LIU Woon Chia is the Director at the National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University (NTU). She is also a Professor with the Psychology and Child & Human Development Department, and a co-founder of the NIE’s Motivation in Educational Research Laboratory (MERL). She is the Immediate Past Dean of Teacher Education. During her Deanship, she led her team to develop and implement the NTU-NIE Teaching Scholars Programme (TSP), the enhanced Bachelor of Arts (Education)/Science (Education) and the 16-month extended Postgraduate Diploma in Education programmes. She co-chaired the committee that developed the NIE Teaching and Learning Framework, and championed the use of IoT in Education, which eventually culminated in the opening of the IoT@NIE Learning Lab, a world first in an education institute of higher learning, in collaboration with the Info-communications Media Development Authority (IMDA), Singapore. In addition, she was a key member of the steering committee and a co-chair of the working committee that shaped the Singapore Teaching Practice (STP), which articulates Singapore’s vision of learning in the classroom, our beliefs about students as learners, and the teaching practices that support the realisation of this vision.

She was previously the Associate Dean of Practicum and School Partnerships (2009 - 2014) and the Sub-Dean of Diploma Programmes (2008 - 2009). She served as a co-chair of the Theory-Practice Task Force in NIE’s Programme Review and Enhancement (PRE) initiative, which culminated in NIE’s Teacher Education Model for the 21st Century (TE21). Thereafter, she co-chaired the Theory-Practice Core Team for the TE21 implementation steering group. She led her team in conceptualising and implementing the enhanced practicum model, with its use of professional focused conversations to deepen inquiry and strengthen theory-practice nexus, and the use of purposeful mentoring to help pre-service teachers improve their teaching competencies whilst developing their sense of teacher personhood. Furthermore, she was instrumental in advocating and shaping the Professional Practice and Inquiry portfolio in all pre-service programmes that allows pre-service teachers to aggregate and integrate their learning.

She was the President of the Educational Research Association of Singapore (ERAS) and represented Singapore in the World Education Research Association (WERA) Council (2011-2015). She was also the co-convener of the WERA-IRN (International Research Network) titled “Teacher education for the 21st century: Developing teachers who are thoughtful, reflective, and inquiring.”

She is a trained teacher and taught Chemistry and Mathematics at the secondary level before joining NIE.

Her research interests include self-concept, motivation, teacher education, innovative pedagogy, e-portfolio and clinical practice.

Current Grants 

• Understanding the Development and Drivers of Adolescents' EducationalPathways: The Singapore Longitudinal Cohort Study (Phase 1 of Year 1)
• Self-determination Theory (SDT): A preliminary study on developing Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) in a school community
• Self-Beliefs, Well-Being, Motivation, and Perceived Social Contexts of Students in the Ability Streaming and Full Subject-Based Banding: Considering Subject Specificity and Time Point Effects
• Creating a Motivating School
• An examination of student teachers' learning during international practicum
• Building A Teacher Observation Optimisation Platform with AI to Assess Teachers' Motivational Behaviour in the Classroom
• DRivers, Enablers and pathways of Adolescent developMent in Singapore (DREAMS): The Singapore Longitudinal Cohort Study (SG-LCS) Phase 1