Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s Diploma in Psychology & Community Services (PCS) is a 3-year programme which aims to develop and transform post-secondary students into work-ready professionals with the requisite knowledge, skills and attributes for careers in social services or welfare organisations, and the drive and know-how to make a positive difference in the communities they serve.

Apart from a strong grounding in the fundamentals of psychology and how these fundamentals are applied in providing community services, the learning experience must develop the PCS graduate into someone who is not only a competent professional and a flexible lifelong learner but also one who is compassionate, resilient, innovative, resourceful, pro-active, IT-savvy, analytical, and an effective team player with good communication skills.

While it is not uncommon to hear claims of holistic development in a curriculum, what often happens is that the core academic knowledge and skills remain the explicit focus of the course and its assessment practices. The affective portion is usually left as part of the ‘hidden curriculum’ and may or may not be achieved.

However, in the Psychology & Community Services course we have attempted to integrate the core academic knowledge and skills with the desired attributes expected of its graduates. This is achieved by:

1. Having a blend of pedagogical approaches and strategies that are carefully selected to work together within the curriculum to shape and develop the cognitive, metacognitive, affective and attitudinal facets of the PCS graduate; and
2. Creating space for integrative learning.

Students visited the Help Every Lone Parent Family Service Centre as part of PCS experiential learning

Key teaching and learning approaches

The approaches used in the Psychology & Community Services Curriculum include, but are not limited to, the following:

a. Problem-based Learning

In this approach, students working in small teams, encounter and learn to work through a real, usually ill-structured and multi-faceted problem. Students develop and hone strategies to deconstruct multi-faceted, multi-layered authentic problems, seek information, construct knowledge and understanding, and suggest ways to address the problem and discuss alternatives with other teams working on the same problem. Used with the more foundational subjects such as ‘Intro to Sociology’, this approach intends to strengthen students’ grasp of the fundamentals and sharpen students’ conceptual thinking through getting students to:

• Develop the discipline to analyse and identify the possible root causes of a situation,
• Get into the habit of taking explicit stock of the quality and sufficiency of current levels of knowledge and skills before moving on to identify and seek new knowledge, skills and concepts needed to work through the issues at hand.
• Explain and justify their solution to colleagues
• Receive and consider critiques of their solution
• Learn from alternative (and often innovative) approaches and concepts used to address the same problem.

Following is an example of one of the PBL activities that students needed to complete. [Click to open.]

b. Case-based Learning

Case-based learning provides students with examples of how their class room knowledge  engages with real world situations. For example, in the module “The Brain & Behaviour”, various case studies introduce selected neuropsychological concepts. Students were exposed to a case study on a client with seizure disorder who underwent hemispherectomy (removal of half of the brain). They would subsequently examine the neurological basis of seizure disorder and the implications of hemispherectomy. 

c. Service Learning

Introduced in the more foundational modules such as "Introduction to Statistics and Research", the service learning approach pushes students to identify an issue of concern in a community or society and seek ways to apply the particular knowledge and skills learned in the particular modules in order to impact sustainable change in the community.

Students learn to work in teams to analyse and work on community issues. However, and perhaps more critically, they also learn to collaborate with their with community partners and the recipients of their services to research the issues in order to make recommendations that are of relevance and significance to the partners. Through this approach, they develop attributes of perception, sensitivity, empathy, compassion, and resilience as well as a sense of professionalism and responsibility.

Following is an example PBL report by students in their first year (the "Platinum" group, consisting of Jaslyn, Nuryanty, Sukanya and Zoe. Used with permission.)

PBL Report – Social Inequality in Singapore (by Platinum) [PDF, 7 pp, 98 kB.]

The following photo was taken while Platinum group was conducting casual interviews with some foreign workers in Little India.

Platinum Group being orientated by staff from HealthServe.

d. Reflective Learning

While reflecting on their experiences, students develop their abilities to objectively review and take stock of their own learning & development (cognitive, psychomotor and affective), the quality of their performance, and how to address their development gaps. They develop self-directed capacities to identify and direct their own further development needs.

Following is an example of one of the deliverables – a newsletter by tutorial group 1B01 – which includes reflections on how the students have applied what they learned in each of their core modules. (Used with permission.)

New Perceptions Newsletter (by 1B01) [PDF, 4 pages, 709 kB.]

e. Work-based Learning

This approach injects into the curriculum authentic opportunities to develop workplace competencies which include attitudes, behaviours, and procedural knowledge and skills needed to perform as a professional. Opportunities include using real workplace case studies and problems during class work, visits to industry, joint projects with industry, and internships. Students get second and first-hand experiential opportunities to observe empathy and innovation in action and learn through opportunities to undertake workplace tasks and get feedback on their performance. They learn to hone their conceptual and academic knowledge and skills into appropriate workplace practices.

