Category: Blog

Designing Your Own Flipped Classroom: Online and Pre-class Elements

This blog post is part of the ‘Flipped Classroom Professional Development Series’.

Successful lessons begin with intentional, detailed, and pedagogy-embedded planning. In designing your flipped class, it is important to think from students’ perspectives right from the planning stage. This is to ensure they feel prepared for engaging in an active flipped classroom. In the Flipped Classroom Learning Symposium – Sharing of Pedagogies and Practices on December 6, 2017, practitioners from multiple disciplines in HKU shared their very own experience in designing pre-class activities. This blog post is a toolbox of effective pre-class activities and useful tips in planning a flipped class.

Benefits of Pre-class Preparation by Students
One of the key dimensions of flipped learning is the preparation students need to do before class in readiness for deeper exploration of the subject content and application of their knowledge and skills in class. This is the essential stage for students to acquire foundational knowledge.

Yaya, a Year 5 medical student points out that, “If you do sit down and watch the video and you go to the flipped classroom, it’s very rewarding because you know you can apply the knowledge. And when you can answer the questions, you know I’ve grasped some of the key knowledge.”

One major benefit shared by the teachers at the symposium is the availability of pre-class resources and activities on the online platform that allow students to personalise learning. Students can access the content anywhere, anytime, and can study it at their own pace. They have the control and flexibility of when and how the learning materials are used to suit their learning styles. This mode of learning gives them an opportunity to learn to take the ownership of learning.

Furthermore, as students acquire the foundational knowledge before class, more class time can be devoted to interactive activities that requires actual application of knowledge and higher-order thinking skills. It allows more time for student-teacher as well as student-student interactions, which students and teachers greatly appreciated. Freeing up class time enabled teachers to go beyond fundamental concepts, run collaborative group activities and prompt discussions.

“It takes time in class to explain the abstract concepts to students There was no room for them to ask questions and to talk about what they understand… It can now be more flexible because students take their own time and complete it [pre-class activities] at their own pace and then in class there is real discussion happening. We focus on what students don’t understand from the packages [pre-class activities],” says Ms. Heidy Wong, Assistant Lecturer, Centre for Applied English Studies (CAES).

Recommended Pre-class Elements: What to Prepare
Online learning platform

Create / Provide an online learning platform where students can have access to all learning materials. You may choose to use Moodle, a platform which has been adopted by most teachers in HKU. An alternative is Open edX, a newer, more flexible platform for blended learning, where teachers can host a wide range of file types, including videos, polls, and even code their own plugins to suit their teaching needs.
Maximize student interaction by embedding a tool or component to the platform that promotes multiple ways communication, either synchronised or real-time, such as a discussion forum. This encourages all students to share their thoughts and ask questions about the pre-class learning materials and activities. It also gets everyone involved in knowledge-building and cultivates a sense of belonging among students in the online community.
Go through the online platform with the students and teach them how to use the resources. Some students may need the demonstration on how to find and use the materials as they will need to adapt their learning strategies.

Pre-class videos
Flipped learning is often associated with the use of pre-class video as they can motivate students to learn and help them build their conceptual understanding (Long, Logan & Waugh, 2014). At the symposium, most teachers have used videos as the main vehicle to deliver course content before class.

Condense lecture content into short videos. Shorter videos are much more engaging than long explanatory videos (Guo, Kim & Rubin, 2014). In Mr. Mathew Pryor’s experience, he redesigned his original 90 mins lecture down to two 8-10 mins videos for his course, CCHU9001 Designs on the Future. He commented that it is a “valuable instructional design exercise”.
When speaking in the video, be concise, animated and enthusiastic (Guo et al., 2014). Along with meaningful audiovisual aids, this keeps students interested and focused while watching.
Use different types of videos (e.g., talking head, learning glass, whiteboard and tutorial demonstration videos) and integrate the videos with graphics and animations.
Add interactive components and knowledge checkpoints to the videos. Various forms of knowledge check questions can be embedded at the end or at any point of the videos. This increases students’ attention span and provides better engagement (Santiago, Kasley, Guo & Phillips, 2017). Examples of interactive components introduced in the symposium include:
- The SCORM package: Introduced by Mr. Sam Cole, Ms. Heidy Wong and Mr. Patrick Desloge from CAES, SCORM is an interactive online package which allows teachers to embed questions around the video. The short quizzes with instant feedback provide students with formative self-evaluation for their understanding of the content and learning progress.

