Important message from Vice-President & Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Teaching & Learning)
Dear Colleagues,
You are cordially invited to participate in an online e-learning survey conducted at The University of Hong Kong (HKU). The aim of the survey is to collect data about teachers’ perceptions of their experience on the use of all types of technologies to enhance teaching and learning in conjunction with face-to-face learning. We invite all teachers to participate in this survey. A separate survey investigating students’ perceptions of their e-learning experience is being administered concurrently. Findings from last year’s survey have informed the formulation of our E-learning Strategy 2015. Your feedback this year will continue to help us to provide a better physical and virtual learning environment at HKU.
It takes about 5 minutes to complete the questionnaire. Your answers will remain anonymous and your survey responses will be kept strictly confidential.
To participate in the online survey, please visit:
On December 11, 2015, TELI worked with the Faculty of Education on delivering a live lecture to the audiences in the Institute of Education, University College London (UCL), in a Symposium organized by Science of Learning Strategic Research Theme (SoL SRT). This lecture was given by Professor Stanislas Dehaene, a leading scientist in the field of neuroscience, on the topic of “The Multiple Effects of Literacy on the Brain”. The web broadcasting enabled real-time and dynamic interactions between the participants in HKU and those in UCL, stimulating a series of great ideas and thoughts.
What transforms lectures into lessons learnt? Participation, perhaps. Small twists such as inviting students to provide short-written responses would allow for personalized learning in many ways, as suggested by Professor David Carless, Associate Dean (Learning and Teaching) in the Faculty of Education, and Dr. David Pomfret, Chairperson of the Department of History. They gave a seminar on this subject on December 1st, 2015.
In Dr. Pomfret’s history class, students were prompted to write short responses to one question each time. For example,
· “What nation do you think you belong to? Why?”
· “Which do you think is more valuable – history in history books or history in movies?”
These questions invite personal participation and reflection, and are associated with issues to be addressed in the next class, where a summary of the graded responses would be presented by way of a springboard for discussions. The rewards of such a practice are manifold: it enables students to quickly connect learning materials with their personal experiences; and their participation keeps them motivated throughout the semester. Teachers may also gauge common prior knowledge (or misconceptions, sometimes) among students in a timely manner through students’ submissions. In other words, short-written responses facilitate closing the feedback loop in learning.
At the seminar, some teachers suggested inviting students to post their responses on online platforms such as Moodle as it is much faster, and allows everyone in class to view their peers’ submissions. That’s certainly one quick and easily doable way. However, if the teacher would like to have anonymous feedback, an audience response tool such as Mentimeter might serve the purpose better. Would you like to give it a try?
Video: Sharing by Rick Glofcheski on Flipped Learning
Professor Rick Glofcheski from the Faculty of Law is undoubtedly one of the pioneers in HKU when it comes to flipped classroom learning. Having “flipped” a compulsory tort law class with over 260 students in this semester, Professor Glofcheski shared many exciting insights with over 120 participants on November, 26th 2015.
At this joint seminar by the TELI, EPSU and CETL, Professor Glofcheski presented his experience of “shrinking the classroom to create a more personal, meaningful, inquiry-based, active learning environment” for students. He saw flipped learning as something relatively new in higher education – offering a shift in learning for students from passive to active, content-centred to inquiry-based, instructional to learning paradigm and “teacher-dependent” to independent, through using and taking advantage of technology.
How learning happens, its purpose and how class time can be spent productively were questions Professor Glofcheski thought about. He believed online lectures in replacement of the traditional ones might be a solution as students can pace through at their ease. However, potential resistance of such flipped learning from students, colleagues and the institute needs to be considered, and difficulties in implementation such as finding a suitable venue were encountered. Due to these limits, this semester’s class was still a partial flipped learning. Professor Glofcheski found it suitable to resolve possible problems step by step to prepare for future full implementation.
Professor Glofcheski further elaborated that the key emphasis of this flipped experience was having students understand that the lesson is their learning opportunity. They should “take it seriously, come to class prepared to apply [their] learning and solv[e] the problems.” Students were asked to do assigned readings and watch video lectures before class. The short length of lectures (3-4 minutes) was well accepted by students, and Professor Glofcheski plans to incorporate problem-solving questions in future video lectures. It is crucial to align learning content with the assessments so students’ interest to participate can be aroused.
Various clips of the actual “flipping” in action this semester were shown in the seminar. (Read more about the flipping in action here.) The post-class survey results shows that while certain students may prefer the traditional teaching method, 94% found the experience useful/very useful. Students found “flipping” enhanced their ability in applying and consolidating understandings of tort law concepts through learning from peers.
