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1. What is Block Teaching?
2. Are there any changes to the curriculum?
3. How does the workload of students change with Block Teaching?
4. How does Block Teaching improve the quality of work?
5. How does Block Teaching emulate Industry conditions?
6. How will Block Teaching benefit students who would like to coincide their vacation plans with their family’s?
7. Does the time-table change?
8. Does this mean students have to be in school from 9am to 9pm everyday?
9. What about students who need to complete their projects beyond scheduled class time?
10. What about SIP and OSIP?
11. How does Block Teaching help students who are behind in their CUs?
12. What happens if students fail a subject? Do they get to do a supplementary?
13. Does the 85% attendance rule still apply?
1. What is Block Teaching?
Block teaching is the re-organisation of the school year into approximately 12 ‘blocks’ of 4 weeks each, instead of two semesters of 15 weeks each.
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2. Are there any changes to the curriculum?
There is no loss of curriculum time during Block Teaching. Changes to the curriculum are kept at a minimum.
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3. How does the workload of students change with Block Teaching?
Subjects are now taught in blocks of 4 weeks instead of over a 15-week semester. Students who used to taking 6 – 7 subjects per semester will now take at most 2 subjects per block. That may not translate into a lighter workload but it gives the student an opportunity to focus on the 1 or 2 subjects at hand and give their best in the projects assigned. Compared to the semestral system, the student no longer needs to hand in 6-7 projects at a time.
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4. How does Block Teaching improve the quality of work?
It has been noticed that taking 6-7 subjects at a go and having to submit 6-7 projects within a tight time frame does take its toll on the quality of the work submitted. This is understandable as most students would be creatively stretched thin to produce good work for all the 6 to 7 subjects. In some instances, students may select certain projects to concentrate their energies on, unfortunately neglecting and possibly even failing the other subjects. This would affect their GPA standing and their progress in school.
With only 1 to 2 projects to manage in Block Teaching, students would be able to concentrate on these projects. They would be able to give more dedicated time to these 2 projects and their energies would not be as diffused as it otherwise would be. With good time management and planning skills, students are more likely to produce better quality work and do better in the long run.
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5. How does Block Teaching emulate Industry conditions?
Block Teaching mimics the project management timeline in industry where designers work with short deadlines. The flow of work in Block Teaching allows students to ease themselves into the pace of work usually required in the professional arena, training them to think faster on their feet and conceptualise ideas more efficiently in a realistic time frame.
Design and art are interconnected. However, unlike the fine artist, designers are faced with deadlines in the professional world dictated by the tight turnaround time demanded of the industry. Block Teaching gives students the opportunity to experience and hone their skills in an environment and project timeline as near as it can be to the real world. Adjusting to the needs of industry upon graduation and making that transition from school to work will be much easier and smoother for students under the Block Teaching system.
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6. How will Block Teaching benefit students who would like to coincide their vacation plans with their family’s?
The current polytechnic vacation periods has a partial overlap with primary and secondary school vacation periods. Vacation blocks can now be planned to fit the usual school holiday vacations, thus enabling students who wish to spend time with their families to do so.
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7. Does the time-table change?
Yes. The time table is reconfigured such that students will now focus on these 1 or 2 subjects, attending class and seeing the lecturers in charge of these subjects, on a daily basis. Classes are now conducted over 4 main time slots in the school day: 0900–1200hrs, 1200-1500hrs, 1500-1800hrs and 1800-2100hrs.
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8. Does this mean students have to be in school from 9am to 9pm everyday?
No. Block Teaching is organized such that the students would only attend classes between 0900-1800hrs or 1200-2100hrs.
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9. What about students who need to complete their projects beyond scheduled class time?
Students are welcome to utilize any of the school’s facilities from 0900-2100. Students could easily request for extension of opening hours through their lecturers. These requests should reach Manager/Admin latest by 1600hrs on the day of need.
Most projects do not require “excessive” time to complete. However, students do get passionately involved when preparing their submissions. This could result in long hours, a common trend in top design schools. While the school encourages students to submit their best effort, students are also encouraged to take care of their health as fatigue can retard the creative process.
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10. What about SIP and OSIP?
Under the previous system, Students’ Internship Programme (SIP) and Overseas Students’ Internship Programme (OSIP) were 8-week stints in industry. Temasek Design School, in consultation with industry partners, is working on an extended 16 weeks of SIP/OSIP to be implemented fully in 2008. This will allow an intern to learn and participate fully in the work processes of a real-time design studio.
In the semestral system, a longer SIP / OSIP period of 16 weeks would be challenging because SIP and OSIP is normally conducted during the vacation periods. Block Teaching allows the school to conduct SIP / OSIP continually throughout the year. The longer industry stint will give students a richer work experience and provide a better opportunity for learning. The continuous flow of interns into industry will facilitate involvement in exciting and significant projects.
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11. How does Block Teaching help students who are behind in their CUs?
Students can opt to take subjects during a planned vacation block, if necessary. In other words, they can ‘choose’ if they want to take the vacation or not, or study and work their way through it. So the pace of learning is entirely within the hands of the students. They choose if they would like to accelerate the learning process or if they need to ‘catch up’ to make up the CUs necessary for graduation.
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12. What happens if students fail a subject? Do they get to do a supplementary?
In Block Teaching, there are no supplementary exams. Design courses are course-work based where students are continually assessed. If a student fails a subject, it would mean that the student did not have an adequate grasp of the subject. The student will take the subject again in another block. Students are allowed two (2) attempts to pass each subject.
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13. Does the 85% attendance rule still apply?
No. In the past students had to be in class at least 85% of the time. If class attendance falls below 85%, they faced being debarred from any assessment.
With Block Teaching, debarment no longer applies. Temasek Design School believes that students’ attendance is an attitude issue and should not be linked to an academic outcome. Absenteeism concerns a very small minority in our school and we believe that the larger majority of our students are matured and responsible, who made their choice to come here to engage fully in learning what they love.
Because Block Teaching is intensively taught, it would not be in the students’ best interests to deliberately skip classes. Ultimately, the responsibility for learning falls on the student. We believe that students are matured enough to make responsible choices for themselves and would be aware of the ramifications of not attending class.
Attendance is still taken in class because lecturers do want to be on hand to help those who are managing a personal crisis or health situations.
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