The SCORM package for formative self-evaluation.

Video commenting tool: Dr. Michael Botelho from the Faculty of Dentistry and Mr. Mathew Pryor are developing a video commenting tool where students can add reaction tags and textual comments directly at specific points of the video, which the teacher and fellow students can respond to. This also maximizes the learning experience by allowing students to share their opinions and ideas as they prepare for class, socializing the online pre-class stage.

Other online learning resources
While videos can be a useful resource, it is not the only way of engaging students in pre-class learning. Think about how best to engage your students before coming to class. It may involve using different digital media and activities, but the focus should always be on what the student needs to learn and not on what media to use.

Provide relevant and authentic reading materials. Besides getting students to read sections from the textbook, the teachers found that authentic reading materials (e.g., news articles, websites, blogs) can help students to better understand the topics and relate to their everyday life.
Look for open-source educational resources. Some examples include documentaries, infographics, websites, blogs, news clips, journal articles, Khan Academy videos, Youtube trending clips, movies and TV clips. Teachers can customise and integrate them into their curriculum, which help to widen students’ perspectives and enhance their learning experience.
Utilise and integrate specific technologies (e.g. Kahoot!, Google forms, Google docs, mind maps) to engage students and create a cohesive learning experience.

Examples of Pre-class Activities
Below are some examples of pre-class activities that our teachers employed in their courses or planned on implementing.

Initiate short discussion before class. This can arouse student interest on the topics as they prepare for further discussion in class, which encourages deep learning and helps students work towards mastery of the content.
Get students to submit online polls and surveys. Not only can interesting pre-class polls and surveys arouse students interest for the content, but they also help the teacher to assess students’ understanding and gauge their perspectives of the topics.
Design pre-class activities that require students to collaborate in groups before class. This encourages students to help each other to understand the materials and start building knowledge upon one another’s ideas.
Ask students to do preliminary research or analysis for acquiring the basic knowledge of certain topics. Teacher can then dive into activities that develop higher order thinking for specific topics in class. Students may read different materials or do research on different assigned topics. Then they can share their findings in class with other students in small groups.

For a flipped classroom to work, both teachers and students have their part to play in the pre-class stage. Teachers need to plan pre-class activities carefully, and students need to make preparation accordingly. Find out how to ensure students prepare for class in our next blog post in the series.

This blog post is part of the Flipped Classroom Professional Development Series. More articles from the series:

Flipped Classroom: A Grassroot Movement of T&L Change
Designing Your Own Flipped Classroom: Online and Pre-class Elements
Getting Students Ready for Your Flipped Class
Designing In-class Activities for Flipped Classroom: A Step-by-step Guide
Measuring the Effectiveness of Your Flipped Class

Reference
Guo, P. J., Kim, J., & Rubin, R. (2014). How video production affects student engagement: An empirical study of MOOC videos. In Proceedings of the first ACM conference on Learning@ scale conference (pp. 41-50). ACM.

Long, T., Logan, J., & Waugh, M. (2014). Students’ perceptions of pre-class instructional video in the flipped classroom model: A survey study. In Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference (pp. 920-927). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).

Santiago Jr, J. M., Guo, J., Eng, D., Kasley, K., & Phillips, P. (2017, April). Introduction to Engineering Using Google Docs and Interactive Video in Support of an Online Flipped Classroom Approach. In 2017 ASEE Pacific Southwest Conference, Tempe, Arizona.

Flipped Classroom: A Grassroot Movement of T&L Change

This blog post is part of the ‘Flipped Classroom Professional Development Series’.

Flipped classroom encourages deep learning. In today’s fast-paced world, students are confronted by an increasingly complex and uncertain future. How are we going to prepare them for these challenges? Flipped classroom might be the key.

