Teaching Excellence Award Scheme 2016

Message from Curriculum Development and Quality Assurance Section of the Registry

teas2015This is to remind colleagues and students that nominations are now invited for the various awards under the Teaching Excellence Award Scheme (TEAS). The TEAS aims to recognise, reward and promote excellence in teaching at the University, which comprises four categories of awards, viz. University Distinguished Teaching Award (UDTA), Outstanding Teaching Award (OTA), Teaching Innovation Award (TIA), and Early Career Teaching Award (ECTA). Besides awards to individuals, both OTA and TIA have team awards to recognise and encourage collaborative effort and achievements in enhancing teaching and learning.

Please refer to the circular of May 5, 2016 from the Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning) for further details:

URL: http://intranet.hku.hk:8030/web/reg/adqa/rslleung/TEAS-List-A-2016.pdf.

Nominees are encouraged to contact the Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning (CETL) for advice on the preparation of teaching portfolios. In addition to the TEAS workshop organised by CETL held on August 25, 2016 to support interested staff members to prepare for their submissions, another workshop will be held on September 19, 2016, details of which are available via this link: http://www.cetl.hku.hk/tea160919/

All nominations and the supporting documents should reach Ms. Synthia Chau, Curriculum Development and Quality Assurance Section of the Registry, by September 30, 2016. Enquiries may be directed to Ms. Chau on 2859 2440 or via email to schau@hku.hk.

September with Technology Vibe

We are welcoming our incoming class and returning students with technology vibe!

Artificial Intelligence as a Service: Free Text Analysis Tools

By courtesy of IBM, we are making available two simple tools for text analysis:

(1) Personality Insights, which uses linguistic analytics and personality theory to infer attributes from a person’s unstructured text; and
(2) Tone Analyzer, which uses cognitive linguistic analysis methods to measure the emotional tone in text.

They are ready for your use on our platform. Please sign in with your HKU Portal ID to gain access. For students, these tools might be helpful for refining write-ups such as term papers and job application letters. Teachers might want to think about how these tools could be incorporated in their courses. Feel free to make good use of them. In fact, over 200 have already signed up.

Screen Shot 2016-09-06 at 3.44.25 PM

Moodle looks So Different

moodle2 copyAesthetics is very much on our mind when we design online learning experience. That’s why our developers and designers have been working very hard with the E-learning Team of our Information Technology Services to make changes – big and small – to improve your Moodle experience.

A lot of you might have realized that our Moodle had a facelift – everything is (slightly) cleaner and clearer now, don’t you think? Some of our students noticed the change, and sent us comments and feedback – most of them are related to how much information should be shown on a single page, and how little tricks like sorting and searching might help them to locate a particular course. We really appreciate students’ input, and will continue to improve this learning management system.

Mentimeter – a web-based polling tool
It is one of our key missions is to introduce the latest technologies for effective learning and teaching.

In the previous academic year, we have been facilitating the use of an anonymous polling tool, Mentimeter, in some courses (sample cases are here). In view of the positive comments received, we will continue to provide support for free trials this year, as well as technical advice in case Departments/Faculties want to purchase their own licenses.

You may contact us through enquiry@teli.hku.hk for arrangement. Enjoy!

Experiential Learning Fund (Second Round, 2016/17): Call for applications

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Dear Colleagues,

The Experiential Learning Fund (Second Round, 2016/17) is now open to all faculty members for implementing experiential learning projects and activities into undergraduate courses and curriculum.

1. Experiential Learning Fund (ELF)

The ELF supports faculties to introduce, expand or enhance experiential learning in their undergraduate curricula.

2. Individual Consultation for Experiential Learning Project Opportunities

Please feel free to contact our lecturers, Amia Cheung at 2219 4877 or amia@hku.hk

Please visit http://ghelc.hku.hk/potential-experiential-learning-opportunities/ for the experiential learning project opportunities.

3. GHELC Student Preparation and Training Workshops 2016-17

GHELC offers a comprehensive set of tailor-made workshops that provides both generic and specific knowledge to prepare students for their experiential learning projects. Faculties are also welcome to propose new workshop topics.

Please visit http://ghelc.hku.hk/student-workshops/ for the list of workshops.

For further enquiries, please feel free to reach us at 2241 5868 or ghelc@hku.hk

Yours Sincerely,
Professor Ian Holliday
Director
Gallant Ho Experiential Learning Centre
http://ghelc.hku.hk/