdisciplinary learning are more psychological in nature. In my discussions with students, I found that many have high levels of anxiety when it comes to learning something outside their intended major.

They may be nervous about potentially failing a module. Having to do a module outside what they are competent/familiar with increases the likelihood of having to experience failure. Many students in University managed to go through their prior years of schooling without encountering failure. And because of this, the idea of potentially failing for the first time induces a great deal of stress and anxiety.

Here, I wish to highlight that this problem is not unique to Singaporean students. I have encountered many international students enrolled into my module voicing the exact same anxieties towards interdisciplinary learning.

Because of these anxieties, students imagine that there are many others who are better than them, and the moment they face a struggle, they are quick to imagine that they are the only one struggling with it, which further perpetuates the stress.

The issue is compounded when the module is taught in the blended-learning format, where students learn some parts of the module in isolation at home. They cannot see their classmates or how they are doing, and the stress drives them to imagine the worst. This affects their motivation to learn as they do not see any chance in scoring well for the module.

It also affects students’ willingness to ask for help. I also encountered many students who feel that they need to get everything in order (compile all their questions so that they can ask everything in a single setting, or be able to articulate their questions to show that they did preparation work) before they come for consultations. Otherwise, they feel they may waste the instructor’s time. However, I have come to realise that because the student is dealing with a subject so alien to them, they sometimes struggle to articulate their question. And in such situations, students do not ever reach a situation where they feel ready enough to approach the instructor for consultations.

Overall, these anxieties and self-imposed stress that many students face becomes an inhibition to learning effectively. In my teaching experience, I found that these issues must be addressed if we want to assure and motivate students to learn well.

And in my years of teaching, the Telegram messaging app has become a very integral support system in my teaching, and it helps to alleviate students’ anxieties and empower them in their learning.

Each semester, I create a Telegram Helpline where students can seek help directly from me or one of the Teaching Assistants (TAs) in the teaching team. It allows me to interact closely with students and to show them that I am serious in wanting to help them learn well. I answer questions without judgement, and I collect new questions to add to a library of Q&A that everyone can access for their benefit.

Telegram is a powerful platform because students can seek help, even anonymously (platforms like WhatsApp don’t allow this). It helps with student motivation because students can see their peers working when they ask their questions on the Helpline. Students see that there’s movement and it motivates them to work as they know they can benefit from the stream of Q&A that comes in.

More importantly, students can see their peers asking questions and their struggles are made visible online. Other students see this and it makes them aware that they are not struggling alone. It helps students feel more confident about their learning and about themselves. More importantly, it greatly reduces their anxieties over learning something so new and daunting, knowing that they can come to me for help, even if they struggle to articulate the problem.

What I like about the Helpline is that it allows me to shape and foster a positive learning culture for students. It allows me to demonstrate good learning qualities/values and shift their mindset away from one of competitiveness to collaboration. As I foster trust in them and create a safe environment for them to seek help, more students begin to participate actively in helping to answer queries by their peers. I know I have succeeded with cultivating the positive learning culture when students regularly respond to one another’s questions and help each other online.

Knowing that help is just a text message away, or that there is a comprehensive Q&A knowledge base they can refer to verify their understanding empowers students greatly, because they recognise that it is possible to master something new entirely on their own (with some assistance, of course), and they would not have to face the situation of discovering that they are not good enough. This helps to greatly alleviate the self-imposed stress felt by such students.

In general, using the Telegram Helpline as a teaching tool helps to reduce the stress that students are facing when learning something outside their specialisation because they know they are not struggling alone and that there is help readily available in the event that they require it. Furthermore, the collaborative culture that it fosters also mitigates stress because students do not feel like they are competing with each other for grades. As such, the Telegram Helpline helps empower students to internalise their interdisciplinary learning.

This article is part of a series of articles on pedagogical methods and education.

How to Effectively Engage Students when Teaching Interdisciplinary Modules

In recent years, the National University of Singapore has been emphasising the importance of interdisciplinary learning as it helps to equip students with various competencies that will enable them to solve problems outside their area of specialisation, thereby preparing them well for the workforce and giving them the flexibility to engage in life-long learning. It is for this reason that the University made it a graduation requirement for students to read a few common interdisciplinary modules.

However, I have noticed that students have been apprehensive towards such interdisciplinary modules that teach content outside their major. I spoke to my students about this issue and I found that many of them do not understand the purpose of such modules. They rely on the testimony of their seniors, who may emphasise the importance of specialisation in one’s major over a breadth of outlook and skills.

