Peter Vail

Peter Vail

A/P Peter Vail trained as a cultural anthropologist and sociolinguist, with regional interests in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. He joined NUS in 2009, initially in the University Scholars Programme (USP) and, since 2022, in NUS College. Over the last two years, he helped design, and now serves as Pillar Coordinator for, the IEx Impact Experience course, and he teaches a wide range of topics, focusing on areas cultural and linguistic anthropology, and development issues. He has won numerous departmental and ATEA teaching awards, and is the 2024 recipient of the Outstanding Educator Award (OEA) at NUS. In what spare time he has, he enjoys woodworking, carpentry, farming, and he’s taken a recent interest in documentary filmmaking.

As educators, I am sure we all acknowledge that the university classroom constitutes an indispensable venue for rendering academic knowledge accessible to students. But to make that same knowledge practical and  meaningful, I think it behooves us to do more. We must help students deploy knowledge in contexts beyond the classroom; further, we must help students see knowledge as it is situated, practiced, and contested in the real world. Only then can they generate sound critical insights, nuanced perspectives, and genuine understanding. I believe experiential learning to be the most effective bridge connecting the classroom to the wider world, and I have devoted much of my energy in the last few years to developing experiential education at NUS College.

 

Being a part of the Teaching Academy…

In NUSC, I am currently tasked with designing and implementing experiential learning, in the form of our Impact Experience and Global Experience courses (IEx and GEx). At Teaching Academy, I am further interested in developing strategies for expanding such experiential learning to other sectors of the University. On-the-ground fieldwork is of course the primary mode of research in anthropology, so it may come as no surprise that I am interested in how fieldwork may be deployed as a pedagogical tool for teaching non-specialist and interdisciplinary students. I am also regularly involved with participatory action research (PAR) in rural Southeast Asia, a methodology I believe to be highly amenable to service learning projects and development studies. How might these research approaches be best harnessed for pedagogical ends?

Out-of-the-classroom teaching brings with it a novel set of challenges, not least among which is reimagining assessments. Standard classroom assessments and grading scales are not easily adapted to the vagaries of field-based service learning and community engagement, nor do they do justice to the types of things students may learn and experience in the field. Indeed, standard assessments may even stymie experiential learning because students focus more on the grade than the richness of the experience at had. One of my aspirations as a member of the Teaching Academy is to develop assessments that remain academically rigorous yet foster attributes of reflexivity, engagement, resourcefulness, and initiative so that students can get the most out of their experiential service learning.

 

 Teaching Awards & Recognition

  • 2024 NUS Outstanding Educator Award (OEA)
  • 2023 NUS Annual Teaching Excellence Award (ATEA)
  • 2021-23 USP Teaching Honor Roll
  • 2022 USP Teaching Excellence Award
  • 2019 USP Teaching Excellence Award
  • 2014-2019 ATEA Honor Roll
  • 2018 USP Teaching Excellence Award
  • 2014-2016 USP Teaching Honor Roll
  • 2012-13 NUS Annual Teaching Excellence Award (ATEA)
  • 2013 USP Teaching Excellence Award
  • 2011-12 NUS Annual Teaching Excellence Award (ATEA)
  • 2012 USP Teaching Excellence Award
  • 2010-2011 NUS Annual Teaching Excellence Award (ATEA)
  • 2011 USP Teaching Excellence Award