I had a relatively busy but immensely enjoyable week!
First, I was honoured to have been given the opportunity to give a short keynote on “Assessing Learning in Real Time (A.L.E.R.T.)” at the morning segment of the Singapore Polytechnic Excellence in Education and Teaching Convention (EETC) 2020 on Thursday. This year the convention was conducted fully online and ended up having the best turnout in its history. Aside from a minor hiccup (I forgot to set the “multiple answers” feature on my poll question before launching it 😬), I thought the session went pretty smoothly and was well received. This was followed by Academic Mentor Adeline (School of Chemical & Life Sciences) delivering the second part of the topic. The keynote was actually one of three sessions that morning, encompassing the use of technology and real-time data in education. The other keynotes were delivered by my EDU colleagues Mei Yee and Raj, as well as Deputy Directors Hwee Theng (School of Mathematics & Science) and Chip Chuan (School of Business), who talked about AI in Education and Asynchronous Lectures.
In the afternoon, I moderated a sharing workshop where Academic Mentors from two schools: Nuridah (School of Life Skills & Communication), Dr Choo and Sharmila (School of Architecture & The Built Environment), presented their experiences implementing A.L.E.R.T. in their classes. I felt the sharing went excellently because there was a nice variety of contexts, content areas and intervention measures involved. And of course, I was very lucky to have awesome and engaging presenters! I am humbled to have been asked to participate in such a significant way in EETC this year, and really appreciate all the time and effort the EDU team put in behind the scenes to make the event such an incredible success. Kudos to them!
Second, I participated in SP Poly50 2020.
So why did I sign up and what is the significance?
- This year’s running event has a new format (due to COVID-19 measures): each member in a team is to record their own run via an app, at their own time and chosen location. The team has to at least form the text “SP POLY50 2020” (each member is assigned a letter/number), clock a minimum total of 50 km and given a week to complete it.
- This year marks the 50th year of the event and all participants who successfully complete the run will get a finisher t-shirt.
- This is the first year I am participating after transferring to a new department (EDU).
- This is the first time I have joined the event in all my 19+ years of employment at SP!
- I used to enjoy running a long time ago and thought it would be a good way to get some exercise. I so badly need it! However, I followed it up with a not-so-healthy breakfast.
I am also looking forward to indulging in a sumptuous belated birthday dinner with my beloved family this evening. Now that would REALLY undo whatever benefits I got from that jog-walking this morning! Oh well.
See you at the next update! 😊