What is ideal learning like? We may have different ideas in mind, but some key aspects of learning better include improving efficiency, effectiveness, quality, and perhaps satisfaction. One of our endeavours to ameliorate our ways of learning and teaching is employing the flipped classroom approach. “At HKU, flipping the classroom has been a grassroot movement of T&L change,” said Professor Ian Holliday in the Flipped Classroom Learning Symposium – Sharing of Pedagogies and Practices on December 6, 2017. In this blog post series, we will introduce key concepts of flipping with real cases in HKU.

The Flipped Classroom Learning Symposium – Sharing of Pedagogies and Practices, December 6, 2017.

What is Flipped Classroom?
Flipped classroom is “the practice of assigning lectures outside of class and devoting class time to a variety of learning activities,” (DeLozier & Rhodes, 2017, p. 141). Students take an active role in exploring new ideas, investigating complicated cases, constructing arguments, solving real-life problems, and creating a synergetic learning community with fellow learners. In a flipped class, “[students] are no longer recipients of just passive learning, but active shapers of their own learning and problem solvers in the class,” said Professor Holliday.

Flipping in HKU: A Grassroot Movement of T&L Change
In HKU, flipping the classroom has been a grassroot movement jointly initiated by practitioners in a wide range of disciplines. These pioneers showcased their fruits of their endeavours at the Flipped Classroom Learning Symposium, with more than 200 teaching staff and researchers from various faculties and institutions attending. In particular, they shared the highlights of their courses, and discussed the effectiveness as well as scalability of the pedagogies used. Students benefiting from flipped learning also shared their views in the discussion panel.

The Symposium at a Glance

Welcome Speech
Professor Ian Holliday, Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning)
What is Flipped Classroom and Why We Flip it?
Dr. Lily Zheng, Assistant Professor, Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning
Classroom Flipping in CAES
Ms. Heidy Wong (Assistant Lecturer), Mr. Sam Cole (Senior Lecturer) and Mr. Patrick Desloge (Senior Lecturer), Centre for Applied English Studies
Flipping a Science Foundation Course – Experience and Challenges
Dr. Rachel Ka Wai Lui (Lecturer) and Dr. William Man Yin Cheung (Lecturer), Faculty of Science
Common Core: New Approach – The (re-)making of CCHU9001 ‘Designs on the Future’
Mr. Mathew Pryor, Head of Division of Landscape Architecture, Associate Professor (Teaching), Faculty of Architecture
Flipping a Classroom like Solving a Rubik’s Cube
Professor Ricky Y.K. Kwok (Associate Vice-President (Teaching & Learning)) and Ms. Andrea Qi (Honorary Lecturer), Faculty of Engineering
Flipped Classroom – Chest Pain
Dr. Ming-Yen Ng, Clinical Assistant Professor, Faculty of Medicine
Advanced Negotiations Simulation
Dr. Courtney Fung, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences
Flipping a Dental Classroom
Dr. Michael Botelho, Clinical Associate Professor, Faculty of Dentistry
Flipping a Large Class with Authentic Materials
Professor Rick Glofcheski, Professor, Faculty of Law
Student Panel
Discussant Panel
All speakers

Discussant panel

Closing Remarks
Dr. Susan Bridges, Assistant Dean (Curriculum Innovation), Associate Professor, Faculty of Education

Flipped Classroom and Deep Learning
Flipped classroom encourages deep learning, in contrast to surface approaches – a recurring theme in all presentations. In today’s fast-paced world, students are confronted by an increasingly complex and uncertain future. It is our responsibility as educators to prepare them for these challenges. Flipped classroom, an approach that facilitates deep enquiry, helps prepare our students for the future.

Speed, complexities and uncertainties are three major challenges that the current generation faces. In this digital age when information is at an arm’s reach, many students want to obtain more information in a shorter time. However, this convenient access to information may numb the need to deeply engage with the content, causing a shallow acquisition of information and sacrificing quality for quantity.

In a world that is moving increasingly faster, the job market is also rapidly transforming. Despite alternate opportunities emerging, the fast evolution of market trends and new technologies makes the future of the working world less predictable. It will only become more difficult for students to foresee and prepare for the future by the time they graduate.

Critical thinkers and problem solvers, however, will adapt to changes and thrive in every field. Deep learning is the key to help students become good problem solvers. In particular, we should

prompt students to interact with content and engage in deep enquiry
generate ample opportunities for meaningful F2F interactions with peers and the teaching staff.

