Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of grids
- List of dilemmas
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Singapore’s challenge
- 2 The entrepreneurial ecosystem
- 3 How can innovative pedagogies be measured?
- 4 Co-defining innovative education
- 5 The Singapore results
- 6 Results of the Mandarin-speaking programme
- 7 Reconciling values
- 8 ‘It is only the Hawthorne Effect’
- 9 The programme that cannot stand still
- 10 Innovation and the future of the university
- 11 What are the implications of being able to teach innovation?
- 12 Is a new creative class arising?
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Appendices
- General index
- Index of dilemmas and reconciliations
5 - The Singapore results
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of grids
- List of dilemmas
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Singapore’s challenge
- 2 The entrepreneurial ecosystem
- 3 How can innovative pedagogies be measured?
- 4 Co-defining innovative education
- 5 The Singapore results
- 6 Results of the Mandarin-speaking programme
- 7 Reconciling values
- 8 ‘It is only the Hawthorne Effect’
- 9 The programme that cannot stand still
- 10 Innovation and the future of the university
- 11 What are the implications of being able to teach innovation?
- 12 Is a new creative class arising?
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Appendices
- General index
- Index of dilemmas and reconciliations
Summary
Before we detail the results of our assessment of this programme, let us consider whether asking our respondents to compare their undergraduate studies with this programme was a question that was remotely fair. Did we deliberately tilt the odds in our own favour? Is the comparison we asked for valid?
There are some reasons for suspecting bias towards TIP. Firstly, the TIP experience was more recent and might loom larger in the memories of respondents. Secondly, this was post-graduate education, ostensibly ‘higher’ than what had gone before. Thirdly, might they not be thanking a popular teacher? But it is the fourth objection that is perhaps the most probing. In boosting the confidence of respondents and instilling excitement and raised expectations were we not simply fishing for compliments? Were we simply measuring the heady enthusiasm we had ourselves encouraged? Perhaps, but it seems very unlikely. The 2002 class had been out in the cold for five years, the 2003 class for four years, and so on. Even the 2007 class had cooled their heels for several months before we asked them to respond. If indeed we had rendered them ‘high’ on extravagant dreams, then all concerned had had several months and up to five years to sober up and realize just how hard it is to innovate in a country with many safe multinational job opportunities. You can give students a ‘high’ without much difficulty but then you face their misery when they come down from that experience and must face reality.
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- Information
- Teaching Innovation and EntrepreneurshipBuilding on the Singapore Experiment, pp. 71 - 93Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009