As a consequence, many students do not see the point of interdisciplinary learning, and they enrol into these common modules with little interest. This is a major problem I have been facing since I began teaching interdisciplinary modules from 2017.

In 2019, I became the Module Coordinator for GET1050 “Computational Reasoning,” where I teach coding and data analytics to 700 students in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences each semester. At the start of each semester, about 70% of my students do not fully engage with the course materials due to the poor perception they have of interdisciplinary modules. To tackle the problem, I have to invest a significant amount of effort to win them over to see the purpose and value of the module. By the 7th week, I estimate that I have won over and engaged most of my students, with the number of non-engaged students dropping to about 30%. This is still a problem because the content of each week builds on the previous weeks. By the time students see value in the course, they may be unable to catch up on their own.

I have since learnt that teaching interdisciplinary modules require a great deal of effort on the part of the instructors to engage students, spark an interest in them and to help them to see both the beauty and the value of what they are learning. If you can win students over and give them a positive perspective about the course, they will be happy and willing to do all kinds of things for their learning, and students will be more engaged in the assignments and tutorial activities.

Here are a couple of things that are essential to generate student interest in interdisciplinary modules:

(1) A personable instructor who can connect with students. This is essential especially for large modules on the blended-learning format, which is the norm for many common interdisciplinary modules offered here in NUS. The online learning experience can be cold and impersonal.

So, the instructor must try to connect with the students online in a very personal and warm way, through the various modes of communication. This humanises the online learning experience and makes the process a lot more pleasant to consume.

I have learnt is that it is important for the instructor to project a strong image of care (and of course, to act on it). Students are more receptive when they see that they have a lecturer who cares for their well-being and their learning. Simple things like making an attempt to remember students will go a long way.

I will also make visible all the effort I am doing to help them learn well – improving the videos or assignments, or grading their work. Firstly, this humanises me, which is very important in improving the experience of online learning. Secondly, when students see the effort their educators put, they will want to reciprocate the effort. This is evidenced by remarks that I often hear from my students such as, “I simply wanted to barely pass this module, but seeing you work so hard so that I can learn well, I feel that I must work just as hard not to let you down.”

(2) The purpose and value of interdisciplinary learning should not be communicated in a formal manner. Communicating the importance in an informal way generates the greatest impact because the message becomes very intimate and personal. One thing I do is to record a fortnightly chit-chat session which I insert as the first lecture video in the fortnightly series.

In these videos, I dress less formally to signal that it’s something different from our regular programme. I begin the video announcing the date and time just to let them know that it is not a video recycled from a previous semester. I will use the video as my way of checking in on them; talk about things in my life; and use it to address the more pertinent questions and concerns that students have raised.

This provides a platform to talk about the real-world applications of interdisciplinary learning or the applications of what I teach in my course. I share with them stories about my peers who have long graduated: how one of them could not fulfil his dream of being a journalist because he didn’t know Microsoft Excel when asked at an interview; or how half of my peers (7-8 years after graduation) are now required to learn coding at their work (even though they are working in non-technical roles). This makes a huge impact on the students, and it motivates them to take their learning more seriously.

I also use the fortnightly chit-chat video to praise and assure them that they are doing fine. It is more personal for them to see my face and hear my voice saying it, than to write it as an announcement. It makes them feel more confident in what they’re doing.

(3) Negative comments from seniors can severely affect the receptivity and openness to learning in the next semesters’ cohort of students. And similarly, if seniors have positive things to say about an interdisciplinary module, their juniors will be more open and receptive to learning. It is therefore important to ensure students get a good experience from the module since these students will very quickly become seniors themselves, and they will influence their juniors.

The efforts I invested in for the first two semesters (such as the strategies mentioned in (1) and (2) above, and the effort to ensure students enjoy the experience) started paying off in the third run of my course. My module had developed such a strong positive reputation within the student culture that juniors are so happy to learn in my module because they are surrounded by seniors who are just as happy to support them in their learning.

To aid in my attempts at shaping students’ receptivity towards my module, I have found it very useful to have a website showcasing the value of the module and students’ feedback about it. I also curated testimonies/feedback about how students secured their internships, or how they found their learning so applicable to their internship/work. This is important because students will search online about the course once they know they have been pre-allocated the module. If we are able to make a strong positive first impression on them, they will be more open and receptive to learning when the semester begins.