How can we achieve this? Flipped classroom might be the answer, due to its emphasis on deep learning. Unlike traditional lectures where the professor stands on stage to deliver content, students in a flipped class enjoy substantial opportunities to actively learn through discussing and exploring with their peers and teachers.

“Flipped classroom is reacting to the issues of speed, complexities, and uncertainties in this modern world”, summarizes Dr. Susan Bridges in her closing remarks.

One step further
To further expand the flipped classroom movement within and beyond HKU, we have prepared a series of blog posts summarizing various key aspects of flipped classroom.

Check out also our newly developed online repository of case documentation, useful resources and research findings related to flipped classroom.

Interested in flipping your class? Contact us.

Reference

DeLozier, S. J., & Rhodes, M. G. (2017). Flipped classrooms: A review of key ideas and recommendations for practice. Educational Psychology Review, 29 (1), 141-151. [Link]

e-learning flipped classroom Flipped Learning TELI

University Teaching MOOC

Click here if you cannot access Youtube.

Registration

Introduction to the course (Course outline)
University Teaching is an introductory MOOC on teaching and learning in tertiary education, designed by staff at CETL and offered through Coursera. Whether you have just started your first university teaching post, you are thinking about becoming a university teacher, or you just have an interest in understanding the essentials of university teaching, this course is definitely for you.

University Teaching will help you to address the following questions:

What is it like teaching in higher education?
What does research evidence tell us about effective teaching in higher education?
How can we ensure that our instructional design helps our students achieve their intended learning outcomes?
What pedagogic options do we have to make our teaching successful?
What assessment and feedback practices can help our students learn effectively?

With input from instructors, guest speakers and interviewees, including teaching award winners, students and experts in the fields, you will be exposed to research evidence in relation to effective university teaching and instructional design. Throughout the course, you will learn from teachers whose teaching has been judged to be excellent, and you will see many examples of their teaching in practice.

After completing the learning tasks in this course, you will be able to:

Discuss the teaching and learning context in higher education and reflect on the challenges and opportunities you might encounter as a university teacher.
Explain key teaching and learning concepts and relevant evidence in relation to effective university teaching.
Analyse the relationships between various aspects of teaching and student learning.
Identify a range of instructional strategies to support effective student learning.
Apply key concepts to the structuring of course outlines and lesson plans in order to support successful student learning.

Join our professional development community on Facebook
Check out our University Teaching Facebook page for updates and extra content on teaching and learning!

CETL e-learning MOOC TELI University Teaching

HKU The Review 2017

We are excited to share some highlights of Technology-Enriched Learning Initiative’s (TELI) involvement in HKU The Review 2017!

#Innovative #Testing New Waters

TELI Vision
Online content and new technology are becoming ever more prominent in university education, creating alternatives to standard lectures such as flipped classrooms. TELI strives to help teachers explore new ways to teach. We support and promote e-learning across HKU, for example by developing games and apps with teachers and producing online learning materials. We also:

Produce courses

Eight Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) through the edX and Coursera platforms in 2016-17
Six on-campus Small Private Online Courses (SPOCs) that blend MOOC-style online learning with on-campus classes

Collaborate

A University Grants Council (UGC) funded project to produce 10 SPOCs with three local universities, namely the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The content (general education or common core-type course) will be shared among the four universities.
A new mode of collaboration: a commission from Mass Transit Railway Corporation to produce videos about its operations for public consumption.

Encourage innovative teaching

Professor Ricky Kwok (who oversees TELI) launched a summer edition of his Common Core course, Everyday Computing and the Internet, creating an opportunity for students to experience flipped classroom in Peking University. It was a brand new experience for our students. It included three weeks online learning and two intensive weeks at Peking University with Mainland students.

