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Assistant Professor

Nadya Shaznay Patel

Assistant Professor
Doctor in Education (Applied Linguistics), University College London, United Kingdom
Cluster:
Business, Communication and Design
Email
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Biography

Dr Nadya Patel, an Assistant Professor in the Business, Communication and Design cluster at the Singapore Institute of Technology, has accumulated over twenty years of experience as an educator, researcher and trainer. With a passion for critical design thinking for interdisciplinary learning, she co-develops design innovation and multimedia design modules that aim to develop learners' creative confidence and critical competence for the future of work. She also leads a faculty community of practice for critical thinking in the disciplines. At the invitation of local and international institutions, she regularly facilitates professional development workshops on pedagogical approaches to improve teaching and learning practices. Committed to bridging the research-practice gap, she engages industry partners in applied research projects that leverage on her expertise and interests in critical design and education. Over the years, she has worked with industry partners like Singtel and Social Service Institute to offer industry-relevant workshops on empathetic leadership communication, personal branding, and corporate coaching and mentoring. 

Dr. Nadya Patel graduated with a Doctor in Education from University College London, and her current pursuit of a Master degree in Digital Management is a testament to her unwavering commitment to lifelong learning. Previously, she was a Research Fellow with the Centre for Pedagogy and Practice at Nanyang Technological University, where she was involved in two nationwide research studies, including the CORE study on the impact of national initiative TLLM on teaching and learning in schools, and the Singapore Kindergarten Impact Project (SKIP). Her research interests include critical design futures, AI in education, transdisciplinary learning, and empathetic, dialogic communication. She is an associate editor for International Journal of TESOL Studies (IJTS) and co-edited a special issue on Critical Thinking and Communicating in the Disciplines (2023). 

Over the years, Dr Nadya has received teaching commendation awards from NUS, a graduate research award from NIE-NTU and an innovation commendation PS21 ExCEL (Excellence through Continuous Enterprise and Learning) award for MOE. She is a well-regarded educator, highly-rated workshop facilitator and regular presenter at international educational conferences. Dr Nadya, a teacher-researcher at heart, endeavours to remain at the forefront of transformational pedagogical approaches that leverage emerging technologies and transdisciplinary learning.

SIT Appointments

  • Assistant Professor
    – Present

Education

  • Doctor in Education (Applied Linguistics)
    University College London , United Kingdom
  • Master of Education (English Language)
    Nanyang Technological University , Singapore
  • Bachelor of Arts (English Language Education)
    Nanyang Technological University , Singapore

Achievements

  • CELC-NUS Teaching Excellence Commendation Award 2020
  • CELC-NUS Teaching Excellence Commendation Award 2018
  • CELC-NUS Teaching Excellence Commendation Award 2014
  • Best Graduate Student Research for paper submitted at Redesigning Pedagogy International Conference 2013
  • Certificate of Recognition for the ‘Outstanding Innovation Activist’ (MOE) at PS21 ExCEL (Excellence through Continuous Enterprise and Learning) Convention 2009

Professional Certification

  • Speculative Design Masterclass
    School of Critical Design, London
    –
  • Business Transformation and Innovation
    Hyper Island Institute of Education (APAC)
    –
  • Future Scenarios (Futures Thinking) Course
    Hyper Island Institute of Education (APAC)
    –
  • Intelligent Machines (Artificial Intelligence & Digital Prototyping) Course
    Hyper Island Institute of Education (APAC)
    –
  • Certified Metaverse Expert™
    Blockchain Council
    –
  • Humans or Customers (Design Thinking) Course
    Hyper Island Institute of Education (APAC)
    –
  • Radical Perspectives (FinTech) Course
    Hyper Island Institute of Education (APAC)
    –
  • Leading Teams Course
    Hyper Island Institute of Education (APAC)
    –

Professional Memberships

  • Singapore Association for Applied Linguistics
    – Present
  • American Educational Research Association (AERA)
    – Present

