Taught by: A/P Stuart Derbyshire
Content (Structure/Organization): 4
It was pretty well organised (basically 8 or so big topics pertaining to what influences the experience of pain, each week going through 1 topic) that somewhat built on each other, starting from the microlevel, individual perception of pain (mostly biological) and then working up to the macro level of societal factors that would influence one's perception of pain.
Learning outcomes were quite fixed. Prof has a very strong view towards the learning outcomes, although theres class discussion, in the end whatever he believes as the truth is what we come of the class learning.
However some of the topics' link to how it influences the experience of pain was not so obvious, personally went over my head so I felt that I didn't really learn much from some week; eg weeks where we learnt about how Economy!? influences people's perception of pain.
Other than that, organization is solid.
Accessibility and Assessment: 3
YES: Prof is very good at explaining things. He takes us step by step through the basic building blocks of the concepts.
but! Completing the quizzes are tough. Really have to pay attention in class and also understand clearly the concepts taught and concepts in the readings to be able to gain full marks in the quiz. Even consulting with friends or chatGPT leaves us stumped for some questions. The concepts themselves some of them hard to grasp also.
Manageability of Workload: 3
We have only 1 final essay to submit (in which marking is very rigorous).
Every week theres readings to comment on (weighted) and quizzes to do. In my class, no one really did the readings/comments, everyone just yolo-ed the quiz
If you wanna take this course seriously to get an A, imagine NTW with 1 final essay only.
Ease/Difficulty of Attaining Grades:
I think Prof is a 65 out of 100 with 0 being easy A and 100 being no A for you.
Learning Value/Recommendation: 4
It changed my outlook on what is pain and gave me tips on how might I overcome it in the future (as someone who does experience a fair amount of pain due to medical things).
Also introduced me to some neat philo concepts.
About the Instructor:
CLASS is sups engaging and fun, prof derbyshire really knows his stuff and knows how to teach. Would definitely recommend but also maybe take it with a friend!? There's a lot of class discussions LITERALLY his teaching style is talk for 15mins, pose a question and we discuss for 5mins, then we share answers w the class for another 5 mins and he roasts our answers (the class participation marks) and i wish i bidded w friends HAHAH to get to know them better as we discuss views about life in class :)
Additional Comments/Word of Advice:
BID w friends its FUN! i wish i bidded w friends HAHAH to get to know them better as we discuss views about life in class :) Prof derbyshire advocates competition between groups for points for class part it rlly encourages ppl to speak out, and in the end everyone gets classpart points i think as long as we stay within a standard deviation of each other we all get fullmarks for class part.
If youre willing to grind an essay and wrestle with some tough philo concepts then this would be a mod for you to try A in. If you just wanna have a mindblowingly fun time and SU this mod then this would be a great ride for you too!
not for the fainthearted however, not for anyone who just wants an easy A.
Name: Pei Cheng Yi (@ChengYi123)
Content (Structure/Organization): -
2 lectures a week, deliverables are 1 x 500 word essay and 1 x 1,500 word essay. Since the 1,500 word essay can be an extension of your 500 word essay, the workload is light.
My general experience for this mod was:
read readings / videos 2 hours before class starts
attend class, participate and answer questions (the questions are interesting)
think about / research on essay a few weeks before they are due
This technical skills you take away is entirely up to your interest. This is because prof believes that he is there to expose you to a broad range of concepts on pain and it is up to you to find an area and delve deeper for your essays.
I took this mod because I heard a friend is going to take it. I stayed in the mod because the concepts are interesting. The first half is heavily focused on the biological and neurological aspects of the pain experience, while the second half delves into the phenomenology of pain. The first half is pseudo-biology since it goes through the broad ideas without forcing you to learn the details (you can if you want to). The second half is philosophy and abit of history. Again, you only need to grasp the broad ideas for your essays.
Accessibility and Assessment: 4
If a CS student can get into the psych/life science/philosophy aspects of this mod, so can you! The readings serve to spark your interest and pave context for the lesson. You don't have to fully understand all of them. Perusall is a good platform for readings since it allows you to discuss with your team mates on the readings. The concepts taught are interesting, and prof Derbyshire's personal involvement in the area of pain research really brings the concepts to life(look him up, or ask him how his research was used in overturning Roe v. Wade).
Manageability of Workload: 4
This mod doesn't have any extremely taxing components. But you do need to put in consistent effort for this mod because you will be graded on class participation and perusall participation (online discussion with your teammates on the readings). Oh, there's also weekly quiz.
