Programme Features

• The NIE Difference

  The NIE Difference

  The NIE programmes combine a legacy of educational excellence with the innovation and creativity that will propel our graduates into an exciting future. We develop academic skills alongside character building and leadership skills, with a strong emphasis on values. The NIE ecosystem fully supports student-teachers with world class resources and facilities. 

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  A Holistic Education

  NIE’s programmes offer a holistic education to student-teachers, emphasising values and character development. The Meranti Project gives student-teachers the opportunity to explore Character and Citizenship Education (CCE) in depth and understand the role of an educator in making this topic come alive in diverse classrooms. Student-teachers also develop greater self-awareness and are empowered to guide their students more effectively on graduation.

  The Group Endeavours in Service Learning (GESL) programme also offers student-teachers a well-rounded education, through service-learning projects that help them build empathy and social skills by understanding community needs. The programme places student-teachers in the unique position of being able to explore the social issues that surround education so that they are better aware of the broader context and responsibilities that they will face as educators.

  Holistic education at NIE also gives student-teachers the opportunity to network, learn from senior teachers and engage in essential dialogue concerning their roles and responsibilities as educators of a future generation.

  Certain features are unique to specific programmes, so do check out our various programme pages to find out more!

• Values-based Education (VBE)

  Values-based Education (VBE)

  Values-based Education (VBE) in NIE aims to offer a holistic education, create a learning environment that enhances the students’ knowledge and skills attainment, and develop teachers who possess positive values as well as social and relational skills. 

  VBE in NIE encompasses three core courses, namely the Meranti Project, Group Endeavours in Service Learning (GESL), and the Singapore Kaleidoscope (SgK). Through these courses, student teachers share and articulate their core beliefs, clarify their own assumptions, and challenge themselves to examine their personal values.

  The Meranti Project revolves around ‘Myself’ and aims to develop one’s resiliency, self-awareness, affirmation, and personal motivation. Through the Meranti Project, student teachers are able to understand care, trust, and friendliness, learn the importance of respecting others, and embrace diversity.

  GESL allows one to understand ‘My Community’ through a service-learning community engagement project. Student teachers will have the opportunity to learn to serve and learn by serving others.

  Finally, SgK allows students to develop an appreciation and understanding of national challenges and issues and develop their own perspectives of ‘My Nation, Singapore’.  Through the course, student teachers will be able to engage with different perspectives, experience Singapore through a range of lenses, and explore the social, cultural, physical, environmental, and geo-political landscape of Singapore.

  The ‘Expanding Environment’ approach (i.e., from self to community to nation) was adopted to structure these three courses and ensured that they were grounded on VBE in NIE. This approach allowed our student teachers to better visualise the relevance and focus of each course within the larger VBE framework as well as reference their learning to the V³SK model that underpins the philosophy of teacher education at NIE.  

  NIE utilises digital tools to make VBE engaging and relevant for student teachers.  What student teachers learn from these courses are captured and synthesised in a single, dynamic digital platform.  Developed in December 2018, the VBE platform is a web-based platform that allows student teachers to aggregate and integrate their learning experiences from The Meranti Project, GESL, and SgK.

  It is designed to be intuitive and easy to use so that it becomes a one-stop platform wherein student teachers can learn at their own pace. It is also interactive and works like a typical social media platform (e.g., FB, Instagram) where users can give comments as well as share pictures and videos with their peers and tutors. With this innovative platform, we hope our student teachers will enjoy and find greater meaning in their VBE learning journey in NIE.

  
  The "Expanding Environment" Approach

• BUILD Internship

  The BUILD (Building University Interns for Leadership Development) programme serves to provide a structured process for the students of the Teaching Scholars Programme at NIE to derive optimal experiences and benefits from learning and serving with relevant institutions, organisations, agencies and companies so as to develop them in their future roles as educational leaders.

  Read more at the BUILD programme page here.

• International Practicum

  Student teachers get the invaluable experience to be attached to an overseas partner university for a 5-week Teaching Assistantship (TA) stint. During this stint, student teachers will be attached to schools in Illinois, Aarhus, Copenhagen, Zurich, Taipei, Waikato, Helsinki, Stockholm, Osaka, Hong Kong and Linkoping. Besides observing their Cooperating Teachers' (CTs) teach, they will get a chance to co-teach some of the lessons. In addition, they will have the opportunity to experience a different educational system and culture. It is hoped that this stint abroad will broaden their knowledge of teaching and learning and add a global dimension to their perspectives on education and the education system. The ultimate goal is to develop into a more global-minded and culturally-sensitive individual.
  