The efforts I discuss above proved very successful, and I was able to achieve significantly higher initial take-up rates, with about 60% of the cohort fully receptive and engaged in all the learning activities at the start of the semester. Overall, that cohort was a lot more receptive, and almost every student came to class well-prepared. And by the 7th week, about 80% were fully receptive in their learning.

Overall, students were won over by the expressions of care and concern for their learning, and the personal stories of how their seniors have to engage in work that demands an interdisciplinary mindset or approach. These help to generate interest in students to be fully engaged with the course.

This article is part of a series of articles on pedagogical methods and education.

How much would peer review affect one’s own final grade?

A student asked me:

How much would peer review affect one’s own final grade?

I can’t say this for all modules because different lecturers have different policies. Some might drop a grade or two, some might choose to give a zero for the whole project.

In the case of GET1050, the worst case scenario is that you’ll get zero marks for the group project component, which is 35% of the total grade. That can drop a student from a B to a D, or a C to an F.

Many students think that they can hide and get away with not doing work, but they don’t realise just how transparent they are. My TAs and I are constantly monitoring our students so we already know who’s slacking before peer evaluation results come out. Also, it’s very obvious who didn’t contribute in the group because the social dynamics will be different compared to people/groups who contribute their utmost.

So what I’m saying is, we don’t just rely on peer evaluation reports to penalise slackers, because some people are very petty in how they evaluate their peers. So to ensure that we are fair, we make the effort to gather and corroborate evidence from a variety of sources.

I’ll just add one more point. You’ve probably heard of the phrase “6 degrees of separation.” Because of my social/professional network, I am 2 degrees away from Lee Hsien Loong, Obama, Clinton, and Putin. It scares me to think just how far away (or rather, how near) I am from these people.

If you know me personally, that puts you at 3 degrees away from them. Why am I saying this? The world is small. Singapore is even smaller. If I can notice slackers in a class of 800 students, what more the professors in other modules? What you do with your assignments and your projects don’t escape our attention. It goes beyond just grades. We know people who hire people, and those people do come to us asking us what we think of you. As a compulsory module, HR people do come to me to ask about my former students when they apply for internships/jobs. I have been fighting strongly to give my highest recommendations to students who have been great team players in their groups; and I have been very honest in telling these HR people about students who demonstrated horrible personal/work attitudes in the group project and in this course overall.

So the repercussions of how good/bad you are in your group go way beyond your grades. So do remember this well. Be good to your group mates and work hard. We are training you to learn how to work in teams and manage people of different personalities and working styles. It’s something you’ll have to do in the working world, so use this opportunity of group work to develop these important people skills. It’ll go a very long way in helping you after you graduate.

What Students Have Said About GET1050 Computational Reasoning

Even though last semester ended in May, I’m still receiving many personal messages and letters from students thanking me for teaching them GET1050 Computational Reasoning. I thought it’ll be good to archive some of them here as a memento of the amazing time I had teaching the AY2019/2020 Sem II cohort. (They’re the best cohort I’ve taught thus far)

Relevance of GET1050 to Internship and Work

It has been really wonderful learning VBA from the module in particular. I couldn’t imagine that I’ll be learning programming in FASS. At least now with basic VBA skills in my belt, I hope for more useful things to come! Perhaps one thing of interest to you: I’m currently interning in the oil and gas sector. One of my tasks was to prioritize a list of
interests for the firm, which was compiled in a spreadsheet. Evidently it’ll be exhaustive to go thru each interest one by one (there was a lot). So my bosses would like me to justify how I’d prioritize it. This is similar to the optimisation
exercises we went through in the module. I’d like to believe that they allow me to have a thinking framework in place for these kinds of tasks.

Hi Jonathan! Just wanted to drop a message saying that I cannot believe I am facing people in internship that didnt even quantify their parameters and had to go through mini GET on what is best and how do we define best and what are the proxy measures we are doing. Can definitely see the application of GET again cause it felt like I was transported back into your class of discussions

Hope that you are doing well : ) Hope this isn’t too random haha but I wanted to send you an appreciation email for making GET1050 so fun and enriching! I learnt a lot from your lectures and tutorials and enjoyed them very much. They were really insightful as well! I really appreciated your encouragement during the vba consultation too. Thanks to excel I managed to get an internship this break and gained more confidence in learning other tech skills xD Thank you so much for going out of your way to help us, creating such a fun learning environment and challenging us to think. This mod was my favourite one this semester! Stay safe and take care and hope to see you around in school!!