Corporate Experience

  • Editorial Board - International Journal of TESOL Studies (IJTS), International TESOL Union
    Present
  • Reviewer for Journal - Asian Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
    Present
  • Reviewer for Journal - Pedagogies: An International Journal (Taylor and Francis) Print ISSN: 1554-480X Online ISSN: 1554-4818
    Present
  • Invited Speaker for JurongHealth Managers' Engagement Forum. Design Thinking for Healthcare Innovation. Ng Teng Fong General Hospital.
    –
  • Invited Speaker for “Wag MatakOAT! Maki-Blended! (Re)Designing Courses For Blended Learning" Office for the Advancement of Teaching - OVCAA, UP Diliman, Philippines
    –
  • Invited Speaker for Singtel Group Learning Fiesta at 8 George Singtel Learning Centre. Workshop facilitation on Tackling Crucial Conversations with Empathy.
    –
  • Invited Speaker for Chartered Secretaries Institute of Singapore (CSIS) 6th CSPs Conference 2021: CSPs – Emerging Stronger from pandemic. Presentation on Sound minute-taking is more important than ever. Singapore.
    –
  • Invited Panelist for Chartered Secretaries Institute of Singapore (CSIS) 4th CSPs Conference 2019: CSPs in the Smart Nation. Panel Discussion on Good Practices for CSPs. Singapore.
    –
  • Invited Panelist on Flipped Classroom - Is this the Teaching Pedagogy of the Future? Panel Debate at the Flipped MOOC Asia, 3rd EduCon Asia, Singapore.
    –

Research Interests

  • Discourse and Dialogic Interactions
  • Technology-enhanced and Blended Learning
  • Critical Design Futures Thinking
  • Organizational and Relational Communication
  • Emerging Technology (AI) and Future of Education

Current Projects

  • Re:Design, Re:Create, Re:Purpose: Empowering the Next Generation of Sustainable Practice with Critical-Design Thinking
    – Present

    This applied research project has been awarded with a sponsorship from Design Singapore Council.
    Re:Design, Re:Pair, Re:Create project, which aligns with UN SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and SDG 13: Climate Change, aims to tackle the environmental impact of unsustainable practices, for example fast fashion and food wastage. Our project will leverage on the expertise of Art, Language, Social Studies (Applied Learning Programme) secondary school teachers to inspire students to imagine a future of sustainable practices.     The collaboration seeks to empower teachers of the school to facilitate a transdisciplinary curriculum amongst lower secondary students with identified critical-design thinking as key transferable skills. Adopting SIT’s critical-design thinking for innovation framework, teachers will learn that design can be demystified with criticality in thought so that students will develop dispositions like creative confidence and critical competence. SIT researchers-instructors and teachers will jointly mentor students until the prototyping and testing phases of their projects. Overall, it is hoped that students will develop critical reflexivity as they flex their intellectual muscles to question assumptions and ideate for innovative solutions for the betterment of the community and the world. Our courage to design for good stems from a shared teaching philosophy that plays a catalytic role in our students’ work, which is to design collaboratively in transdisciplinary projects for positive social and environmental impact. All in all, we aim to build a sustainable partnership with the school teachers so that they will be able to continue to train more teachers in facilitating design innovation programmes with critical-design thinking. (Patel & Jung-Harada, 2023)

    Project Phase 1 Video: https://youtu.be/vL6yi4otYnI


     

  • Blending Design and Critical Thinking in Design Innovation Modules
    – Present

    Principal Investigator

  • Developing critical thinking and professional communication skills in academic literacy across five different degree programmes
    – Present

    Co-principal Investigator

Past Projects

  • Training Physiotherapy Students in Clinical Questioning and Reasoning Using AI
    –

    Co-principal investigator
    Lee, C. C., Low, M. Y. H., Soon, B. T. C., Lu, L. M., Lee, H. H. & Patel, N. S. (2022). Development of a Chatbot to Train Physiotherapy Students in Clinical Questioning and Reasoning. In IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE) 4-7 2022.

  • Guest Editor for a Special Issue with International Journal of TESOL Studies
    –

    Introduction to Special Issue on Critical Thinking and Communicating in the Disciplines
    Patel et al., (2023) International Journal of TESOL Studies (2023) Vol. 5 (1) 1-4 https://doi.org/10.58304/ijts.20230101

    This special issue focuses on Critical Thinking and Communicating (CTC) in the Disciplines, an emerging subfield in writing instruction. In this introduction to the issue, we explain how CTC is a response to emerging challenges in Higher Education (HE) and suggest that it is an area that holds potential for further innovations in pedagogical research and instructional design. 

  • Blending learning to internalise engineering leadership: a longitudinal study of student learning in a critical thinking and writing course.
    –

    Principal Investigator: Nadya Shaznay Patel
    The longitudinal study explored the affordances of blended learning and investigated students’ learning experiences in a critical thinking and writing course for a large cohort of engineering students. It also investigated the effects of using critical thinking and writing skills, which consequently leads students to internalize engineering leadership (one of the topics in the blended learning (BL) module). Adopting a pragmatic approach, the mixed-methods study used surveys, online forums, classroom observations and scenario-based reflections. Data gathered were analysed using the Community of Inquiry (COI) framework and literature-based template coding. The research concludes with discussions on key factors in influencing student learning, immediately after the course, and student internalisation of engineering leadership, beyond the course. In future, with further analysis of the data, it aims to propose an enhanced instructional model of blended learning environment and strategies for curriculum redesign that can be adopted for any BL course. 
    (NUS Teaching Enhancement Grant. Awarded AY2019/2020 - AY2020/2021. CDTL, NUS.)

