This week on Wednesday, after delivering my last class before the long Easter weekend, I felt like the quiet after the big storm. I have been rushing from preparing for one lecture to the next, coming up with questions, answers and explanations, planning classes, preparing videos, trying to mark papers and watch student video assignments. This is usually tough but manageable when all goes well. But when I plan all these things, I usually do not take into account things that not all things may go well. And some things did not go well. I got sick again and literally spent more days being unwell this year than being healthy. And I made another mistake when administering my team quiz yesterday, which upset me greatly because it affected student learning and created more work for me.

 

I know that I am not alone in feeling exhausted. The semester is also very challenging for students. If unexpected things happen (which most people do not plan for), such as students discovering that a course requires much more work than they had anticipated, or students falling ill, they struggle and suffer.

 

Hence, for the first time I really appreciated the Wellness day that the University has implemented this week on Thursday. Having a break for mental recovery and regaining energy is something that is essential. And so I feel very happy to have some time on my own over the next days to do things that I enjoy and care about, and to also be able to enjoy the things that I have to do.

What also made me happy this week was attending my friend’s teaching seminar, which is part of his application process for a lecturer position. His class was simply beautiful, and I felt happy because in Orlando I found someone who cares about the same things that I care about – getting the students to learn meaningful things and getting them to solve problems. Discovering that someone else shares our values and insights is always very exciting.

This week I gave a presentation at a postgraduate student workshop about the PhD qualifying examination. This event was organized by the School of Medicine Postgraduate Committee and my task was to give a talk about delivering an oral presentation as part of the PhD qualifying exam. I felt happy to once again be asked by the students to help with their workshop.

 

Based on the feedback and my own perception, my talk went quite well. As usual, my presentation style was far from perfect. But in the end I feel that what matters most is to get the audience to listen and be engaged and to deliver content that is actually helpful and meaningful. What helped greatly is that over the years through my teaching, I have thought a lot about this topic. As a result, I was able to share my own insights and opinions, as opposed to present some knowledge that students could easily look up online.

This week we again held our annual Young Scientists’ Symposium for Polytechnic Life Science students at Science Centre Singapore. As in previous years, I bore again the main load of organizing the event. But it was worth the effort. The symposium was once again very successful, with many students thanking us and commenting at the end of the day that they enjoyed the event and found it meaningful.

 

Of course, this was only possible thanks to the help of a lot of people, including the members of our organizing committee, our 22 judges as well as various volunteering students or former students dedicating their time to moderate, give career talks or take photos.


The oral presentation winners, Aditi and Kiran from Ngee Ann Polytechnic

 

Worthy of special notice was my former student Josabella’s presentation, in which she advised the final year Polytechnic students on deciding their future path and gave some insider University study tips. I was totally blown away by her presentation. What she shared was so interesting, meaningful and well presented that I, and I am sure most students, were sitting at the edge of our seats and following each of her points. I never expected that Josabella is such an amazing presenter!

I was also happy about my own talk. It was difficult to come up with good ideas for it, but what helped greatly is that I started early and worked continuously to improve it!

 

This week has been especially stressful because I had a lot of things on my mind. As a result, I did not have time to do things that I really enjoy, which for me is mainly to spend time on my own outdoors. This has made it difficult to feel truly happy.

 

Nonetheless, I did not lose my motivation or energy, and the reason is probably that despite all the work, I still had a hobby to look forward to every day.

 

My biggest hobby (and to some degree obsession) ever since I was 14 has been music, in particular records. I remember how I first started to go to record stores after school when I was in High School. Even though back in East Germany only records approved by our government and pressed locally were available, entering the records stores always had a magical feeling for me.

 

Since then, I have visited many record shops in many countries, and the amazing thing is that I remember (almost) all of them (even though my memory for most other things is usually rather poor). And I still have many old records to remind me of these visits.

 

More recently I have become a huge fan of LP replica cd’s. There are a number of things that fascinate me about them. They make me feel like having a vinyl record to look at, while they are much easier to store and to listen to. I somehow also like the fact that they are a small version of the real thing, which allows me to somehow see the beauty of these records in a different light.