  Read more at the International Practicum page here. 

• NIE Innovative Pedagogy

  In the light of changing needs in Singapore’s education system and developments in the global educational landscape, NIE recognises its crucial responsibility in developing teachers for 21st century education. As we raise the education standards to meet our constantly evolving needs, our 21st century teacher education will also need to evolve to inculcate the 21st century competencies to develop teachers who will bring about the desired outcomes of 21st century education. Thus, 21st century teacher education calls for innovative pedagogies to bring about 21st century learning outcomes. click icons to find out more about our pedagogical appoaches     Learners today, live in a technology and media-suffused environment. This environment is characterised by instant access to information anytime anywhere, the ability to stay constantly connected and opportunity to collaborate and make individual contributions on an unprecedented scale. As new technologies emerge, learners need to learn how to use that technology quickly, appropriately and must be able to exhibit a range of functional and critical thinking skills related to information, media and technology. At NIE, several learning tools/technology have been developed or adopted based on their affordances that support the innovative design of our programmes and learning environment for effective teaching and learning in the 21st century. NIE mGeo NIE mVideo NIE WellSaid GeNIEus click icons to find out more about our tools and technologies In NIE, our learning environments are borderless and support a ‘porous’ school concept where seamless learning takes place across a variety of learning settings (such as formal and informal learning, individual and social learning, and learning in physical and digital environments). By leveraging on mobile technology, students can carry out cross-space learning anywhere and anytime. With the ease of access of information via Blackboard or mVideo, students can learn beyond a brick-and-mortar setting. NIE has nurturing environment with a culture of lifelong learning. With the use of innovative pedagogical design principles, ICT is being infused into our lessons.   click to find out more about our collaborative classrooms

• Practicum

  Developing teaching competence through practice

  The Practicum (or teaching practice) enables student teachers to acquire beginning teaching competencies and is a core component of every initial teacher preparation programme. During Practicum, student teachers are guided and assisted by their cooperating teachers and NIE supervisors through systematic observations, assistance and advice. They will have opportunities to become involved with and actively participate in all aspects of the school's activities. Through these experiences, they will learn to link theory and practice, and to acquire the understanding and skills necessary for teaching effectively in a range of classroom situations.

  Generally, Practicum takes the form of a shorter period of attachment to schools for school experience and teaching assistantship, and another of a longer duration for block teaching. The duration of each of these components varies from programme to programme, and at different stages of the initial teacher preparation. For every practicum, arrangements are made with the schools (with input from MOE) to provide opportunities for the student teachers to teach their subjects of specialisation to intact classes.

  The Associate Dean, Practicum & Partnerships (AD/P&P) oversees the Practicum and also looks at ways of enhancing communication channels between NIE and schools.

  To find out more about the Practicum for the programme that you are enrolled in, you can visit the Practicum home page.

• Professional Practice & Inquiry (PPI)

  NIE’s Professional Practice and Inquiry initiative seeks to prepare teachers who are cognizant of their identity as teacher, able to inquire into their own practice and draw on theories and research to innovate their teachings that improve the learning of their students. As such, the PPI initiative straddles across all courses and is integrated with the student teachers’ Focused Conversations during their practicum experience Essentially, we nurture teachers to espouse values informed by professional teaching beliefs, are reflective and thoughtful of their practices and have the drive to increase their professional competencies as teachers.

  Read more at the PPI page here.

• Semester Exchange

  National Institute of Education (NIE) is a leading teacher training institution. We offer broad-based and multi-disciplinary curricula to our student teachers. To complement our diverse student population, we offer comprehensive global education opportunities with renowned universities like Helsinki University, Linkoping University, Stockholm University, VIA College, Boston College, Hong Kong Institute of Education and Sydney University. Student teachers can choose to do a semester at our partner universities to gain a more international outlook in the hope that they develop into global-minded and culturally-sensitive individuals. 
  
  Read more at the Semester Exchange page here.