CJ Koh Professorial Lecture Series

CJ Koh Professorial Lecture Series was launched by the Office of Education Research on 1 March 2011. It was conceptualised for the purpose of knowledge building and sharing with our internal, external and international stakeholders in education, who can benefit from the information shared during each CJ Koh Professorship visit. Since 2016, the Professorship and Lecture Series have since been moved under the purview of the Office of Strategic Planning and Academic Quality.

About the CJ Koh Professorship in Education
Each year, outstanding professors in the field of education are hosted by the National Institute of Education under the CJ Koh Professorship in Education programme. The CJ Koh Professorship has been made possible through a generous donation by the late Mr Ong Tiong Tat, executor of the late lawyer Mr Koh Choon Joo’s (CJ Koh) estate, to the Nanyang Technological University Endowment Fund.

Previous visitors have included Marilyn Cochran-Smith from Boston College (in 2006), Susan Fuhrman from Teachers College, Columbia University (2009), Robin Alexander from University of Cambridge (2010), Andy Hargreaves from Lynch School of Education, Boston College (2011), Andreas Schleicher from OECD (2011), Ruth Hayhoe from University of Toronto (2012), John Seely Brown from University of Southern California (2012), Linda Darling-Hammond from Stanford University (2013), Dennis Shirley from Lynch School of Education, Boston College (2014), Fernando Reimers from Harvard Graduate School of Education (2015), Richie Poulton from Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit (2017), Pam Grossman from Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania (2018), George Siemens from University of Texas, Arlington (2019) and James Arthur from Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues (2023).

For enquiries, please e-mail the Series Editor, Professor Chang Chew Hung at [email protected].

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Professor James Arthur, Director of The Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues at the University of Birmingham’s School of Education, was appointed as the 15th CJ Koh Professor from 22 May to 1 June 2023. In the eleventh report, he discussed the work of the Jubilee Centre and presented the Jubilee Centre Framework for schools during his public lecture. Additionally, Professor Arthur explored the significance of phronesis in the context of initial teacher preparation and teacher professional development during his tenure.

Led by Eminent Professors in Education who were invited to Singapore under the CJ Koh Professorship in Education Programme, NIE held 2 webinars in August and November 2021, respectively. The 1st webinar focused on Teacher Education while the 2nd webinar focused on Learners.

Download "Futuring the World, Futuring Singapore"

Professor George Siemens was appointed as the 14th CJ Koh Professor from 7 to 18 October 2019. The tenth report included discussions on developments in human and artificial cognition and the intersection of these two advancements in shaping the future of learning. The ways that human and artificial cognition overlap to form the basis of future society are also explored in the articles in the report.

Download "The Future of Learning"
Professor Pam Grossman was appointed as the 13th CJ Koh Professor from 24 to 28 September 2018. The ninth report captured the rich discourse of Professor Grossman’s talks about practice-based teacher education to prepare them for the future, which in turn prepares learners to thrive in an ever-changing future economy. She drew examples from lessons learnt in her work on project-based learning and presented findings that are beneficial for the education fraternity.

Download "Future-Ready Teachers for Future-Ready Learners"
In the eighth report, Professor Richie Poulton, who was appointed as the 12th CJ Koh Professor from 5 to 12 October 2017, presented his findings that self-control was a prominent factor contributing to a person’s success in life. As Director of the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit, University of Otago, Prof Poulton extracted his findings from the data of his Unit’s longitudinal research of 1,037 babies who were born in Dunedin from 1972 to 1973. The project continues to study with most of these participants till today. Important observations were that the higher the self-control, the greater chance of success in life one has, and also that self-control may be cultivated at any stage in life.

Download “Self-control Is Integral to Success in Life”
The seventh report features Professor Fernando Reimers, who was appointed as the 11th CJ Koh Professor from 16 to 23 May 2015. He is an expert in the field of global education and is currently the Ford Foundation Professor of the Practice of International Education, the Director of the Global Education Innovation Initiative and the Director of the International Education Policy Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. As the CJ Koh Professor, Prof Reimers shared on how educational innovations can make education more relevant in the 21st century, the importance of educating global citizens, and how we could realise these outcomes.

