In March, CTLE had the pleasure of inviting Prof. Robert K. Kamei from Duke-NUS Medical School, National University of Singapore to give a professional development workshop as well as a student lecture.

The first event, ‘Applying the Science of Learning for Educators’ was held on13 March and attracted about 40 academic staff. Prof. Kamei shared his insights on applying the science of learning to become a strategic teacher. Citing various research findings, he emphasized that, contrary to common assumptions, learning does not come naturally to individuals and that the most effective learning strategies are often unintuitive. He also advocated a holistic perspective that considers individual goals, motivation and mindsets, not just isolated techniques.

In the workshop, Prof. Kamei stressed that effective learning is often not easily recognizable and suggested that teachers would need to prepare their students to learn from their lectures and that teachers should help students learn from recalling but not recognition.  (Watch Video)

The second event, held on 14 March, was a lecture for students and attracted about 70 UM students. Prof. Kamei provided students with holistic insights into strategic learning.

He engaged with students with various memory activities such as ‘Animal Farm’ (a series of animal photos), two-second advantage and a gorilla video challenge. Prof. Kamei explained that every learner is different and needs a personalized approach to learn effectively. He explored the science of metacognition and self-regulation, emphasized the importance of lifestyle factors like health, well-being and sleep, and offered specific evidence-based strategies that students could directly apply, such as chunking, mnemonics and encoding specificity.

 (Watch Video)