On the other hand, why we feel excited about certain things is often hard to explain logically. We just like certain things, which probably has a lot to do with past experiences and memories and with associations that these things bring up. But I do know that for me, there is nothing like holding a physical record (or replica cd) in my hand and play it.

 

Music is something that makes me feel excited every single day. I remember my time serving in the army back in East Germany when what I disliked most was to have nothing to look forward on a day. Every day was like the previous one: wake up early, go for morning exercise, attend some classes, do various exercises, eat and go back to our room to spend the night with 10 other guys and finally sleep.

 

I believe that we need something every day that we enjoy doing, even if it is for a short time. In the army, there was no opportunity for that.

 

I feel that if we have a lifelong hobby that we feel passionate about we are very fortunate. While it is often difficult to understand why people are so passionate about specific things, there is no better way to connect with others than realizing that we share our hobby.

 

This month the Projector cinema had a special Wim Wenders showcase and I realized that I really enjoy his movies.

 

I watched Wim Wenders’s new movie, “Perfect Days”, which dealt with two important questions: What are perfect days like? And how do we deal with unexpected things?

 

During the first hour of the movie nothing really happened and we were merely shown the everyday routine of Hirayama, the main hero of the movie. His daily routine consisted of very simple things, his work as a toilet cleaner, listening to music, reading, and taking care of his plants. Yet, I enjoyed this hour because while watching Hirayama I was able to explore my own daily routine and reflect on my idea of perfect days in my own life.

 

Watching Hirayama’s life and reflecting on it strengthened my belief that a simple life is a beautiful life. And the less we have, in terms of possessions and distractions, the easier it is to achieve.

 

However, during the second part of the movie, Hirayama’s daily routine became interrupted. He experienced a number of adversaries that had the potential to throw him out of balance. But amazingly, he managed to not treat them as adversaries, but to accept them as part of life and in a way to make them a part of his daily routine. I must say that I felt very inspired by this.

 

I already wrote about “Paris, Texas”, which I re-watched on a big screen this week. Knowing the movie and in particular knowing the ending helped me to recognize the significance of some scenes. For instance, there was one scene when Travis, the main character of the movie, talked about his mother being an ordinary woman and his dad trying to turn her into someone she was not. Trying to turn someone else into the person we want them to be is probably the cause of many conflicts. And it was precisely what broke Travis’ relationship with his wife.

 

Finally there was “Alice in the cities”, a movie from the 1970s playing (mostly) in Germany, which made it even more relatable. It was the story of a newspaper journalist, played by Rüdiger Vogler, who went to America to write a story about the country. Upon returning to Germany, he unexpectedly had to take care of a girl. The girl and taking care of someone taught him some important lessons.

 

In the first part of the movie, while still in New York City and preparing for his departure back to Germany, he visited an old girlfriend. He tells her how he hated the small town America that unfolded once he drove out of New York City. Every town looked the same and one hotel was just like the others. Above all, he hated the television, which dominates life in small town America, with its horrible advertisements and a programme that never questions anything. He felt that the television programme was in itself an advertisement for the dull life people are living.

 

His friend replied in a very profound way. She told him that if we are going to places with the expectation that they will reveal what we expect and make us feel good about ourselves, we are bound to experience disappointment. We have to learn to like ourselves first, before we can embrace a different culture with its charms and flaws.

 

She tells him that how we perceive our environment and live our lives is our own decision. She says: “If you come to an intersection in New York City it is like coming to a clearing in a forest”, and ends with the words “I can’t help you. I don’t know how to live either. Nobody ever showed me how.”

For the rest of the movie, while spending time with the little girl traveling to Germany, it was ironically the little girl who showed him how to live, how to accept things the way they are and enjoy them and how to love himself. I loved the very symbolic scene where the girl takes a picture of the journalist so that he would actually get to know and love himself.

 

I look forward to discovering more Wim Wenders movies!

 

My main goal this semester is to make learning more fun, mainly by making classes more focused on student participation. How have I succeeded in this? To keep track, I have kept some e-diary in which I reflected about the various classes.

 

 

The first lecture is always difficult. While I usually look forward to teaching classes, I do not look forward to the first lecture. In fact, I often feel somewhat scared.