Professor Glofcheski ended the seminar offering possible next steps for flipped learning in his course, such as embedding problem-solving scenarios in videos. This kind of new experience will be expanded and continued in the following semester.
On November 24, 2015, Professor Benson Yeh, Director of MOOC Program at National Taiwan University rolled up his sleeves and recounted his entrepreneurial story to an audience largely comprised of University students and teachers. The setting up of BoniO, an educational gaming software firm, is not only a testimonial of Professor Yeh’s achievement in gamification; it is also a prime example showing that everyone/anyone is capable of creating something great. It is hoped that his example will be an inspiration to the younger generation and give them the courage in taking the first step towards their own startup.
Professor Yeh believes that a feasible startup idea has to spring from a problem and for his case, the problem was the need for authentic learning materials. In Taiwan, the standard question banks for student assignment are so overused that the answer guides have become very easily accessible to students. Tolerating such problem was not an option for Professor Yeh, so he came up with the idea of asking students to design their own questions for the class. As designing questions requires thorough and comprehensive knowledge of the subject matter, it motivates students to learn the issues better. What’s more? Professor Yeh and his team created “a very considerate and yet very evil design,” as he put it, to provide real time update on who has completed the assignment. In this way, students feel the pressure to do better and faster than their fellows. “That’s why they become very addicted to solving the problems.” Professor Yeh explained that this sense of competition lays the ground for gamifying learning materials.
Based on this “considerate and evil design”, Professor Yeh developed his social gaming platform PaGamO for his Coursera MOOC, followed by the software house BoniO to provide teachers all over the world with an infrastructure to gamify their teaching materials. Beyond this successful story, Professor Yeh has a greater and deeper agenda: “The reason why I decided to do that was mission.” He explained that in his 10 years of teaching in university, he has seen many super talents and geniuses choosing to work in big companies instead of creating a startup, simply because they do not want to take the risk of failure. The phenomenon is not limited to students, but applies to Professors as well. Professor Yeh would like to grow a successful story from campus as an inspiration for his University students and counterparts.
Advice from Professor Benson Yeh to potential future entrepreneurs: (1) Find good problem – “A good problem is one that troubles many people… You offer good solutions and many people are willing to spend money for your product… Start to train yourself to observe other people.” (2) Build your HR database – “Making a good team is very important, but forming a good team requires time… Now is the time for you to start building your good team.” (3) Have good presentation and marketing skills – “If you don’t have some visibility; if you don’t have some reputation, even if you have good startup, it’s very difficult for you to get funding… Go out there and let other people know.”
In a nutshell? Challenge yourself further, think outside the box and have fun.
Joint Seminar by Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning
E-Learning Pedagogical Support Unit & Technology-Enriched Learning Initiative
Speaker: Professor Rick Glofcheski, Faculty of Law Date : 25 November, 2015 (Wednesday) Time : 12:30pm – 1:45pm Venue :Social Sciences Chamber, 11/F, The Jockey Club Tower
Abstract:
What happens when you “flip” a large (260 student) compulsory law course? What happens when lectures are cancelled and replaced by a series of short, punchy videos for online viewing before attending class? What happens when students attend class not to take lecture notes, but to work in small groups to solve ill-defined real-world problems, and then present their work for discussion and evaluation by the entire class? What happens? You might be surprised. Graphic evidence will be presented. Come to the seminar, have a sandwich, and find out what happens.
Professor Rick Glofcheski teaches tort law and labour law at HKU. He has also taught criminal law, contract law, legal system, and medical law. After teaching large classes (250+ students) for many years, Rick began to explore new pedagogies and practices that would produce more sustainable learning, learning that was more likely to be retained and available to students post-final examination. These practices are oriented toward a more student-centered, independent and authentic learning model. In recognition of some of this work, Rick received a number of teaching awards including, in 2011, the first ever University Grants Committee Teaching Award.
Seminar by Technology-Enriched Learning Initiative
Speaker: Professor Benson Yeh Ping-Cheng, Director of MOOC Program, National Taiwan University Date : 24 November, 2015 (Tuesday) Time : 5:30pm – 6:30pm Venue : Rm 201, 2/F, K.K. Leung Building, HKU
About the Speaker
Professor Benson Yeh Ping-Cheng, Director of MOOC Program at National Taiwan University, is a pioneer in designing and experimenting new pedagogical initiatives. His award-winning educational social game, PaGamO, is a breakthrough in gamification. Based on this initiative, Professor Yeh started BoniO, a software production house with investment from the Foxconn Technology Group. Professor Yeh believes that education in the future lies in gaming and that every generation should have their own story of entrepreneurship.
