Abstract
This chapter chronicles the 3-year journey of refining a multidisciplinary science course focused on solutions to environmental sustainability issues. During this time, we developed and applied the principle of just manageable differences to the transformation of the course. Our dual goals were to make the changes from one running of the course to the next such that they tested the ability of the teaching team to orchestrate the learning activities and continuously made the activities more meaningful for students. During the transformation, the design for learning moved from a heavy focus on lecture material and instructor-initiated assignments to more of an ongoing conversation about local sustainability issues and the nature of expertise in the sciences. Changes to the course were introduced during the first lecture session with justifications for each change. Student feedback surveys and course performance metrics were used to evaluate how well the changes were accepted and how meaningful they were with respect to learning.
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Notes
- 1.
510 million km2 (area of Earth) x 29% (percent of Earth that is land)/700 km2 (area of Singapore) per Singapore = 211,000 Singapores.
- 2.
6 million km2 (area of Amazon Rainforest Basin)/700 km2 (area of Singapore) per Singapore = 8,570 Singapores.
- 3.
400 thousand km2 (area of the American Dust Bowl)/700 km2 (area of Singapore) per Singapore = 571 Singapores.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Riovie Ramos, Sujata Murty, Rino Salman, Molly Moynihan, and Leong Wai for helping us orchestrate the annual evolutions of the course. Gloria Ho not only modeled how to ask questions in a large lecture course to hundreds of students, she always had the correct answer for our administrative queries. Roy Ng Jin Hou and Chin Hock Tan helped to focus us on the course transformation process. Aloysius Ong was instrumental in making the evaluation of the chat activities manageable and meaningful. Ernie Ghiglione heroically saved the day when more than two hundred students inadvertently stress-tested the University LAMS server by simultaneously attempting the Chat and Scribe activity. Wong Chun Yu diligently ensured that the student exam papers and written assignments remained under lock and key until their owners came to sign them out. Our research and course transformation could not have taken place without the support of a startup grant from Nanyang Technological University’s Centre for Research and Development of Learning and Founding Director Lee Sing Kong’s belief that the noblest scientific endeavors always address meaningful social concerns.
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Hartman, K., Koh, J., Goodkin, N.F., Dzulkifli, D.D.B. (2020). Applying Just Manageable Differences as a Guiding Principle for Course Transformations. In: Tan, S., Chen, SH. (eds) Transforming Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4980-9_6
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