Want to know more about e-learning or teaching in innovative ways? Contact us at enquiry@teli.hku.hk! Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

HKU The Review Innovation MOOC SPOC TELI UGC

Be Bold and Make a Change: the Influence of Technology Development in UPenn

“To provide a more effective learning experience, you have to adapt course material for a new generation. They are learning in a different way than we did in the past,” said Mr. Chia-Wei Wu, Director of Learning Sciences and Technologies of School of Dental Medicine, University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), in the seminar “Penn Dental Medicine Academic Initiative and the Influence of Technology Development in Medical Science” on November 7, 2017. In this seminar, Mr. Wu shared his successful experience in changing the teaching and learning environment at UPenn DMD programme, through introducing iPedagogy and incorporating the latest technological approaches.

Mr. Wu introducing iPedagogy to HKU students and staff

iPedagogy at UPenn DMD
Four technology-empowered initiatives have been introduced to improve student engagement and facilitate teachers in monitoring students’ performance:

The iPad initiative
- Starting from 2014, every newly admitted DMD student from School of Dental Medicine is given an iPad and they are required to bring the iPad to school on a daily basis for learning. Several apps essential for learning have been remotely installed for easy access to course information and materials. Students can keep the iPads even after graduation.
iBooks
- An e-book app, iBooks, was introduced as an teaching and learning platform in the DMD programme. It allows teachers to conveniently import teaching materials. Traditional textbooks used in the programme have been converted to an electronic format with better visuals. iBooks also enables students and teachers to access content of different media types at the same time, such as instructional videos, course schedules and published journal articles. Interactive online worksheets and quizzes are also included in the app. Furthermore, students can download the most up-to-date version of course books through iBooks anytime anywhere. What is more, email notifications are automatically disseminated to students regarding course content updates. As of this year, 24 electronic textbooks are now available on iBooks and most of them are clinical manuals and course documents for the 4-year study programme.
The visual and graphic presentations of iBooks of DMD programme
Online lectures
- Tailor-made online lecture videos have been designed to cover various topics in one learning module, which concentrates the course, making its content more concise and efficient in content delivery. While using the iBooks app to watch lecture videos, simultaneous note-taking is also supported, hence students do not have to keep jumping from one app to another to jot notes. According to the feedback of course teachers and students, online lectures enabled them to have much more time to engage in in-class discussions*, as students are required to familiarize themselves with the course content by watching lecture videos before coming to class for in-class activities.
Gamification
- Merging game and studies – Various interactive platforms, such as Poll Everywhere and PaGamo, are used to engage students in classroom activities. Students’ feedback showed that they were very content with the use of games to learn as well as study for tests.

Success of iPedagogy
iPedagogy in UPenn received wide acclaim from students and academic staff. Students found that learning with iPads greatly enhanced their lab experience and practice, since they could easily refer back to demonstration videos and chapter content during laboratory experiments. They found carrying their iPads rather than heavy textbooks to class much more convenient. Teachers also noted that technology stimulated students’ in-class engagement – students were more likely to participate in anonymous polling and other interactive online activities in lectures. In addition, it was easier for teachers to closely monitor students’ performance and their learning progress with a centralized learning platform, so they could adjust their teaching plans and improve the syllabus conveniently.

On top of pursuing academic achievement in university, proficiency in technology literacy is an important skillset that students should acquire in university education nowadays. You and your department can take an initiative to make a change in your school! Contact us if you have an idea in mind.

Further reading

Debbie Goldberg. “Academic Initiatives: Penn Dental Medicine Furthers News Aspects in Curriculum, Technology and Wellness.” Penn Dental Journal, Fall 2016, p. 32.

e-learning

E-learning Support in HKU: Who to Contact

Thinking of incorporating technology in teaching but not sure where to start? We are here to help!

The TELI team, together with Information Technology Services (ITS), Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning (CETL) and HKU Libraries (HKUL) endeavour to provide diverse and extensive e-learning support services to teachers.

Our team specializes on providing

support in instructional design and content production, such as developing Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), Small Private Online Courses (SPOCs), flipped classrooms and instructional videos;
pedagogical support in e-learning;
support in using e-learning technologies in teaching, such as mobile applications, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), Moodle, e-portfolio, etc;
professional development training for teachers;
data analysis for teaching and learning.

You may also reach out to:

CETL for face-to-face professional development training;
ITS for Moodle-related enquiries, classroom lecture capture services and any technical enquiries in general; and
the Libraries for Turnitin- and Endnote-related enquiries.