 

It is well known that students to a large extent make up their mind about a lecturer during the first lecture, or even during the first few minutes of the first lecture. Hence, I tend to be stressed because I feel I need to prove my expertise and ability to teach.

 

What makes the first lecture also difficult is that there is little I can refer to. Naturally, it would be ideal to start with a student activity, as opposed to starting to lecture. However, interesting (which usually implies challenging) activities are based on applying prior-learned concepts. But in the first lecture there aren’t any.

 

In addition, although my main focus is on interpreting research data and applying learned concepts to research problems, I feel reluctant to overwhelm students at the start of the first lecture by throwing some research figures at them immediately.

 

In past years, I often started the first lecture with some humorous reflections about previous semesters, often discussing student feedback comments. I no longer do that because I feel that it is a waste of valuable lecture time. Instead, I try to provide more meaningful messages later throughout the semester.

 

Hence, at the beginning of my first class I ended up discussing some actual cell biology content. Although I did this in an interactive manner, there were several shortcomings.

 

Firstly, the discussed topic (transmembrane transport and membrane permeability) must have felt somewhat random to students. Discussing problems in a somewhat random fashion and letting students make their own connection is part of my general teaching approach, because it mimics the real life situation students will encounter. It also resembles the natural way through which children learn. But at the beginning of the semester the students are not used to this and probably feel confused.

 

Secondly, when I teach about cell biology related content, there is always the chance that students ask questions about things that I do not know. These things tend to not be very important, as students are merely asking for more knowledge that could be easily looked up.

 

I indeed received these types of questions, and some I could not answer. More importantly, I started the semester by sending a message that I wanted to avoid, that detailed knowledge is important. What I really want students to learn is to figure out detailed knowledge on their own, and not delegate this task to me by asking me to explain.

 

Hence, next time around I will do things differently during the first lecture and use an approach that I apply frequently throughout the semester – let students do what I call a “self-learn quiz” about membrane permeability and immunofluorescence. Here, students are supposed to work in groups where they are given problems that they need to solve. Immediately afterwards they are provided with the relevant explanations. The advantage of this approach is that students first try to figure out the problem by themselves. As a result, they are more interested in finding out where they may have gone wrong and are likely to remember a concept better. In addition, in this way the first lecture sends a much better message about the course to the students.

 

In “lecture” 2 there was literally no lecturing. We spent most of the class time to discuss problems and this went really well. The students were engaged, paid attention and I managed to explain clearly. I relied much on an approach that I have not used much in the past, letting students discuss problems first with their neighbours before discussing the topic in class. In the past, I usually posed questions and tried to solicit answers immediately. Although this approach takes less time, it is usually the same students who call out suggestions. By letting students work in groups first, all students get to express their thoughts (to their neighbours) and the students spend more time thinking about a problem.

 

 

In preparation for this lecture I spent a lot of time to assign the student groups for our team activities. The assignment of students to groups is based on their introduction video. I try to match students based on their personality and apparent enthusiasm as well as a diverse academic background and performance.

 

Our first group activity was a team-based quiz, which was supposed to be graded, although only with a low percentage. However, I messed up administering the quiz and hence was unable to count the quiz as a graded assignment.

 

Nonetheless, the students were still able to do the quiz. In the end, it worked out fine because the quiz provided a good chance for students to practice without feeling any pressure. The only downside is that I now need to come up with one additional quiz.

 

The first part of the lecture consisted of in-class teaching and went exceptionally well. There were quite a few activities and I was very happy to see that the students participated actively. I hence believe that in this lecture I did achieve my goal of making learning and attending lectures fun for students.

 

 

In this lecture we did mostly exercises and little “lecturing”. Surprisingly, the students enjoyed this very much and it turned out to be my best class so far in this semester. It confirms my belief that the best way to engage students is to let them solve challenging problems.

 

In fact, it reminds me of my math classes in school, where one of my teachers used to give more challenging problems to the students who finished early. Because of these challenges, the classes were fun and I actually remember them.

 

One incredible thing that has happened this semester (and is different from past semesters) is that the students participate very actively. They are very willing to speak out loud during class and suggest answers, or even ask questions. I am not really sure what the reason is, but perhaps it has to do with including more group discussions, leading students to adopt a more interactive mindset.

