Associate Professors Liaw Sok Ying, Shefaly Shorey, and Yanika Kowitlawakul received the Annual Digital Education Award (ADEA) (Team), Annual Digital Education Award (ADEA) (Individual), and Annual Teaching Excellence Award (ATEA) respectively.

Associate Professors Yanika Kowitlawakul, Liaw Sok Ying, and Shefaly Shorey, with Professor Emily Ang, Head of NUS Nursing

Three educators from NUS Nursing, Associate Professor Liaw Sok Ying, Director of Education at National University of Singapore’s Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies (NUS Nursing), Associate Professor Shefaly Shorey, Programme Director of Graduate Certificate in Child & Family Health in the Community of NUS Nursing, and Associate Professor Yanika Kowitlawakul, Programme Director for Year 3 undergraduate students at NUS Nursing, were awarded the University Teaching Awards, for their innovation, dedication and excellence in teaching.

The University Teaching Award Ceremony & Outstanding Educator Award Public Lectures 2022 were held on 21 September at the NUS College of Design and Engineering.

“It’s the first time three educators from NUS Nursing have each won a University Teaching Award”, says Professor Emily Ang, Head of NUS Nursing. It’s a delightful and heartening milestone for NUS Nursing, as their efforts are recognised, inspiring fellow educators and students.

Cultivating innovation in learning with virtual simulation: Assoc Prof Liaw Sok Ying, recipient of the ADEA 2022 Team Award

Associate Professor Liaw Sok Ying, Director of Education at National University of Singapore’s Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies (NUS Nursing) poses for a picture.

Collaborating with an interdisciplinary team from NUS, comprising of academic, clinicians, and computer technologists, Assoc Prof Liaw’s creativity and innovation in using digital technologies has a monumental impact in NUS Nursing and beyond. This earned her the Team Award for the Annual Digital Education Award (ADEA).

 She has led an interdisciplinary team to create a novel virtual reality simulation known as Create Real-time Experience and Teamwork in Virtual Environment (CREATIVE). Bringing together students from six diverse healthcare programmes (medical, nursing, pharmacy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and social work) to undertake an IPE course, it’s no doubt that she has positively contributed to the culture of learning in NUS Nursing.

 Her team is passionate in using simulation to replicate real-world clinical environments in teaching. They strongly believe virtual simulation can provide opportunities for students to engage in a deeper approach to learning. To date, their team has used CREATIVE to train over 1,200 medical and nursing students.

 Their work was further recognised upon receiving the Technology Acceleration Programme (TAP) grant and Ministry of Education, Tertiary Education Research Fund. With that, they aim to deepen the technological features by integrating artificial intelligent (AI) agents into CREATIVE. In addition, Assoc Prof Liaw has also been a valuable support to her team members, and enabled them to co-found and incorporate a NUS spin-off, known as VIRTUAI.

 Assoc Prof Liaw and her team pride themselves taking CREATIVE to new heights. From insight to impact, research to curriculum, practice, and finally, commercialisation, her whole journey with her team in CREATIVE is a testament to the award she has received. It illustrates her positive contributions and influence in the broader culture of teaching with innovative technology.

Enhancing teaching pedagogy with virtual reality and artificial intelligence: Assoc Prof Shefaly Shorey, recipient of the ADEA 2022 Individual Award

Associate Professor Shefaly Shorey, Programme Director of Graduate Certificate in Child & Family Health in the Community of NUS Nursing receiving her award.

Known to constantly innovate and enhance teaching pedagogies to suit the current needs of students and patients, it’s no wonder that Assoc Prof Shefaly Shorey spared no efforts to help students internalize and translate their learning into clinical practice.

 Her work is reflective of her teaching philosophy, which focuses on inspiring students to build their knowledge, skills and confidence so that they can achieve what they wish for in their lives. This means that intellectual rigor is always one of her top priorities, as she continuously prompts her students to question and evaluate their unexamined assumptions about patient health.

 As the recipient of the Individual Award for the Annual Digital Education Award (ADEA), her use of virtual reality in delivering module content for nursing students is pivotal in fostering adaptive and lifelong learning. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, she swiftly converted all teaching and learning materials, and assessments for a skills-based module, ‘Communication and Cultural Diversity’ online—introducing a new angle to teaching.

 The blend of Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence has been her latest adoption into the nursing curriculum. For instance, she has designed a user interface to access and practice communication skills with virtual patients, mirroring real-life clinical training that students undergo. She has also shared about the experiences of students and clinical stakeholders in their case scenarios using virtual reality to learn communication skills, at the NUS-Priority Research in Medical Education Conference.

 Also the winner of the Jove Innovation in Instruction Awards, her use of virtual reality in teaching has gathered international acclaim.

Advancing the learning of the wider nursing community: Assoc Prof Yanika Kowitlawakul, recipient of the Annual Teaching Excellence Award (ATEA)

Associate Professor Yanika Kowitlawakul, Programme Director for Year 3 undergraduate students at NUS Nursing, poses for a picture with her award.

Assoc Prof Yanika’s teaching philosophy centres on intrinsically motivating her students, to boost effective learning and their real-life application to help patients. From providing sterling classroom teaching to now concentrating on the effectiveness and larger impact of her teaching on students’ learning, Assoc Prof Yanika’s contributions to the modules and programmes in NUS Nursing have been invaluable.

 As both the clinical and module lead and coordinator, she has shaped the design, development, implementation and evaluation of teaching and assessment of some modules. How well taken up her module NUR 3114 Leadership and Management attests to this. Her role in developing the case scenarios for students’ practice, student tutorial guide and assessment criteria for leadership and management competency demonstrated her expertise in managing effective learning amongst students.

Aligning with her focus of using educational technologies as teaching and learning tools to promote students’ cognitive thinking, she is working on developing an Artificial Intelligence-Teaching/tutor Assistance System (AI-TAS). This initiative has been awarded a grant. Assoc Prof Yanika is looking forward to the system’s role in augmenting traditional teaching, harnessing both the value of humans and machines, to strengthen student engagement and intrinsic motivation for optimal learning outcomes.

 As a Guest Speaker at the Global Interprofessional Education Conference in Thailand, she shared about her teaching expertise, on the topic of “ Proactive Assessment to Enhance Learning in New Normal”. She is an effective and knowledgeable teacher who is warm and passionate, who not only ensures they enjoy their learning, but also genuinely cares for their wellbeing.