Empower yourself. Empower HKU. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you are looking for ways to innovate your teaching!

E-Learning Support in HKU
Contact List
We are here to help!

Strategic development and content creation
University’s e-learning strategy and associated policies	Prof. Ricky Kwok	Ricky.Kwok@hku.hk
Development of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and Small Private Online Courses (SPOCs)	Prof. Ricky Kwok	Ricky.Kwok@hku.hk
Development of flipped classroom and classwork activities	Dr. Leon Lei	culei@hku.hk
Production of instructional videos
Application of e-learning technologies (including apps, AR, VR, 360-degree photography)
Application of e-portfolio and mobile learning

Professional development
Face-to-face training	Dr. Leon Lei / Dr. Luke Fryer	culei@hku.hk / fryer@hku.hk
Online training	Dr. Leon Lei	culei@hku.hk
Coaching for DIY e-learning development	Dr. Leon Lei	culei@hku.hk

Moodle
General enquiries	eLearningTeam@hku.hk
Google Drive service in Moodle	eLearningTeam@hku.hk
Face-to-face training	Ms. Ada Yau	adayau@hku.hk
Adoption of Moodle in a new pedagogical setting	Dr. Leon Lei / Dr. Luke Fryer	culei@hku.hk / fryer@hku.hk

Turnitin
General enquiries (Turnitin.com)	turnitin@hku.hk
General enquiries (Moodle)	eLearningTeam@hku.hk
Cloud-based essay marking (GradeMark / Feedback Studio)	Dr. Leon Lei	culei@hku.hk

Others
Classroom lecture capturing via Panopto	eLearningTeam@hku.hk
Data analysis and data mining for teaching and learning	Dr. Leon Lei	culei@hku.hk
Adoption of Google tools in a new pedagogical setting	Dr. Leon Lei	culei@hku.hk

General enquiries
Pedagogical enquiries	enquiry@teli.hku.hk
Technical enquiries	eLearningTeam@hku.hk

You may also download the PDF version here.

CETL E-learning Support HKUL ITS TELI

Measuring MOOC Learner Success and Post-course Career Development

How do you measure success? Many researchers, when evaluating Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), tend to measure the success of a course with a single metric, i.e. the completion rate. However, MOOCs generally have a large audience, and given the diverse background of MOOC learners, every learner differs in goals and level of engagement with the course materials. It may not be comprehensive enough to evaluate learner success by simple looking at whether he/she has finished the course; and the overall course completion rate alone may not suffice in evaluating the success of a MOOC.

This is what we learnt from a seminar entitled “Demystifying Learner Success: Before, During, and After a Massive Open Online Course”, delivered by Dr Elle Yuan Wang, a Research Scientist at EdPlus Action Lab, Arizona State University on August 1, 2017. Organized by the Faculty of Education, this seminar offered us a different perspective on how to measure success of a MOOC, an ongoing debate among researchers.

Learner Success in terms of Post-Course Career Development
Dr Wang believes that learner success can take many different forms – traditional assessment scores, or in other forms of post-course development, such as career development. In her 2014 study, she measured the post-course development of a group of MOOC learners two years after the end of the course using two metrics: whether learners (i) joined a relevant professional society; and/or (ii) submitted a paper in a relevant conference. By comparing learners’ post-course career development and in-course performance, she set out to investigate the relation between the two. The ultimate goal is to find out how career advancers differ from other learners in terms of their in-course performance.

The research targeted learners of the first iteration of The Big Data in Education MOOC, a postgraduate-level 8-week course offered on Coursera in 2013. Dr Wang was one of the teaching assistants of the course. (The subsequent iterations of the course have been offered on edX.)

The study revealed that:

Career advancers who joined a professional society or submitted a paper earned better scores and were more likely to complete the course than non-advancers.
Career advancers also demonstrated more frequent engagement with course components including course pages, lecture videos, assignment submissions, and discussion forums. For example, the page viewing activities of people who joined a professional society were much higher than non-members.
However, even though career advancers tended to have more post-reading actions, they were not significantly more likely to post, comment, or vote than their peers.

Significance of the Research
This study enriched our understanding of how MOOCs potentially impact learners’ career development and the possible association between student behaviors and positive developments. All these findings are crucial for educators in developing and improving their MOOCs in the future.