hey prof!! how has this cb been for you? :) hope youre doing well HAHA i got my first job this vacation and my boss gave me this huge excel data set and asked me to categorise the data and all thank God i took GET1050 be i managed to use pivot table and filter function to get the data that my boss wanted and it took me less than 5min, my boss was so impressed HAHAH thank you prof!! hope this little news will bring you some happiness this gloomy cb :)

hey prof!! how has this cb (circuit breaker/lockdown) been for you? :) hope youre doing well HAHA i got my first job this vacation and my
boss gave me this huge excel data set and asked me to categorise the data and all thank God i took GET1050 be i managed to use pivot table and filter function to get the data that my boss wanted and it took me less than 5min,
my boss was so impressed HAHAH thank you prof!! hope this little news will bring you some happiness this gloomy cb :)

I was your student of your mod last sem. Just want to share a story with you haha! I did horribly for your module due to the lack of time in the school semester. I got a 8/8- even when i contributed a big portion of project works that scored decently well. As a result, i decided to prioritize other mods, neglecting VBA which was the latter portion of the module. During the CB, i decided to pick up VBA, and went through some of the notes you had and youtube. This helped me to secure a banking internship in a tough period, during the interviews, the head mentioned that she wanted someone to
automate excel, and I listed some of the examples i saw on youtube, impressing her. Fast forward 2 weeks into my internship, other than small projects, i just created a excel sheet to automate manual intranet web queries and print them(For compliance against terrorism etc, intranet will show whether company suspicious or not) for my team! Saving my teammates 30 mins-ish a day.

GET1050 is Empowering!

hi mr sim, hope you’re doing well! just wanted to let you know that i’ve taken up an online programming course and so many of the concepts that they’re teaching were covered in get1050! for eg i just wrote a code in c using the greedy rule to solve a question. so really thank you for the past semester in this module, it’s taught me to think about computing in a way that makes it much easier for me to write codes now!

However, I wanna let you know that the course you conducted, was really REALLY helpful for me. Acting as a bridge that guides us into the unknown, I actually FEEL REALLY EMPOWERED to take a new coding module, and refine my skills in excel. And this is really thanks to you. You gave me the room to leverage on my instinctive ability to reason and plan, to complete the complexities of the tasks of excel. For that, I am deeply grateful.

Hi Mr Sim!!! (This is quite late) I just want to let you are an amazing prof and Thank you for doing some an amazing job in GET1050. Although it’s only my first Y1, I can say this is probably my most favourite mod because of that way you deliver the teaching materials! (And partly cuz I got a high grade in it HAHAHA) It has also sparked within me an interest of coding and I have been doing the CS50 module to widen my knowledge of coding. I’m alr building my own homepage WOW As a FASS student, I didn’t expect to have such knowledge within my academic life and I really thank you for introducing it to me and the other students! ALSOOO, I’ve been reading your Tellonym and your replies have been eye-opening and refreshing. Thanks for sharing your opinions and inspiring your students (especially FASS students)

Beyond thanking you for the obviously tremendous amount of effort and humour that you put in this mod in order to make it bearable, enjoyable, and educational; I would like to thank you for giving me a good springboard into this world of data science and computing. After seeing the value of computing knowledge and thinking from this module, I recently took up a certified business analytics course and intend to do CS50 in due time as well. I also intend to strengthen my understanding of VBA (ps. do you have any recommendations of where I can do this other than Linkedln Learning? Philo mod recommendations also please thanks haha I haven’t taken intro to Philo but I would love to
learn how to think better) I am very proud to tell you that I got an A for this module. I had at the very start told you that I was scared of this module and prepared to SU it (and got scolded by you haha). I am hence extremely proud of not only the grade, but the effort me and my team put into this module and the learnings we got as a result; but also that I have a good grade to show you to thank you for your dedication and kindness.

GET1050 is Awesome!

Heelllo Jonathan!! Sending this a bit late but, I just wanted to say thank youuu. I personally had an amazing GET1050 learning experience the past sem! Thanks for creating such a comfortable learning environment for asking questions and putting in so much effort to make learning so enjoyable!! (PARDON this not so look-a-like drawinggg HAHA)

Thank YOU for all your hardwork and love you have for your students:”)) your dedication to this mod is amazing!!! :”)) Rest well!!!!