In the subsequent two lectures I incorporated the use of ChatBots to solve research related problems. This was an illuminating experience that I plan to write about separately.

 

A few weeks into the semester I also realized that despite trying to make learning more fun, the lecture attendance is relatively low on days where we do not have compulsory group activities. Many students choose to watch the online recording of the classes, even though I emphasized on several occasions that by only watching recordings, the students miss out on important practice opportunities.

 

But in the end it is most important to focus on the students who do come and make it fun for them. In addition, it may also be a reflection of how students make choices, which is often not based on whether learning is fun. Instead, many students focus on what are the best ways to succeed and consider which approach is likely the most efficient and perhaps convenient. And there may also be students who decide that other things are more important to them. In fact, I used to be one of those students in University, as doing my research projects usually had the priority over attending classes.

Watching Abang Adik last week inspired me to make a short day trip to Mersing in Malaysia. One main reason was that I really enjoy bus rides. Another was that I was ready for a change of my daily routine.

 

After my recent trip to Kuala Lumpur I was reminded that most of Malaysia is very different from its capital. In Mersing life seems to have stood still. Life also seems to be much slower, and virtually nobody seems to walk.

 

This week I watched a new movie from Malaysia, Abang Adik, the story of two Malaysian brothers without an identity card. It was a movie about the life and struggle of undocumented Malaysians and about the stress they experience on a daily basis. It was also a movie about the importance of love and caring, and what difference it can make especially under conditions of adversity.

 

Lack of legal identity is a major problem in Malaysia. According to the New Naratif website, in Sabah, the state in Malaysia with the highest stateless population, one out of every three people is undocumented. This corresponds to about one million people.

Last year, a local study on screen time for infants by researchers from the Department of Paediatrics at the NUS Medical School and the A*STAR Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences grabbed quite a bit of media attention. The research is part of the GUSTO (“Growing Up in Singapore towards Healthy Outcomes”) cohort study and found that excessive screen time for infants is linked to an impaired development of cognitive functions that is still apparent in children at a later age.

 

In particular, the study found that excessive infant screen time is associated with a deficiency in executive functions. These refer to a category of cognition including working memory, cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control, planning, problem-solving and sustained attention.

 

It is obvious why this study is relevant: screen time for infants has been on the rise. For instance, a study from 2019 compared screen time of American Children between 1997 and 2014. Screen time included watching television or using other video devices, electronic video games and computer–related activities, and in 2014 additionally time spent on mobile devices and children’s learning devices. The total screen time of 0 to 2 year old infants rose from 1.32 hours per day to 3.05 hours per day.

 

Notably, the increase of time spent watching television was even more dramatic. In 1997, infants spent on average 0.56 hours per day watching TV, in 2014 it was 2.62 hours per day.

 

The time spent on mobile devices in 2014 amounted to only 0.37 hours. This proportion is likely much higher in 2023.

 

When looking specifically at 6-month-old infants, another study from the US (Tomopoulos et al., 2011) found that of 259 infants, 249 (96.1%) were exposed to media at 6 months of age, watching media on average 2.5 hours per day. Increased media exposure at 6 months was associated with lower cognitive development at the age of 14 months.

 

The study by Tomopoulos looked specifically at infants with mothers with low socioeconomic status, which is known to be associated with increased screen time in children. When looking at a mixed population and their infants, Wiltshire et al. (2021) found that only half of the infants were exposed to screens at 6 months. Among the children who did view screens, the average daily exposure time was 3 hours and 70% had a screen in the room where they slept.

 

Media usage time in infants is likely not much lower in Singapore. For instance, a study by Aishworiya et al. (2019) found that in 2010 the average amount of television viewing at 12 months was 2.0 hours per day. In 2010 television was the main media available to infants. This makes me wonder what current exposure times are like when portable screen devices like mobile phones and tablets are literally available anywhere anytime. They also seem to be used a lot of the time, especially at times when parents used to interact with their children, such as during meals.

I watched a new production of “Those who can’t, teach” by the students of NUS King Edward VII Hall, a play about the difficulties encountered by teachers and students in a Singapore public secondary school. The play had some very powerful scenes, due to great acting but also as a result of the very effective use of music. And the play had the effect to make me think, in particular about what it is like to be a schoolteacher in such a challenging environment.

