Creativity – HECS

Opportunities From Engaging Students In Hands-on Learning

cdtlsd Poster 24 November, 20242 December, 2024Creativity, Experiments, hand-on learning

N. L. YAKOVLEV

Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, NUS

phyny@nus.edu.sg

Yakovlev, N. (2024). Opportunities from engaging students in hands-on learning [Poster presentation]. In Higher Education Conference in Singapore (HECS) 2024, 3 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecs/hecs2024-nlyakolev/

SUB-THEME

Opportunities from Engaging Communities

KEYWORDS

Experiments, hand-on learning, creativity

EXTENDED ABSTRACT

When a student comes to a professor to do a project (which can be within an FYP, or UROPS, or SRP, or SMP, or similar)¹, the professor asks: “Why did you choose my project?” The students would say: “I am fascinated with your science and would like to learn more.” Some professors would then give papers to the student saying: “Read this, so that you understand what you will do.” Other professors would suggest: “Try to do these experiments, so that you use your data to understand what you will read.” Which approach is more productive and—speaking about students—more instructive?

As an example, let us consider student “T”, who came to me in 2022 to do his final year project (FYP) entitled “Fundamentals of precision ellipsometry”. Ellipsometry is an analytical technique that uses polarised light to measure properties of ultra-thin films on reflective substrate. Precision ellipsometry (PREL) uses polarisation modulator, which makes it even more sensitive down to sub-nanometre range (Yakovlev, 2019). His aim was to quantify parameters, which are responsible for this high sensitivity.

At first, he did experiments on PREL made by me, then made his own modulator as a copy of mine. And when he experimented with his own modulator, he was excited to see its high sensitivity and asked me, why is it such. This is when I gave him a book with all the necessary formulae, and he readily did the relevant calculations. Imagine, if he had seen that math at the start of his project, he would consider it boring from the beginning.

Another example from the project of student “T” is measurement of the effect of refractive index of liquids used. Though it was possible to measure it in a standard device, I suggested that he use the available fluidic system similar to that described in Lau (2017). This engaged his creativity, and after several attempts, he came up with the design as in Figure 1. And again, he readily did relevant calculations using concepts from the physics curriculum.

Figure 1: Schematic of refractive index measurement (left) and the scale made by the student, placed on laboratory wall and showing the position of refracted laser beam.

Over last two decades, I supervised more than a hundred students doing experimental science. Within a broad area, where each student expressed interest, I let him/her start from trying various experiments. Then it becomes evident what is the student good at and what ignites his/her passion, so that this would be developed into a specific project. Feedback from the students and numerous awards that they obtain at student competitions show the advantages of this approach.

In guiding student projects, it is also a beneficial approach to supervise a team of students. For the professor, it certainly saves time, because introduction to the topic takes the same time as to one student, but two students can obtain twice more results. As for the students, they can practically help each other and those who understand first can explain to those who did not get the point. This process of explaining to others makes the knowledge more logical and it leaves a stronger impression in their memory. Every year, I take several teams of students from various colleges and observe how they exchange practical skills and conceptual ideas. They also learn to share equipment, working space and the supervisor’s time. By the end of the year, that all creates a team and eventually a community of future scientists.

In conclusion, the approach to “let the students do something, so that they understand what they read” appears to be engaging from the beginning of their laboratory practice and motivating them to learn through the course of their project.

ENDNOTE

The abbreviations stand for the following: Final-year project (FYP); Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme in Science (UROPS); Science Research Programme (SRP)

REFERENCES

Lau H.H., Murney R. et al. (2017). Protein-tannic acid multilayer films: A multifunctional material for microencapsulation of food-derived bioactives. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 505, 332-https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcis.2017.06.001

Yakovlev N. L., Kwek H. C., Dabrowski K. M. (2019). Kinetics of small molecule adsorption studied using precision ellipsometry. Surface and Interface Analysis, 51(7), 697-702. https://doi.org/10.1002/sia.6637

Creativity And Failure Tolerance: Puzzling Findings in Student Outcomes

fina Lighting Talks 12 November, 20242 December, 2024Creativity, Failure tolerance, Iterative Design, pedagogy

Ameek Kaur¹*, Thijs WILLEMS², Qian HUANG²

¹National University of Singapore (NUS), Business School
²Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities

^*bizameek@nus.edu.sg

Kaur, A., Willems, T., & Huang, Q. (2024). Creativity And Failure Tolerance: Puzzling Findings in Student Outcomes [Lightning Talk]. In Higher Education Conference in Singapore (HECS) 2024, 3 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecs/hecs2024-kaur-et-al

SUB-THEME

Opportunities from Wellbeing

KEYWORDS

Failure tolerance, Creativity, Iterative Design, Pedagogy.