Download "Educating Global Citizens"
The sixth report features Professor Dennis Shirley, who was appointed the 10th CJ Koh Professor from 2 to 10 March 2014. He focused on educational change for both his NIE seminar and the CJ Koh Professorship Public Lecture. For the seminar, Professor Shirley gave his views on the convergences in educational change and shared about the four zones of convergence and presented the idea of the wave of convergent pedagogy. In his public lecture, Professor Shirley discussed mindful teaching and how it can help teachers deal with daily pressures and be scaled from the classroom to the system level. He also participated in a roundtable discussion where NIE research groups presented on topics about improving the quality of teaching and learning.

Download "Achieving with Integrity: Towards Mindful Educational Change"

In the fifth report, Professor Linda Darling-Hammond challenges us to rethink the way we look at our education systems. Professor Darling-Hammond was also the 9th CJ Koh Professor as well as a keynote speaker at NIE’s Redesigning Pedagogy International Conference 2013. In both her CJ Koh Professorship Public Lecture and her Conference Keynote Speech, she spoke about the importance of supporting teachers in a collaborative and supportive system. She praised Singapore’s Thinking Schools, Learning Nation initiative and how well its education system has been doing. She further emphasised thinking critically in order to solve complex problems, communicating effectively, working collaboratively, and learning how to learn.

Download "Rethinking Educational Paradigms: Moving from Good to Great"

This fourth report looks into the prevalent issue of 21st century learning as envisioned by prominent scholar Dr John Seely Brown, or "JSB" as he is often called. JSB is the 8th CJ Koh Professor from 21 November to 23 November 2012. During his visit, he delivered a symposium and public lecture, where he spoke about the need to instill the dispositions of "tinkering" and "imagination", the need to create learner-centric environments for these dispositions to strive in, and the need to change our perspectives - to manipulate the context rather than the content. For JSB, these are the right stuff that will help our children to learn in and for the 21st century.

Download "Learning in and for the 21st Century"

CJ Koh Professor Ruth Hayhoe is a specialist in comparative education and a sinologist. From 1997 to 2002, she headed the Hong Kong Institute of Education and is now President Emerita. She is also a professor in the Department of Theory and Policy Studies in Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto (OISE/UT), where she served from 1986 to 1997, including appointments as Chair of the Higher Education Group and Associate Dean. Before that she held teaching positions at Heep Yunn School in Hong Kong, at Fudan University in Shanghai, and at the Roehampton Institute of Higher Education in London, as well as a diplomatic post at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing from 1989 to 1991. In honour of Hayhoe's contributions to the field of comparative education and prestigious career, OER has published a booklet written by Prof Lee Wing On, Dean/Education Research. This is an excerpt from a chapter in Education and Global Cultural Dialogue: A Tribute to Ruth Hayhoe, written by Prof Lee and edited by Karen Mundy and Zha Qiang, published by Palgrave Macmillan (2012).

Download "Ruth Hayhoe and Her Scholarship"

This third report in the series captures the rich and insightful discussions arising from Professor Ruth Hayhoe’s visit to NIE in her appointment as the 7th CJ Koh Professor from 30 April to 4 May 2012. A comparative scholar who specialises in the field of comparative education in China, Prof Hayhoe delivered two lectures while here. A roundtable symposium was also organised in conjunction with her visit, where peers from Finland, Korea, Hong Kong, the United States, and colleagues from NIE engaged in dialogue about how their countries’ education systems continually innovate to stay on the top of their league. 

Download "Portraits of Top-Performing Education Systems"

This is a consolidated report of a symposium, seminar and public lecture presented by Professor Andreas Schleicher held from 1 to 3 November 2011 in conjunction with his appointment as our 6th CJ Koh Professor. He drew out implications from the 2009 PISA results for education reform and teacher policies in our bid to equip our students with skills for the 21st century. This issue also includes three thoughtful insights by Professor Schleicher on his visit to Singapore, Professor Wing On Lee on “PISA fever”, and Professor Sing Kong Lee on Singapore’s educational success.

Download "PISA Lessons For and From Singapore"

This maiden report arose from a roundtable session held on 1 March 2011, in conjunction with the visit of the 5th CJ Koh Professor Andy Hargreaves, from Boston College’s Lynch School of Education. The Fourth Way is a book authored by Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley. In this report, Professor Hargreaves talks about what the Fourth Way is all about and his thoughts about why Singapore is considered to be paving the fourth way. The report also features key figures in Singapore’s education landscape, across the entire spectrum of the system, on developments in the areas of K-12 education, teacher education, educational leadership programmes, and educational research in general.

Download "Paving the Fourth Way: The Singapore Story"