While technology-powered education thrives in our interconnected world, the irony lies in its primary challenge: the social dimension. Current digital methods, though promising, suffer from diminished student-faculty interactions (lack of non-verbal cues, slow response times) and hampered peer connections, hindering collaboration and impacting mental well-being. These effects disproportionately burden students from diverse backgrounds, widening educational inequalities.

Our solution? Building vibrant learning communities within existing popular digital platforms, a simple and cost-effective method.

Reference: Supplementary Discourse - Forming an Online Learning Community with Asynchronous Discussions: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.jchemed.2c00553

About the Speaker

Dr. Fun Man Fung is a leading educator and researcher in the field of technology-enhanced education, with a strong focus on the innovative integration of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies. After earning his postgraduate degrees at the National University of Singapore and the Technical University of Munich, Germany, he began his Assistant Professorship in Chemistry Education at the University College Dublin, Ireland, in 2024. He serves on the Editorial Advisory Boards of the FEBS Open Bio and the American Chemical Society (ACS) Journal of Chemical Education, Early Career Advisory Board of JACS Au, and he is the founding chair of the ACS Chapter Singapore. Dr. Fung's dedication to his field has been recognized through numerous awards, including the 2024 Thieme Chemistry Journal Award and Xilong Scientific-SNIC Industry Award in Chemistry Education conferred by the Singapore National Institute of Chemistry. He is an Asian Universities Alliance (AUA) Scholar and holds membership at the Global Young Academy (2024–2029). He is a current recipient of the 2024-2025 U.S.-ASEAN Fulbright Scholarship hosted at Stanford University.