It has been said that while the world has seen many great changes over the past two thousand years, the method of teaching and learning has been left largely intact since the time of Plato. Teaching is still very much lecture based, with the copying of notes by students signifying the first stage of learning. There are variations here and there, with occasional experiments attempted by the more adventurous. Most would prefer the more cautious and tested path.

It then leads to the question of whether we as teachers have indeed found the truth (i.e., the best way of educating the young) or are we simply ignorant of, or resistant to, change? I will leave the deliberations of this question to the experts. Instead, I would like to cite one example, the Science Foundation Module, which is perhaps the latest venture into a non-traditional way of teaching on a fairly large scale.

The Science Foundation Module, a joint effort of the Faculty of Science and the Department of Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, was introduced with several objectives in mind. First, the syllabus should be set at the foundational level and the prerequisite should be minimal. Second, it must cover the major disciplines in science, from biology to physics, chemistry to computer science, complemented with the philosophy and methodology of science. Third, it should make full use of information technology for both teaching and learning. And, most important of all, the module must demand more of the student's own initiative, creativity and ability to learn independently.

Twentieth century science has developed into very specialized and diversified areas. At the forefront of research, and in many industrial applications, the approach and emphasis are multidisciplinary. Yet at many universities, the teaching and learning of science remain compartmentalized and narrowly focused. It is not unusual, for example, to see a biology student ignorant of mathematics beyond basic calculus, or a mathematics student not able to explain the difference between DNA and RNA. Similarly, computer science students wonder why they should ever study physics, while a physics student is likely to doubt the relevance of the subject of polymers in chemistry, despite its importance in materials science.

It is often argued that time is limited, and not every topic deemed important can be accommodated into the university curriculum. But we live in a fast-changing world, where all too often, new developments in science and technology take place linking fields previously thought to be unrelated. This makes it imperative to re-examine the prevalent notion of early specialization.

Many universities, notably those in the United States, subscribe to the philosophy that specialist training should be preceded by a grounding in general education. The core curriculum at Harvard is but one example. The NUS Science Foundation Module aims to address this issue, at least for education in science.

The Science Foundation Module has two distinctive features that make it different from traditional coursework. It is not tutorial- and project-biased; only introductory lectures are given. The student must do a lot of reading, be it books, articles or web pages. With some guidance, each student undertakes a mini-project, searches for materials in the library, on the web or elsewhere, and analyzes the information gathered. A paper is submitted for assessment, and an oral presentation is given in a tutorial session for discussion.

The module is intended to be very much information technology driven. The course materials are on the NUS web server. Because of this, it is possible to provide the user with links to other sites containing computer simulations of certain experiments or information on current research in a particular topic. The entire resource in cyberspace is made instantly available to the student. On top of all this, updating information on the web is straightforward so course materials can be updated regularly.

By surfing the Internet, the student will also appreciate how the powers of information technology can be harnessed and how resources available on the web can be integrated into the curriculum. He will discover what leading research laboratories and institutions are currently interested in, and what potential impacts these developments may have on society. The underlying thesis is that there is a lively way of learning science, and that information technology can be exploited to make this a reality.

The Science Foundation Module is likely to be superceded by other modules, perhaps on different subjects, that look at teaching and learning in non-traditional ways. Until then, the module is expected to evolve and improve in due course. This is as it should be, for in the world of teaching and learning, just like in science, there is no last stop.