In a commentary, RSIS Associate Research Fellow Tan Ming Hui wrote about how Covid-19 has disrupted classes for more than one billion students, but the crisis also presents an opportunity to rethink teaching strategies and reinvent education. There is a need to explore innovative ways to move away from a teacher-led, “factory-style” classroom setting towards student-oriented flexible learning spaces to encourage collaborative interactions, engagement, and feedback. For example, in 2015, NTU launched The Hive, which has “done away with traditional classroom layout with its 56 curvilinear smart classrooms that are equipped with the latest technologies”. 

…Tan Ming Hui is Associate Research Fellow in the Policy Studies Group at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.