Selecting Approaches and Strategies

When designing the PCS curriculum, we used the following key guidelines in selecting and blending the approaches and strategies:

a. Variety

Psychology & Community Services students need to experience a rich variety of activities so they develop the necessary learning skills to be comfortable learning in several environments: independently, in structured contexts, through ill-structured experiences, both face-to-face and online.

b. Range

The PCS student must be exposed to learning approaches that range from the more conventional instructor-led sessions in lectures and workshops through to the more learner-centred approaches that involve active, authentic, and experiential learning. It is this range that will scaffold the learners from the more foundational to the more experiential and self-directed aspects of learning and development.

Students experienced what it is like to use a wheelchair as part of a visit to the Spastic Children’s Association of Singapore.

Integrating the Learning

The mix of approaches in any one semester must complement each other in terms of the aspects of cognitive, metacognitive, attitudinal and affective skills, traits and attributes being developed. This blend ensures that in any one semester, a PCS student has the opportunity to integrate and apply foundational knowledge and theories into practice in authentic contexts. This also ensures that a student’s learning experience in any one semester includes a careful blend and balance of the more time- and resource-intensive, emotionally-engaging experiential approaches with the more time-efficient teacher-led approaches which culminates in an Integrated Project.

The curriculum designers created space and opportunity for students to demonstrate their efforts at integrating the various one-semester modules. For example, in the second semester of their first year, students study the following 5 modules:

• Introduction to Sociology
• Lifespan Psychology
• Introduction to Statistics & Research Methods
• Family & Relationship Studies
• Behaviour In Organisations

In the PCS diploma, students experience integration of the above modules via participation in the following:

a. Integrating theory into practice by ensuring that students encounter authentic cases and problems as they learn the theories and concepts required of the curriculum.

b. Integrating class-based learning with workplace experience through planning for well-scaffolded encounters with the workplace and industry throughout the 3-year curriculum.

d. Integrating the academic and applied knowledge and skills acquired in the different modules through a major, performance-based integrated assessment each semester. An example of this is the end-of-semester project in which students are expected to collaborate with their peers and staff to plan for, organise, execute and participate in an event which showcases their learning and development to parents and industry partners and celebrates their achievements and contributions to industry and community for the year. 

In a recent semester, the “integration celebration event” was in the form of a Symposium, which allowed students to consolidate the various learning experiences they had gone through in the semester.  Students were given the opportunity to present their research findings as well as their journey over the whole semester, in an exhibition and presentation.  In this project students incorporated their learning from classroom lectures on psychology; identification and solving of problems (Problem based learning); presentation of their project report (Project learning); learning from an authentic scenario (Experiential learning) and their service learning experiences.

Here is the brief that students needed to follow for the Symposium.

Integrated Project Example

In the “Lifespan Psychology” module, students were assigned to work with HealthServe Community Clinic whose clients are mostly foreign workers.  Using their classroom knowledge, students examined the implications of working in a foreign country on the development aspects of these foreign workers.  Students were able to present a report which identified the problems based on their research and the programmes that HealthServe develop to serve the needs of the foreign workers. In this way, students not only demonstrated their understanding of the theoretical basis of psychology but made linkages between what they have learnt in the classroom and the real world. 

Here is one of the project submissions (by the "Introvertz" group, Jessica Ann Joseph Vincent, Oh Shao Shiuan, Siti Fasihah Binte Subto, Yan Manhong and Yeo Yun Jing. Used with permission.)

Final Statistics Report – HealthServe (by Introvertz) [PDF, 23 pages, 271 kB]

Closing remarks

The Psychology & Community Services curriculum is a work-in-progress. The curriculum structure and descriptions mentioned in this article refer to the structure for the first cohort of PCS students. With each cycle of curriculum review, modules continue to be reviewed, revised, and, where necessary, re-positioned as we continue to reflect on the variety, range, blend and integration of approaches.

It has been heartening to observe how the curriculum is working to nurture the PCS graduate – one who is not only a competent professional and a flexible lifelong learner but also one who shows compassion, resilience and innovation, and is an effective team player with good communication skills.

Authors

Joyce Tang Wai Ching

Tan Yew Kong

Joyce and Yew Kong are lecturers in School of Humanities, Ngee Ann Polytechnic.

The current Diploma in Business Studies has an Infocomm Specialization where students learn relevant IT skills that complement their business knowledge and equip them for the knowledge-based economy. The students are savvy with IT applications and are trained to hone their requisite professional skills as well as integrate and apply their knowledge. The core coverage in the Infocomm specialization is e-business systems, Internet-enabled multimedia, networking, servers and database management systems, information and knowledge management systems and enterprise resources planning.

The motivation behind the Reformative Training Program was the desire to engage our students in community service by applying both academic and technical skills, thus encouraging active citizenry. This program was undertaken as part of an Academic Excellence Team (AET) project.

Project Adoption and Strategy

The team received a request from the Prison Aftercare Supervision Section under the Prison Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs, asking for volunteer instructors/befrienders to work with reformative trainees. This group was selected as the defined community.

The strategy was to launch a pilot project under the platform of the Work-Integrated-Learning (WIL) module of the Infocomm elective in the Diploma in Business Studies, working in partnership with the Prison Aftercare Supervision Section, where the students could reach out to the reformative trainees.