I am a student from your GET1050 course. Though this email may be a little late, given that the module ended quite some time ago, the semester has finally concluded but I wish to extend my gratitude to you for having been such a passionate professor and I have genuinely learned much from your course. I really appreciate that you explain every single concept down to the last detail with so much enthusiasm. The amount of effort you and your GET1050 TAs
is truly unimaginable, but I am very thankful for all of it! Thank you for building my foundation for EXCEL well and I can’t wait to learn more tricks and codes! : D Thank you Jonathan once again :-), take care and rest well this summer!

hi prof! I wanted to say thank you for interacting with your students and spending your time to engage us in our growth :-) hope u r doing well in this season!!! :-))

Dear Mr Sim, now that the mod is about to be over i just want to say a huge thank you to you- for your patience in coaching us, checking up on us whenever u can, and just being such a great prof. I am very lucky to have taken this mod under you, and i thank you so much for all the knowledge you have imparted to us. Ive started to be able to see proxy measures, interpretive gaps havjng to be filled in etc in my daily life as well. I hope you take good care of yourself, dont overtire yourself please! As your student, it is my pleasure and honour to call you my professor.

Next, I want to sincerely thank you for being such a genuine and hardworking educator. In my entire education career as a student, I have only met one or two teachers who were always going the extra mile in getting to know their students and preparing their lessons in a way that students will truly enjoy and learn useful things they will take away with them for the rest of their lives. When I first entered university, I thought that the lecturers , in general , would be less enthusiastic about getting to know students or even teaching the content they do, as the material they teach
would undoubtedly be repetitive on their end, and the opportunities they have to interact with students are less, considering the lecture group sizes and the number of classes they have with students. It was surprising when you went out of your way to get us email short introductions to you before our very first class, you did not have to, but you chose to do it. I honestly think that shows how much you care about your students and am touched to have an educator like you. This is just one of the many things, coupled with the crazy amount of effort you put into creating funny names in assignments and easter eggs for us to find when doing the assignments, that left me speechless. Your passion for teaching is admirable and shines through.

Thank you so much for all you’ve done for us, Prof. Our group and all your other students are extremely grateful to you. We all enjoyed your whacky, hilarious lectures and will remember them for years to come. See you soon, Prof. Wishing you continued good health

My Experiences in Using the Telegram Messaging App as a Teaching Tool

In this article, I wish to reflect on my experience using the messaging app, Telegram, as a teaching tool. I will begin on the motivations for adopting Telegram, and then proceed to discuss how I carried out the use of Telegram in my teaching, and my observations of how students responded to it.

In the past 3.5 years of teaching here in NUS, I have learnt through my conversations with many local students that so many students perceive barriers to various modes of consultation that are typically available to them. These obstacles revolve around fear and issues of ‘face.’

In public settings, like asking questions in class or on the online forums, students are afraid of making a fool of themselves by asking a “stupid” question in front of everyone else, or at least saying the wrong thing, and risk the embarrassment of being corrected in front of everyone. In other words, they fear losing ‘face’ by asking questions in a public setting.

On that same line of thought, there is also a fear that speaking out or asking certain questions can make one stand out so much that it creates pressure on the student to maintain that expectation or risk losing ‘face.’

Three years ago, I commended a student for her excellent writing on the online forums. After class, she approached me saying how she wished I did not do that as it had “revealed her true abilities” to the rest of the class. As it is, the forums were already very stressful as she did not want to stand out from the crowd, nor did she want to embarrass herself by saying anything wrong. But now that she had been “outed” by me as having excellent writing, she now has to deal with the added stress of maintaining the same standards. In a competitive culture, many students perceive this as a bad thing, because they worry that doing so would mean having to work extra hard to maintain that reputation. Failing to meet that public expectation, would result in a huge loss of ‘face.’

And while our local students prefer to seek help in a more private setting (face-to-face consults or e-mail), there is still an obstacle that puts them off: they perceive these modes of consultations as too formal, and they feel that this apparent “formality” requires them to prepare well beforehand so that they do not waste the teacher’s time, or to say or do something that will cause them to look bad before the instructor.

This became very apparent to me two years ago when I had to tutor a module on computational thinking to FASS undergraduate students. Because the nature of the subject was so alien to these students, many of them simply did not know how to articulate their questions. The ones who asked for consultations (or e-mailed me for help) knew how to articulate their questions, or at least questions on issues they were clear about. But it was apparent to me that many students did not understand. They wanted help, but they were too afraid to ask. And when I asked what kept them from seeking consultations with me, they said that they wanted to get everything in order, that they wanted to compile a list of questions before approaching me. They thought that it would be a waste of my time and that it would be embarrassing to reveal how much they did not understand.