The essays are short but they require insight. It is good to start researching and reading up early. I think the prof will give you a good score if you demonstrate that you have explored the essay topic to a sufficient depth. My second essay directs expands upon the first so it wasn't too taxing to write. And since your second essay can be an extension of your first, it means that you can start writing your second essay really early and be done with it before reading week starts.
The prof does offer feedback on your essay drafts. As for all writing mods, do try to submit a draft (as complete as possible) as the prof offers good suggestions on how you can improve the essay and he is quite frank about the quality of your draft.
Ease/Difficulty of Attaining Grades:
This is my third writing based module in USP / NUSC. I'd say the prof upholds the standard of other essay based USP mods. But the good news is that since this is a science and tech mod, the prof is more interested in your insight on the topic (depth) so it is 'easier' to get a good grade.
Learning Value/Recommendation: 4
this gave a me a high level idea on a broad range of concepts in psych, philo, biology. Good stuff. Would probably not read these things on my own. Class participation is nice too since i am a meme and the prof is chill.
About the Instructor:
Prof Derbyshire is heavily involved in pain research. He has done a lot of work on this, so listening to him teach pain is learning from the best in the field. At the same time, he is also very open minded to your opinions and objections. He can be strict with your essays, but that's a feature of NUSC/USP.
Additional Comments/Word of Advice:
yelhsa
Content (Structure/Organization): -
Very well structured as he does follow the module outline. Generally, he covers the biological (central nervous system, action potential etc. Think Neurobiology) and psychological (GCT, CBT) aspects of pain in the first half of the semester and then the malingering, historical, philosophical, sociological, and artistic aspects in the remaining semester.
Accessibility and Assessment: 3
As a science student who had taken neurobiology before, this module isn't that easy. The concept of pain was only covered in 1 lesson in my neurobiology module, covering the nerve fibres involved in pain perception (please do not write pain fibres nor pain receptors, Prof Debryshire will definitely disagree with these terms) as well as the pathway involved in pain perception. My knowledge from neurobiology did help for the biological aspect of pain, but not for the subsequent lessons. The content is already difficult to understand, especially in the later part of the semester where Prof Debryshire covers the historical, philosophical, sociological, and artistic aspects of pain.
Manageability of Workload: 3
The workload as follows:
1) Group Participation 15%
He counts the group participation by taking average of the groups with consideration of the standard deviation. For e.g., if most groups are around the mean, you get 10 points, but if your group's score is mean + 1 SD, then you get 12.5 points and so on.
2) Perusall.com (online review of readings) 20%, best 6 (?) out of 11 readings (he removed the worst 5). This involves annotating the readings on Persuall, an online social annotation tool for collaborative learning. He made everyone create an account using Gmails, but you can use your NUS account if you had used Persuall in a previous module (ahem FoS kids)
3) Weekly Quizzes 15%, best 8 quizzes out of 10. Can do with friends to discuss. (He allowed it)
4) Short essay (500 words) 20%, based on either 1) Discuss whether it would be possible and ethical for a robot to feel pain. 2) Why is the definition of pain critical? 3) What sorts of evidence can inform whether animals feel pain?. Due End of Recess Week
5) Long essay (1500 words) 30% on any topic relating to pain. Due End of Reading Week.
I do find the workload manageable if you can manage your time well. However, I did spend a substantial amount of time reading many papers relating to pain for my short essay and long essay, especially my long essay where my topic was esoteric. I was taking 16MCs worth of graded modules (the last 4MCs was a CS/CU module), so ULS2207 did take up a bit of my time on researching papers relating to pain, more so for my own science modules.
Ease/Difficulty of Attaining Grades:
The determining factor for the overall module grade should come from the short and long essays (50% of the module). The rest are generally about the same scores, especially for Persuall where I got 100/100? I am not sure how does Persuall marking works, but it seems that if you actually did annotate most of the readings (Prof Derbyshire did mention the percentage but I don't remember much. I think it was 75% of the readings?), you will score in this Persuall. For the rest of the components, it is about the same with your group mates and the people you discuss with for quiz. It just that the group participation can get very annoying as many groups will be "fighting" to answer prof's question in class. If you are an extreme introvert who prefers to talk in a 1-to-1 setting, then the class part can be quite intimidating.
Anyways, Prof Derbyshire is very well-known to be a strict marker (gives out Cs and from hearsay, Ds to people). By strict, I mean comments that were very, uber harsh. For instance, he called my introductory paragraph "fluff" and "irrelevant" and by the final drafts of short and long essays, my introductory paragraph had been condensed into 2-3 sentences. He does allow 1-2 draft submissions each for the short and long essays, so do utilise those draft submissions to get feedback from him.