About the Seminar
In this seminar, Professor Yeh will share his experience in writing his own story of entrepreneurship in order to encourage teenagers to go for their dreams. The setting up of BoniO was out of two major intentions. By recruiting mostly young graduates in the team, Professor Yeh aims to allow teenagers to have hands-on experience with entrepreneurship. He aspires to ignite the passion and courage in the next generation to put their business plans into action. Another purpose of BoniO is to make an impact on education; more specifically in the mode of learning. He believes that education of the next generation has to be closely tied to gaming; and in order to provide sustainable and easily applicable tools for teachers in gamifying educational contents, it is essential to start up a business.
Turnitin is one of the tools available for students and teachers to determine the originality of their work. The originality report is a document provided by Turnitin to demonstrate the similarity between students’ original written coursework and Turnitin databases, including books, journals, websites, past submissions, etc. A general similarity score as well as a detailed breakdown are included in the report for instructors to judge the originality of the students’ work.
The similarity score shows how much matching text has been found in the students’ writing. However, while it provides a direct overview of the originality, the score itself cannot be used as a criterion for determining plagiarism. The score could be rather high if the writing includes a large amount of proper citations or quotations, while it could also be rather low when the content is simply made up without any references. Therefore, judgment has to be made by an academic based on the detailed report. Any matching text against the databases would be highlighted with sources listed in the match overview section. Besides the matching text, links to the original full text are also available to help examiners make better informed judgments.
Even though Turnitin’s originality report is not necessarily a plagiarism report, it serves as an efficient aid to avoid plagiarism. Instructors could choose to make the report accessible for students, so that they could perform a self-check before the assignments are officially handed in. Alternatively the report can also be made accessible after the submission of assignment so students can reflect and examine on the score of their coursework. This accessibility enables students to build up the good habit of making proper references in academic writing. On the other hand, by setting up an acceptable percentage of similarity, instructors could make use of Turnitin to ensure the originality of students’ writing.
Are you interested in film production? Have you ever thought of being a videographer, a lighting technician, or even a director of your own film to tell a story worth sharing? Leaving their comfort zones and intensive study schedules, students from the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine took up the challenge of preparing a series of videos on basic life support skills (some of which are very similar to first-aid procedures), with the first two that went into production being compression-only CPR and choking management.
Led by the Emergency Medicine Unit (EMU) of the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine and in collaboration with the Technology-Enhanced Learning Initiative (TELI), our medical students participated in a filming tutorial session on August 19 and had their first trial of filming on October 26, 2015. Taught by a professional multimedia specialist lined up by TELI, the students picked up plentiful useful skills in filming such as transforming a set of medical procedures into practicable storyboards, acting naturally in front of the camera, and synchronizing audio and video in the post-production phase. Each student played a special role in the video making process, and their enthusiasm made the filming night a fun and memorable experience.
Moreover, this experience gave students a chance to share their knowledge in emergency medicine in layman’s terms through easy-to-understand yet informative videos. The steps that a rescuer takes during the first few minutes of a medical emergency are critical and can mean a difference between life and death. Therefore, offering these videos of basic life support skills are definitely important.
Filming will continue in the coming months. The whole series will be for both teaching and publicity. The elderly group has been identified as the major target audience. Stay tuned for more news about this project.
On September 22 and October 20, 2015, the Technology-Enriched Learning Initiative (TELI) team facilitated an extraordinary “flipped-classroom” learning experience for the students in Professor Rick Glofcheski’s Tort Law class. The idea was to provoke their initiative in discussion of authentic legal issues.
“We don’t just sit in class and listen to really boring lectures or boring powerpoint slides.”
Student interviewed on her expectation before the session
To “flip” the classroom is to mobilise the classroom time to the greatest, that is to reserve as much time as possible for interaction among students. Before the large-group meet-up, short videos were prepared to consolidate students’ knowledge on legal principles, with each video covering a key concept.
In groups of five, students were seated in Loke Yew Hall. They analysed news articles as if they were analysing a live case in front of them. Discussion was completely student-led. Tutors simply observed group discussions and supplemented their ideas at times.
“One of the best things about this class is that you have to learn to juggle different opinions… and you also have to learn how to express your own opinions in the best way possible.”
Student interviewed on her experience after the session
One interesting touch to the ‘Flipped Classroom’ was the use of Mentimeter, an online polling system. Students were invited to answer several questions online anonymously after watching the video lectures as well as to provide justifications for their answers. The answers were then shown at the beginning of the large-group class. In this way both students and tutors got a better understanding of common misunderstandings that might be incurred when learning about the topic.
It was extremely rewarding to the team to hear that students and tutors cherished this experience and were looking forward to more. Students pointed out that unlike tutorials, they really do engage in a discussion with one another. Tutors also believed that by not “dictating” the classroom, students were allowed more spaces for discussions, and would eventually benefit from them.
