Academic Profile : Faculty

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Assoc Prof Tan Aik Ling
Deputy Head (Teaching & Curriculum Matters), Natural Sciences & Science Education
Associate Professor, National Institute of Education - Natural Sciences & Science Education
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Aik Ling is an associate professor of science education with the Natural Sciences and Science Education academic group at the National Institute of Education. She teaches biology education methods courses and courses related to integrated STEM curriculum. Prior to teaching at NIE in 2007, Aik Ling taught Biology and Lower Secondary General Science at River Valley High School for 10 years. She was the subject head in charge of Media Resource Library, and later of Thinking and Project Work. She worked in developing young scientists interested in science projects.

Her current research interests lie in the areas of students' ideas of science learning, science teacher professional development and STEM education. To uncover students’ ideas of science learning, she examines students’ classroom interactions with peers, learning resources and manipulatives. To understand science teacher professional development, she focusses on science teachers’ ideas of science inquiry, their classroom actions and adaptive practices as science lessons are enacted. Finally, for STEM education research, she delves into integrated STEM curriculum and STEM education leadership.
classroom interactions,emotions in science learning,inquiry-based learning,science teacher professional development
 
  • Characterising the weak makerspace: How does material innovation happen in Singaporean classrooms'
  • Actualising Integrated STEM Lessons
  • Comparing students' questioning, argumentation and creative thinking in problem-centric and solution-centric STEM activities
  • Learning about the environment: Understanding development of interest andknowledge through immersive informal learning experiences
  • Adoption of Integrated Resources to Shape Integrated Learning Experiences: Insights from Implementation of 2023 Primary Science Syllabus
  • Developing Science Teachers' Language Awareness to Enhance the Teaching of Disciplinary Literacy: A Study of Teachers' Lesson Enactments through the Lens of Adaptive Expertise
  • Solving ill-structured problems: Role of scaffolding and feedback
Awards
• 2020 NIE Excellence in Teaching Commendation Award 2020
• 2019 NIE Excellence in Research Award 2019
• 2018 NIE Excellence in Teaching Commendation Award 2018
• 2018 Outstanding Paper Award (2018), International Conference of East-Asia Association for Science Education (2018 EASE) for paper “Detecting stressful moments experienced by teachers during science teaching”.
• 2015 NIE Excellence in Teaching Commendation Award 2015
• 2015 Emerald LiteratiNetwork, Advances in Research on Teaching, 2015 Outstanding Author Contribution Award for the paper “Science Teacher Education and Science as Inquiry: Promises and Dilemma.”
• 2014 Routledge Education Most Read Article for science education in 2014.
• 2011 NARST International Committee Scholarship 2011.
• 2011 Awarded Fulbright Visiting Researcher Program in 2010/11 to Cornell for collaboration with A/P Barbara Crawford. The title of the research is “Learning about the environment across the lands: A comparative study into the resources used to learn about the environment in the United States and Singapore.”
• 2010 NIE Excellence in Teaching Commendation Award 2010
• 2009 NIE Excellence in Teaching Commendation Award 2009