CATEGORY

Lightning Talk

We would like to share our study, which aimed to enhance students’ failure tolerance and creativity through modifications in course content and assessment rubrics. The rationale for these modifications was that exposing students to iterative design—learning by prototyping, testing, and refining—should increase failure tolerance and foster creativity (Jablokow et al., 2016). Through our course changes, we observed a significant increase in student creativity. However, students’ failure tolerance significantly dropped, presenting an intriguing paradox.

The study was conducted on a semester-long Design Thinking and Innovation course at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), with data from two consecutive cohorts of over 200 first-year undergraduate students. In round 1, we established baseline data on the course’s impact on students’ creativity and failure tolerance. Kaur et al. (2023) article provides a process perspective on the course as observed during round 1. In round 2, we modified the course content and assessment rubrics. For both cohorts, students completed pre- and post-course surveys, consisting of items from established scales – the Kirton Adaption Innovation (KAI) scale (Kirton, 1976) for measuring creativity, and the School Failure Tolerance (SFT) scale (Clifford, 1988) for measuring failure tolerance. The modified course included three case studies and three hands-on activities in the first six weeks to emphasize iterative design and encourage action-oriented prototyping. Additionally, creativity was added as an assessment component for all submissions, and students were asked to submit reflections with each assignment.

The survey results from round 1 and round 2 are summarized in Table 1 below. The results highlight that students’ creativity measured by ‘KAI-overall’ increased significantly in round 2. The KAI subscale on originality showed an increase in both round 1 and 2. On the other hand, students’ failure tolerance measured by ‘SFT-overall’ dropped significantly in round 2, whereas it showed a marginal increase in round 1. This counterintuitive change in students’ failure tolerance in round 2 is the puzzling part of our findings.

The results suggest that the increase in student creativity can potentially be attributed to both the course interventions and the new assessment rubrics. However, the drop in failure tolerance presents a complex issue. One possible explanation is that the added emphasis on creativity in the assessment rubrics created pressure to meet high standards, which may have led students to adopt safer approaches to avoid failure. Another interpretation is that students’ view of iteration evolved from a mindset of “keep trying persistently” to one of “let’s try a different approach.” While the SFT scale might register this as reduced failure tolerance (i.e., giving up), it can be seen positively from an innovation standpoint. This shift indicates that students became more inclined to discard less viable ideas and explore new ones, demonstrating improved creative problem-solving and adaptability.

This paradox highlights the challenge of balancing creativity and failure tolerance in educational settings. While promoting creativity, it is crucial to also foster an environment that supports resilience and encourages risk-taking. Future interventions might include regular messaging emphasizing the value of iterative design and learning from failure, as well as assignments that require students to document their exploration of ideas, encountered challenges, and lessons learned from failures.

This study contributes to the conference sub-theme of “opportunities from wellbeing.” By attempting to enhance resilience through course interventions, we aimed to improve students’ long-term well-being. Our findings highlight potential pitfalls and provide insights for future course design.

The lightning talk will include images of the course structure, students’ work, prototypes, and hands-on activities. Some of the images are attached in the appendix.

Table 1
Results from Round 1 and Round 2. The sub-components of SFT and KAI are also stated.

REFERENCES

Clifford, M. M. (1988). Failure tolerance and academic risk-taking in ten- to twelve-year-old students. Journal of Educational Psychology, 58(1), 15-27. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8279.1988.tb00875.x

Jablokow, K. W., Zhu, X., Matson, J. V., & Kakde, A. N. (2016), Stimulating creativity in online learning environments through intelligent fast failure. 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition. https://doi.org/10.18260/p.25879

Kaur, A., Huang, Q., Willems, T., Hayat, A. A., & Elara, M. R. (2023). Teaching design thinking to a large cohort, a process perspective. 2023 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment and Learning for Engineering (TALE). https://doi.org/10.1109/TALE56641.2023.10398367

Kirton, M. (1976). Adaptors and innovators: A description and measure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 61(5), 622-629. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.61.5.622

APPENDIX

Course Structure:

Cow-Drawing activity:

Structure/Material prototyping and iteration:

Prototype: App design