A Special Note of Thanks
Hereby we would like to thank Dr Wang for not only sharing with us her research endeavours and findings, but also inspiring our work in learning analytics in HKU. Our colleague, Dr Leon Lei, completed The Big Data in Education MOOC on Coursera in 2013 and is now applying principles learnt from the course in developing our own MOOCs in HKU. Thank you, Dr Wang, for inspiring us. We look forward to more opportunities to further explore learning analytics and educational data mining with fellow researchers in the future.

*Note: Dr Wang’s research was conducted in collaboration with Ryan Baker, University Pennsylvania, and Luc Paquette, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. For further details, please refer to the original research paper: Wang, Y., Paquette, L., Baker, R. (2014). A longitudinal study on learner career advancement in MOOCs. Journal of Learning Analytics, 1(3), 203-206. [PDF]

Big Data Career Development Learner Success MOOC

My Little Story with Mom – Jockey Club End-of-life Community Care Project

“This is part of what a family is about, not just love. It’s knowing that your family will be there watching out for you. Nothing else will give you that. Not money. Not fame. Not work.” – Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie

How will you spend the days with your beloved one if either of you only has 3 months left? This is Iris’ burning question when her mother’s days were numbered in My Little Story with Mom. Featuring Miss Chau Ka-Yee, Catherine (周家怡) and Miss Shaw Yam-Yam, Susan (邵音音), this mini movie will touch your heart. Get your tissues ready…

*English subtitles are now available.

The video is also available on Facebook. Give us a like!

Cast
Chau Ka-Yee, Catherine (周家怡) as Iris Fung (馮艾雯)
Shaw Yam-Yam, Susan (邵音音) as Jenny Cheung (張鳳珍)
Man Chi-leung, Alex (萬梓良) as Ming Tin (明天)
Cheung Song-Tak, Peter (張崇德) as Doctor

Director
Eda Wong (黃懿德)

Composer (soundtrack and theme song)
Yusuke Hatano (波多野裕介)

Perhaps, in the final stage of life, what matters the most is to apologize (道歉), love (道愛), thank (道謝), and bid farewell (道別) to your beloved family.

It is never easy to say goodbye to our loved ones, especially those with terminal diseases. It is never easy to endure the pain. But as Catherine sings in the theme song,

“The little things every day, however mundane and trivial
Remind me that, it isn’t too late to hug you
To hold you close, survive the pains
While every day the absurdity of life abounds
I wish it will stay within, every sweet moment,
However common they seem, for they will come to an end.”

We have no choice in the face of death. But we can choose to love before it is too late. Treasure every tiny moment while you still can. After all, love is all that matters.

The JCECC Project and the Mini Movie Initiative
This mini movie is produced by TELI as a major initiative of the “Jockey Club End-of-life Community Care Project” (JCECC) in collaboration with the Faculty of Social Sciences. Launched in 2015 and funded by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Fund, the JCEEC project aimed at improving end-of-life care quality, enhancing the capacity of service providers, and raising public awareness in the society. Alongside public seminars, this mini movie was premiered in Grand Hall, the University of Hong Kong on November 1, 2017. The Gala Premiere attracted a full-house audience of over 1,200 and wide media attention.

5 Months of Preparation: A Challenge and A Milestone for TELI
The production of this mini movie was an exciting challenge, a milestone, and a wonderful opportunity for our team to work with multiple parties both inside and outside the University.

It was our first attempt to produce a mini movie and use movie as a tool of public education. Our multimedia colleagues in particular embraced this challenge with 5 months of hard work and preparation. From scripting, storyboarding, casting, props and costume design, scene-setting, filming and post-production, it took almost half a year of intensive work to bring this mini movie into life. The completion of this project is a milestone for us. It was also a valuable opportunity for us to collaborate with public health care professionals, famous actors and award-winning musicians.

Behind the Scenes
Do you want to see how we made a movie from scratch? Here is a peek behind the scenes of the mini movie. Enjoy!