Journal Papers

    • Patel, N. S., Lim, J. T., & Teo, M. (forthcoming - 2024). Adopting Critical Design Futures for Interdisciplinary Design Innovation at a Singapore University. In Eds. Work Skills, Future-ready Learning and Sustainable Employability. Springer Publisher.
    • Patel, N. S. (forthcoming - 2024). Assessing Critical Thinking Skills in the Disciplines: Using Jointly-Created Online Quizzes for Applied Learning . In Eds. Educational Technology and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Asking Questions about our Practices. Athabasca University Press (AU Press).
    • Patel, N. S. (forthcoming - 2024). Orchestration of talk and gestures for dialogic scaffolding: a case study of reading instruction. Journal for the Study of Education and Development, 47(1). 
    • Patel, N. S. (2023). Empathetic and Dialogic Interactions: Modelling Intellectual Empathy and Communicating Care. International Journal of TESOL Studies, 5(3), 51-70. https://doi.org/10.58304/ijts.20230305
    • Patel, N. S. (2021). Establishing Social Presence for an Engaging Online Teaching and Learning Experience. International Journal of TESOL Studies, 3(1), 161-177. https://doi.org/10.46451/ijts.2021.03.04
    • Patel, N. S. (2021). Development of criticality in thought: a conceptual framework for online student discussion forums. International Journal of TESOL Studies, 3(3), 22-40. https://doi.org/10.46451/ijts.2021.09.02
    • Patel, N. S. (Jan 20, 2021). Open Learning: A Reflection on Sharing and Openness Among Educators. Teaching Connections: Advancing Discussions about Teaching. CDTL, NUS. 
    • Patel, N. S. (Mar 3, 2021). Using Technology to Enhance Teaching and Learning: A Reflection Through a Theoretical Lens. Teaching Connections: Advancing Discussions about Teaching. CDTL, NUS. 
    • Sen, N. S., & Towndrow, P. A. (2013). Multimodality and metacognitive instruction in developing two reading comprehension strategies. International Journal of Innovation in English Language Teaching and Learning, 2(1), 5-25.
    • Sen, N. S. (2013, June). Orchestration of Talk for Meaning Making in Reading Comprehension Instruction. Paper presented at the Redesigning Pedagogy International Conference: Thinking: Time for Rethink? Singapore. (Received Best Graduate Student Research Award)

    Note: Nadya Shaznay Patel was formerly known as Nadya Shaznay Sen.

Conferences

    • Patel, N. S. (2023). Blending Learning Spaces and Thinking Skills: Critical Design Thinking in a Design Innovation University-wide Module. Australian-ASEAN Academics Forum (AAAF 2023). University of Tasmania, Australia. ​​​​​​
    • Patel, N. S., Lim, J. T. & Teo, M. (2023). Designing for Sustainability: Adopting Critical-Design Thinking for Interdisciplinary Design Innovation. Higher Education Planning Asia (HEPA) Forum 2023 - Planning for a Sustainable Future. University of Sunshine Coast, Australia.
    • Lee, C. Low, M. Y. H., Soon, B. T. C., Lu,  L., Lee, H. and Patel, N. S. (2022). Development of a Chatbot to Train Physiotherapy Students in Clinical Questioning and Reasoning. 2022 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment and Learning for Engineering (TALE), Hung Hom, Hong Kong, 2022, pp. 477-481, doi: 10.1109/TALE54877.2022.00084.

    • Patel, N. S. & Teo, M. (Sep, 2022). The Art of Asking Questions: Adopting Critical-Design Thinking in the Digitalisation of Solutions. SkillsFuture@SUTD.