I was prepared to summon a S/U for this module but I did way better than expected hence I didn't use my S/U lol? The final paper probably saved me for this module, as his comments for my draft was less harsh and more helpful than my short essay. And he seems very interested in my long essay topic, so that may be a plus sign? Overall, don't be demoralised if you did very badly for the first paper, because after NUS's moderation, the overall grade shouldn't be too bad. But if you want to get a (super) good grade for this module, you have to write papers that hit his sky-high expectations.
Presence of Technical Learning:
This module is probably one of the very few interdisciplinary USP modules you can find.
You will primarily learn about pain from a biological, psychological, malingering, historical, philosophical, sociological, and artistic perspective. You will also learn about functional pain where there is no clear etiological basis. Functional pain disorders include fibromyalgia and irritable bowel syndrome. Furthermore, you will learn about phantom limbs too. Majority of us associate pain with tissue damage, but after this module you will realise that pain is not always associated with tissue damage (Hint: IASP definition of pain, 2020), and we need to rethink what pain actually is.
Learning Value/Recommendation: 4
Truth to be told, I only took ULS2207 because it was one of the few ST modules that could fit my timetable, with the other being Nanoscale (UPC2206). I was technically looking at another ST module but it clashed with my timetable. Hence, I bid for both ULS2207 and UPC2206, knowing that ULS2207 will be heavily oversubscribed and I was pretty uncertain as to whether I will get the module. Indeed, ULS2207 was heavily oversubscribed (about 60+ people against 18 slots in Round 2). I was surprised that I actually got this module, along with UPC2206. I guess it was largely because of my seniority (I had Year 3 seniority when I am technically not a Y3) and a bit of luck. As I only needed to take another ST module to fulfil my requirements (and my friend begged me to drop UPC2206 to give it to him), I dropped UPC2206 and took ULS2207.
Personally, I do not regret taking the module, really. Although it was a painful experience (pain pun intended), you will come out knowing a lot about pain. After taking Pain (module), I started to see pain in a different light, and even scorn when certain researchers want to attempt to understand pain by studying (insert gene or protein name here). Not that it is wrong to understand pain through biological means, but after this module I realised that pain is still very difficult to study and understand; using a deterministic approach to understand pain isn't sufficient for us to uncover what is pain. You still have the cognitive, affect and sense parts to consider. A neuroscience module can teach you about how pain is perceived in the nervous system (objective), but pain isn't only about designing drugs/treatments that specifically target a pathway/gene/protein associated with pain. Pain isn't also about feeling the "painful" stimulus too. What about functional pain? Those who malinger? What *is* pain? Prof Debryshire's module allows you to see pain in a subjective sense, understanding not only the biological, but also the psychological, malingering, historical, philosophical, sociological, and artistic aspects of pain.
About the Instructor:
Although his classes were from 6-8pm on Mondays and Wednesdays, it is very difficult to fall asleep in Prof Derbyshire class. Prof Derbyshire is an eloquent, charismatic, and intelligent prof that will sure wow you with his lectures and thought-provoking discussions (and for most part, I do not really know how to answer his questions because it is too challenging for me.)
He admits that even though he had taught his module for many years, he still does not know how to piece the topics together to make it more "understandable". Maybe the biological, psychological and malingering aspects were much more relatable to pain, but the historical aspect of pain (think The Enlightenment, WWII), as well as philosophical, sociological, and artistic aspects of pain are much more difficult to relate to pain. Nonetheless, it is very obvious that he is very knowledgeable in the pain research field and you cannot smoke him about it.
Additional Comments/Word of Advice:
Tl;dr: This module is known to be heavily oversubscribed for many semesters, which I guess is partly due to the topic itself. This module is really worth taking! I do recommend taking this module even though it will be a tough journey. It can be painful but rewarding experience (pain pun intended), but do be ready with the workload and demand Prof Debryshire asks for.
Content (Structure/Organization): -
Clearly structured, regular assessments, there’s a lesson plan, each week has it’s own readings and topic to cover
Accessibility and Assessment: 5
Very accessible, pretty much interdisciplinary
Manageability of Workload: 2
Very heavy on certain weeks, okay for few weeks. Overall rating would be on the heavier side.
Ease/Difficulty of Attaining Grades:
Very difficult to be honest. Prof is a lot harsher than normal profs, can give out Cs and Ds, but of course there is a bell curve at the end
Presence of Technical Learning:
no formal framework
Learning Value/Recommendation: 5
Very high
About the Instructor:
Extremely knowledgeable and interesting