This was the same answer I got from many students. And because they struggled on such a fundamental level, they could not achieve the level of preparedness they wanted before they saw it fit to arrange for a consultation, or even draft an e-mail with their questions. In other words, the formality of a face-to-face consultation, or even a private e-mail was an obstacle for students to seek help even when they urgently needed it. The fear of losing ‘face’ was just too great.

To summarise: many local students feel that the act of asking questions or seeking help is an act that risks losing ‘face,’ or tarnishing their reputation before their peers or teachers.

When I was tasked to develop and teach a new compulsory module for FASS students – GET1050 “Computational Reasoning” (which was, once again, an area alien to most FASS students) – I remembered the experiences and conversations I had with my former students, many of whom felt that questioning was a terrifying act of risking one’s ‘face.’

I decided to experiment with setting up a Helpline chat group on Telegram, a popular instant messaging app that allows for the creation of large chat groups. The helpline would serve several functions: (1) it would be an informal setting and to some extent, an almost anonymous platform where students can ask questions without drawing too much embarrassment to themselves; (2) if students were afraid to post questions on the helpline, they can still reach out to me privately on Telegram; (3) since the module is a blended-learning course, Telegram was the one platform that allowed me to engage and interact with my students on a regular basis (especially for students who are not in my tutorial groups); (4) the platform is the ideal means for cultivating a safe and positive learning culture where students should not feel afraid to seek help; and (5) the instant communication allows me to converse with students so as to help those struggling to articulate their questions.

I have since used Telegram for two semesters with great success. Here, I’d like to document what I did and several observations I made:

In the first two weeks, Telegram was rather quiet. There were not many queries. That was because students were still exploring and wondering what sorts of questions they could safely ask on the platform. The first couple of questions were sent privately to me on Telegram, and I made it a point to post the Q&A to the Helpline, even though students may have felt that the question was silly, pointless, or irrelevant. Nonetheless, I did it anyway because it served two purposes: (1) it allowed me to share the knowledge as I believed that there were other students with similar questions; and (2) it was a way of educating the cohort about the kinds of questions they could ask, and I wanted them to know that they can always expect a safe environment where I would answer them without judgement.

Every few days, I would also post light-hearted remarks and other jokes, or joke around with students on the Helpline. This was my way of interacting with students and building rapport with them. After all, I don’t have the luxury of interacting with all the students in a lecture setting (all my lectures are in the form of videos online). I also made a point to involve my TAs in the chat. They would help to answer queries, and occasionally post light-hearted content. This was my way of reinforcing the idea that this is an informal setting, a safe environment where we can learn together and be silly together. That this helpline was a community of learning.

As the weeks went by, not only were there more students joining the Helpline, but there were also more students daring to ask questions publicly on the chat group. I believe the interactions that my TAs and I carried out in the first few weeks of the semester were very critical in establishing that trust in students, that they could trust us enough to ask questions without fear.

And what was most amazing, was that by the time we got to Recess Week, there was a sense that the community on the Helpline had grown and matured. There were moments where I would inform the Helpline that I’m too busy to respond to queries. Not long after, I’ll find students rising up to the occasion, and answering queries from their peers. The same happens when students ask questions very late into the night.

So not only is there an increased sense of trust and respect for all on the Helpline, but I believe that students have begun to feel safe to seek help and to help others on such a platform. That is, of course, once the culture and environment has been set right at the start, and continually maintained.

In both semesters, the feedback from students have been incredible positive about the use of Telegram. Here I’d like to conclude with an excerpt of a reflection that a student wrote that best summarises how the use of Telegram and the Helpline played a critical role role in helping students grow comfortable with seeking help:

“My main learning point is summarized by the phrase: ‘No one can push you if you don’t want to push yourself; we all grow through struggles’. Having a good attitude towards learning is important. I particularly got this takeaway because this module is by-far the most encouraging, most-interaction (during tutorial) and most interesting module I took . The instructor and my TAs from tutorial class are really encouraging and I like how they always assure us that they are very willing to help us as long as we seek help. It really motivates me to want to do well for this module since I know that I am equipped with all the resources that I need and in addition, I have approachable people that I can turn to when I need help. However this also means that it is a test of self-discipline as we take charge of our own learning progress. If I choose not to help myself, then I will not learn to the best of my ability no matter how encouraging the instructors and TAs are. This module made me realized that I cannot have excuses to justify as to why I didn’t do well for this module because I can no longer say that I find it hard to seek help/the professors are not approachable, thus a good learning attitude is important.”