    • Patel, N. S. (2022). Making Critical Thinking Explicit and Visible with Dialogic Scaffolding. Workshop facilitation at the Redesigning Pedagogy International Conference: Educating for Innovation, Nurturing for Society. http://doi.org/10.25447/sit.19959764.v1

    • Patel, N. S. & Wong, J. (2022). Understanding critical thinking, reading and writing: a minimal English approach. Paper presentation at the Redesigning Pedagogy International Conference: Educating for Innovation, Nurturing for Society. https://doi.org/10.25447/sit.19961636.v1

    • Patel, N. S., Ong, K. & Lim, H. H. (2022). Assessing student critical thinking skills in the disciplines: Partnering students in designing online quizzes for applied learning. Paper presentation at the Redesigning Pedagogy International Conference: Educating for Innovation, Nurturing for Society. https://doi.org/10.25447/sit.19961750.v1

    • Patel, N. S. (2021, Jul). Development of criticality in thought: a conceptual framework for online student discussion forums in higher education. 41st Annual International Conference on Critical Thinking. Critical Thinking as the Foundation of Every Subject, Discipline and Profession, Foundation for Critical Thinking.

    • Patel, N. S. (2020, Dec). Orchestration of talk: teaching critical thinking and writing using dialogic scaffolding. Re-examining learning, research, and teaching in challenging contexts: From disruption to possibilities. Higher Education Campus Conference (e-HECC). CDTL, NUS.

    • Patel, N. S. (2020, Dec). Blending Learning: Using critical thinking and writing to internalise engineering leadership. Re-examining learning, research, and teaching in challenging contexts: From disruption to possibilities. Higher Education Campus Conference (e-HECC). CDTL, NUS.

    • Patel, N. S. (2019, Dec). Developing critical thinking and writing skills in a blended learning environment: a COI perspective. Paper presented at the 20th English in Southeast Asia Conference: Re-thinking Paradigms and Approaches to Researching, Teaching and Learning English, Singapore.

    • Patel, N. S. (2018, Sep). Critical Reading and Analysis with Text Annotations in a Blended Learning Environment. Paper presented at the 8th Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (TLHE): Campus Conference - Connecting Learning, Research and Teaching, NUS.

    • Patel, N. S. (2017, June). Metacognitive Reading Strategies in a Blended Learning Environment. Paper presented at the Redesigning Pedagogy International Conference: Education for the Future: Creativity, Innovation, Values, Singapore.

    • Patel, N. S. (2017, June). Dialogic Scaffolding: A Multimodal Approach to Pedagogic Discourse. Paper presented at the Redesigning Pedagogy International Conference: Education for the Future: Creativity, Innovation, Values, Singapore.

    • Sen, N. S. (2013, June). Orchestration of Talk for Meaning Making in Reading Comprehension Instruction. Paper presented at the Redesigning Pedagogy International Conference: Thinking: Time for Rethink? Singapore. 

    • Sen, N. S. (2013, April). Tensions in Activism and Professionalism: A Singapore Teacher-Researcher's Changing Professional Identity. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) International Conference, San Francisco, USA.

    • Sen, N. S. (2012, October). Orchestration of Talk for Meaning Making in Reading Comprehension Instruction: A Pilot Study of Singapore English Primary Classrooms. Paper presented at the 3rd ICEEPSY International Conference on Education and Educational Psychology, Istanbul, Turkey.

    • Sen, N. S. (2012, March). Leveraging on mobile technologies to develop collaborative reading strategies. Paper presented at the INTED2012 - 6th International Technology, Education and Development Conference Valencia, Spain.

    • Sen, N. S. (2011, June). Leveraging on mobile technologies to develop collaborative reading strategies through metacognitive instruction. Paper presented at the Redesigning Pedagogy International Conference: Transforming Teaching, Inspiring Learning, Singapore.

    • Sen, N. S. (2010, March). Creating Seamless Learning Spaces with 1:1: A Case Study of Teachers' Pedagogical Shift in Designing Engaging Technology-Enhanced Learning Experiences. Paper presented at the International Conference on Teaching and Learning with Technology (iCTLT), Singapore.

    • Sen, N. S. (2009, April). The Impact of Inking and Wireless Technology on Developing Reading Comprehension Skills. Paper presented at the 44th SEAMEO RELC International Conference on 'The Impact of Technology on Language Learning and Teaching: What, How and Why', Singapore. 

    • Sen, N. S. (2008, October). A Future School Proposal: Mobile Learning through Authentic, Experiential and Collaborative Learning. Paper presented at the Mobile Learning International Conference, mLearn: The Bridge from Text to Context, London, UK.

Teaching Modules

Pharmaceutical Engineering, BEng (Hons)

  • UDE1001 - Introduction to Design Innovation
  • UDE2001 - Interdisciplinary Design Innovation

Past

  • BHB1205 - Multimedia Design
  • UCS1001 Critical Thinking and Communicating (Pharmaceutical Engineering & Food Technology)
  • BHB2803 Career and Professional Development (Hospitality Business)
  • EDE1001 - Technical Communication (16576)