 

I personally prefer plays and movies that focus almost exclusively on the meaning, and not on making a drama entertaining and funny. I do know that many theatre and moviegoers want to be entertained. But I find that too much entertainment can hinder true reflection about the highlighted problems and prevent us from taking the issues seriously.

 

Nonetheless, the play did make me think, and most importantly about the question of what a teacher can affect? When I look back onto my school years, I realize (with some guilt) that I don’t remember many (any?) instances where my teachers changed me or where they gave me personal advice.

 

The only teacher whom I remember for really making a difference to me was my primary school teacher. She understood how to make learning fun. I remember her math games, where two students, standing at the back of the classroom, competed in shouting out math answers first. Whoever knew the correct answer first, could advance one step on the parquet floor. Whoever reached the front of the classroom first was the winner. And I remember how in some of her classes literally everyone was swinging their arms to be called upon and be able to speak.

 

A few years ago I was lucky to witness my sister, a primary school teacher, teaching lessons in her school. I will not forget her math class, because it was an eye-opening experience. It showed me what a great teacher can achieve.

 

First, there was the excitement of the students. My sister managed to achieve this by playing games and making learning fun. The class started with students (not the teacher!) quizzing one student with math questions. The students were very eager to come up with their own questions and ask them. As a result, everyone participated and everyone learned.

 

Another great game was to have a group competition between girls versus boys in answering short answer math questions. Compared to individual competitions, group competitions are a very effective strategy to get all students involved. What is more, winning becomes a collective experience, promoting togetherness, whereas losing is not due to individual failure and hence does not affect personal confidence.

 

Secondly, her class really involved all students. My sister achieved this by ensuring that all students are constantly on the same page with everyone else. This sometimes required to call upon individual students who seemed distracted. My sister was also encouraging towards all students and importantly, she ensured that everyone is challenged at any given point, for instance by giving faster students additional tasks (e.g. explaining problems to slower students).

 

In short, I felt inspired about how much a teacher can achieve. However, that this is not the rule became very obvious when after the class my sister led me to a closed door of another classroom, from where we could hear the children screaming with apparently nobody paying attention to the teacher. This matches the experience in many of my lessons in school.

 

Despite being able to recall only few examples where teachers had an impact in my school days, teachers sometimes help students in ways that are not obvious at the time, but that can make a huge difference in the long run, as illustrated in the example of Teck Liang in the play.

 

Teck Liang did not want to learn and only caused trouble, making the work of his teacher nearly unbearable. Yet, the teacher did not give up on him. She could see through his disruptive conduct and understand how his difficult family background affected his behavior.

 

That adopting this mindset is difficult is an understatement. Most teachers would give up on highly disruptive students with time, and this is perfectly understandable. Yet, the patience that Teck Liang’s teacher displayed had a lasting impact. It made the difference for him from having no future to being able to lead a life with choices.

 

Eventually as a grown-up, Teck Liang recognized and acknowledged what his teacher had done for him. But the teacher would have needed some acknowledgement or encouragement at the time of dealing with the difficult student. Instead, the difficulties she encountered added to the personal problems she was experiencing.

 

This example helped me to recognize what kind of difficulties teachers face. It also made me reflect on how I tend to choose my own attention.

 

I realized that the focus of my attention in University is exactly the opposite compared to the school setting. I tend to primarily focus on the eager and enthusiastic students, on those who want to learn. In contrast, a very good student in the play (Raymond) pointed out that teachers “only” (or at least disproportionally) focus on the disruptive students. They often have no other choice. On the other hand, in University I do not need to worry about the students who are not motivated because they do not affect the learning of the rest of the class.

 

Focussing on the enthusiastic and appreciative students in the higher education setting is human nature. But it highlights one great limitation of University education. Students are for the most part left on their own when they face difficulties or lack motivation.

 

In real life people with difficulties and lack of motivation of course face similar problems. This only further emphasizes the need to help all students as a University lecturer, or better yet to provide them with ways to help themselves.

 

In the past my approach when supervising unmotivated undergrad students in my lab has been to shift my attention to other students who are more enthusiastic. The better approach would be to help the unmotivated students, to find out what is hindering their success and help them to discover what motivates them.

