Writing in the university curriculum

Abstract

Like colleagues on any university campus around the world, colleagues at the National University of Singapore (NUS) are keenly aware of the need, and urgency, to educate undergraduate (and postgraduate) students on the finer points of effective written and oral communication, over and above the rigorous training they provide in the disciplines. NUS has over the past five years actively embarked on a journey to consciously include communication skills training in the curriculum. For example, at the university level, we are undertaking a critical review of the General Education curriculum, and in this review, we are actively shaping an aspect of the curriculum to include a “Thinking and Expression” strand that would effectively mean that all NUS undergraduates will receive exposure to at least one module on this important 21st century competency. At a more local level, other initiatives are also underway. One example comes from the NUS’ Pharmacy curriculum, where communication is a required module for all Pharmacy students. This type of graduation/degree requirement is increasingly becoming a norm in other NUS programmes too. The approach taken so far is one that can be best characterized as a differentiated model that attune to a range of learning goals and base competencies. This differentiated approach takes the following forms. (Abstract taken from first paragraph of document)