This pilot project comprised of a 6-week training module where selected WIL students became IT trainers to a group of Reformative Trainees.

Work-Integrated-Learning (WIL)

WIL is an existing module in the Infocommunications and E-Commerce specialization stream offered in the Diploma in Business Studies. It offers students enhanced experiential learning opportunities.

Service-Learning (S-L)

Service-Learning is a learning and teaching approach to developing youth through the experience of serving their community. Hence, it can be pedagogy which integrates academic courses with service to communities in need, allowing students to take full advantage of their opportunities to develop their intellectual, ethical, and perceptual capacities in ways that demonstrate to them the benefit of their education. It employs experiential facilitation methods to draw out and reinforce learning points from engaging in meeting real community needs, and is premised on experiential learning as the foundation for intellectual, moral, and civic growth.

Service-Learning is a learning and teaching approach to developing youth through the experience of serving their community.

Background to RT Project

The Reformative Training Program was initiated by the Prisons Department in their continual efforts to strengthen the developmental aspects of Reformative Trainees (RT) including social skills, academic coaching, hobby promotion and special interest activities.

It is a relatively new program, started after the Prisons Department shifted from its location at Changi Prison to the current CISCO Centre II. The objective is to help the RT boys fit into society and have interaction with students of similar age groups, as well as other befrienders. Hopefully, the students can be a role-model to the boys.

There are at any one time about 200 boys, ages between 16-21, deemed amenable by courts. Their sentences can last to 48 months. Usually the residential period is 18-36 months with the remainder of the sentence under a supervisory period, where the boys are allowed to go home, but with a curfew time imposed. Some of them are re-taking their ‘N’ and ‘O’ Levels. There is one boy currently in Ngee Ann Polytechnic and another in NUS. The rest are either working or looking for jobs. They have to report to the Prison Aftercare regularly. Their offences are mainly gang-related and petty, such as illegal assembly, housebreaking and motor theft. They are classified as low-risk offenders.

Some of the AET team members, together with the Director SDA, Director and Deputy Director BA, visited the Kaki Bukit Prison School on 27th Feb 2002. We were hosted by the management of Prisons Aftercare, who gave us a very informative introduction to the vision, philosophy and objectives of the Prison School, as well as a conducted tour. The trip helped us to better understand our role as volunteer instructors/befrienders.

Curriculum

Using the Service-Learning approach as well as from progressive realization of the skill levels of the RTs, the student trainers were actively involved in tailoring the curriculum on a weekly basis.

The teaching methodology and broad topics were planned with the trainers as follows, but some changes were made along the way:

• 2 trainers per session with 8 trainees
• Problem-based approach with simple projects given at regular intervals
• Find out the special needs and interests from the trainees
• Grouping of trainees for project works
• Include Service-Learning plans
• Making the lessons fun
• Evaluation of student learning

Practical Project

All six training sessions were held at the office of the Prison Aftercare Supervision Section at CISCO Centre, Jalan Afifi.

Authors

Team Members were Lecturers from the School of Business and Accountancy, Ngee Ann Polytechnic.
T. Elangovan (Facilitator)
Joyce Tang (Team Leader/ S-L Facilitator)
Chee Hock Wah (Member – WIL Coordinator)
Lim Wei Kong, Steven (Member – Editor, Strategy and Resource)
Pang Loke Wee (Member – Development and Sourcing/ S-L Facilitator)

And learn they certainly do. Jeffrey Yang, who has led a number of such projects, describes how his students are transformed:

The development is very obvious, the timid become confident, and the confident feel that they can now take on the world.

Read the article:

More Than Construction Work
(PDF, 122kb, 6 pages)

Ching-Liang arrived in Phnom Penh first and described the situation for the other lecturer Eve, who arrived shortly after.

Ching-Liang with some of the ‘students’

From day 10 of the class:

The second half of the morning was fun! As part of the handover process to Evelyn, I made full use of the conveniences of Skype. I skyped Eve and got the students to talk to her. The objective was twofold:

1. To get them to hear Eve’s voice so that they won’t feel strange meeting her for the first time on Monday and vice versa.
2. To get them to practice having an English conversation on the telephone. This is a good practical lesson from yesterday’s lesson on Telephone English.

One of the civil servants using Skype

Read more from their blog:

» NP at Cambodia!

The value add: Rather than just learning the IT skills, the students were introduced to local community organisations. The students’ task was to produce Flash animations that would help the organisations. The animations would be used for publicity or for giving information. In this way, there is a purpose to the students’ efforts – and a clearer learning focus.

The outcome: Students learned a lot about volunteering for welfare organisations. They learned negotiation and project planning skills. They learned how to develop Flash applications in a real-world context, with real clients’ demands.

Read the whole story by Joyce Tang, lecturer in the Business & Information Technology division, School of Business and Accountancy:

» Service Learning: from Curriculum to Volunteerism
(PDF, 780 kB, 6 pages)

Examples of student-produced Flash movies for community organisations (includes sound):

Alzheimer’s Association Singapore
Youth Guidance Singapore
Restroom Association Singapore