 

As a lecturer, I often encourage students who are enthusiastic and do well. But how often do I provide encouraging messages to students who struggle, seem lost and lack commitment? The answer is rarely. It is easy to come up with excuses, like there are just too many students. But in the end, it is about helping one student at a time. I cannot help every student, but that should not stop me from trying to help some students.

My sister Silke now …

It is high time to look at my past year’s achievements and think about what goals I have for 2024!

When looking at the past year, I realize that I actually have achieved quite a lot. My main work-related goals, creating good student experiences in Cell Biology and in the Young Scientists Symposium, were quite successful. Also, supervising my undergraduates in the lab was fun and yielded good results for them.


All our UROPS students achieved A- or higher. Well done!

Not everything was successful, though. For instance, there has not been too much progress in our research and even though I put a lot of effort into promoting healthy living in our department, there was little response.

I had some personal achievements in my running that I am quite happy with. I also managed to set priorities and focus on few goals that are really important for me. Thus, I concentrated on just one type of coaching – running coaching, with the result that our training group grew and the quality of the sessions has improved. I also focussed on learning one language and do it as intensely as I can, as well as on making progress with writing my education book.

However, I am most proud of the personal achievements in my life over the past year, getting rid of lots of personal belongings, coming up with solutions for changing my diet that I can actually maintain, succeeding in finding ways to buy less (and think less about buying), and having a better work – off time balance.

Have I become happier as a result of all this? I have certainly achieved a more stable mood with less mental disruptions. However, in order to feel truly happy, we also need to find and do special things that make us feel truly happy, which brings me to my plans for 2024.

In 2023, I have been working on various projects, many of which still have to (hopefully) come to fruition. I have also realized the importance of only focussing on those things that are most important to me right now. Based on this, it then becomes quite obvious what my goals for the coming year are. I want to continue and complete what I have been doing over the past year and succeed in areas that were not so successful over the past year.

Specifically, these goals include becoming fluent in Spanish, finishing my book, creating a great student experience in LSM2233, making progress in my running coaching and building of an NUS running community as well as simplifying my life more.

However, the biggest goal for the coming year is to consciously try to live happily. Specifically, I would like to raise my daily average happiness score from currently slightly above “5” (out of 10) up to “6”. This means going from days where my mood is not super happy, but also not depressed (= a score of “5”) to mostly days where the overriding mood of the day was happy and I felt truly happy at least once (= a score “6”). This sounds rather challenging and it will take some new approaches to achieve this.

 

For the past few months I have been contemplating about my daily schedule of tasks that is so demanding that it becomes difficult for me to slot in time to do fun things. As a result, I have been feeling rushed, impatient and stressed. I have also not been able to enjoy doing my daily tasks themselves, but instead I have been trying to finish them as quickly as possible so that I still have time for other things.

 

What I have tried to do previously is to reduce my daily tasks to those that are really important to me or for doing my job well. However, even after prioritizing my tasks based on these criteria, there were still too many tasks left.

 

This week I came up with a radical solution and change in my life. From this week onwards, I plan to have two off days each week, Wednesdays and Saturdays. The only goal- or work-related things I can do on my off days are learning Spanish and doing some work for my teaching.

 

To come up with this potential solution, I considered that my previous approaches to reduce my daily tasks or change my mindset towards approaching them did not really produce the results I wanted. Hence, I came up with what may appear to be a fairly obvious solution. However, although it might seem fairly obvious, I don’t think it is a common thing that people with many tasks or goals do.

 

How has this approach worked out so far? The off days were good, but not amazing. This may partly be because I have not been feeling too well over the past couple of weeks and because it has been raining on most of my off days. This made it difficult to do the activities that I normally enjoy the most, doing things outdoors.

 

However, the biggest change I noted was on my ‘work’ days. Knowing that I have off-days scheduled made me feel much more energetic. I also felt less stressed because I did not worry about having to slot in some off time into my day. Instead, I could truly focus on my tasks.

 

This week I also made a mini-visit to Germany to see my family (including my parents and sister in the picture below), and I realized that being together in person is very different from making video calls!



Although my parents home looks nice in the winter, I still prefer to spend time there during the summer!