Developing Future-Ready Learners for a Global Age: Pedagogical Innovations in Singapore

Suzanne S. Choo, Woon Chia Liu, and Bee Leng Chua offer a dynamic look into the tripartite relationship between education research, policy, and practice that characterizes Singapore’s changing education landscape.

Over the years, Singapore has garnered increasing attention internationally for its world-class education system. Pushing back against the stereotypical notions of exam- and teacher-centric education in Asia, the contributors to this volume discuss opportunities as well as challenges in Singapore’s innovation towards constructivist, critical, culturally responsive, and cosmopolitan forms of learning. Highlighting the pedagogical innovation and its context in Singapore’s teacher education and schools, the authors bridge theory and practice by providing an understanding of innovative practices informed by key shifts in Singapore’s education policies and the key conceptual principles informing these practices. More importantly, it provides on-the-ground empirical insights into the ways these innovative pedagogical practices are enacted in the classroom and in teacher education programmes. Each chapter provides an in-depth understanding of how these pedagogies are applied across various subject disciplines, including guided problem-solving in Mathematics, games-based pedagogy in Science, multimodal literacies in language, ethical criticism in Literature, Nonlinear Pedagogy in Physical Education, multicultural approaches in music, and dialogic pedagogy in drama, among others.

Balancing theoretical and empirical focus, this resourceful text will be of interest to students, researchers, and practitioners in educational development, pedagogy, and teacher education, as well as policymakers across international fields in education.

Suzanne S. Choo is Associate Professor in the English Language and Literature department and Singapore Centre for Character and Citizenship Education, National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.

Woon Chia Liu is the Director of the National Institute of Education, and a Professor in the Psychology and Child & Human Development department, both at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Bee Leng Chua is the Chief Learning and Innovation Officer and Associate Professor at the Psychology and Child & Human Development department, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.