Scripting and storyboarding

The production process began with a meticulous storyboard.
The scene of Iris and Jenny taking a taxi to the hospital

The scene of Iris and Jenny cooking and dining at home

Filming

One of the biggest challenges in producing the movie was to film multiple scenes in a taxi. Filming outdoors required constant adjustment and monitoring of light setting, as well as persistent effort in noise reduction throughout the production and post-production process.

Filming in a taxi was a daunting challenge!

Our director Eda Wong viewing the playback

Filming of Catherine Chow and Susan Shaw in Centennial Campus, HKU

Production of the theme song and soundtrack

We recorded the theme song with real instruments (strings and guitar) at Shaw Studio, and then with Miss Catherine Chow in Perception Music Production.
Thanks to this mini movie initiative, our team enjoyed a precious opportunity to work with renowned musicians to produce the theme song and soundtrack, including Mr. Yusuke Hatano and Mr. Adrian Chan. Mr. Hatano is the winner of the “Best Original Film Score” for the film Soul Mate in 2017. Mr. Chan is a talented local song producer who has worked with famous singers such as Leslie Cheung, Faye Wong and Eason Chan.

Miss Catherine Chow recording the theme song in Perception Music Production

Final testing

After the completion of the mini movie, preparing for the Premiere was another challenge for our multimedia team. Several rounds of adjustment were made to ensure the movie was compatible with the visual-audio system in Grand Hall.

Our team working in Grand Hall to adjust the dialogue and foley design

Let’s Join Hands to Impact the Community
It is our honour to give back to the society in collaboration with our community partners, and we are eager for more opportunities to maximize our impact on students and the greater community. If you are interested in experimenting with new ways to educate students and the general public, contact us.

Further reading
On the JCEEC Project and end-of-life care

Jockey Club End-of-Life Community Care Project
張亮：【名家搶先睇】未知生、焉知死 [An article on life and death written by Mr. Leong Cheung, Executive Director, Charities and Community, Hong Kong Jockey Club] (Apple Daily, 29 October 2017)

On the mini movie

邵氏高層女兒黃懿德從偷拍到明拍 [An interview of our director, Ms. Eda Wong] (Hong Kong Economic Journal, 21 November, 2017)
陳智思：點畫人生——媽媽和我的小事 [An article written by Mr. Bernard Chan, the incumbent Non-official Convenor of the Executive Council.] (The Headliner, 10 November 2017)
張亮：【名家搶先睇】媽媽和我的小事 [An article written by Mr. Leong Cheung] (Apple Daily, 5 November 2017)
「賽馬會安寧頌」微電影母女共度最後時光好感人 [Translation: JCEEC Mini movie: A Touching Story about a Mother and Daughter Spending their Last Moments Together] (Headline Daily, 2 November 2017)
HKU Press Release, 31 October 2017:
English: Gala Premiere: “My Little Story with Mom” and End-of-Life Care Public Seminar
Chinese: 「媽媽和我的小事」微電影首映禮暨導演、演員分享會及公眾座談會

Community Care Project English Jockey Club Mini movie Production

Welcoming Our Guests from Philippine Normal University

It is always a pleasure to meet new friends. On November 13, 2017, we were happy to welcome delegates from Philippine Normal University (PNU), an institution specializing on teacher education. Our guests expressed strong interest in HKU’s e-learning landscape and our team’s ongoing effects in enriching teaching and learning with technology.

(Third from left) Professor Ricky Kwok; (Fifth from left) Dr. Marilyn Balagtas, Dean, PNU College of Flexible Learning and ePNU; (Sixth from left) Prof. Jason Orozco, Deputy Dean, PNU College of Flexible Learning and ePNU; (Fifth from right) Ms. Lovely Airein M. de Guzman, Faculty, PNU College of Flexible Learning and ePNU; (Fourth from right) Prof. Niño Naldoza, Head, School of Information and Knowledge Management.

Introducing TELI and HKU’s E-learning Landscape
Our meeting began with Professor Ricky Kwok’s introduction of TELI’s missions:

Content production
Research on students’ online learning behaviour: By analyzing the data, we aim to
- facilitate our teachers to improve their teaching; and
- benefit other institutions through publishing our research.
System and application development:
- We are constantly improving our Learning Management Systems, namely Moodle and open edX, and experimenting with different pedagogical ideas on these platforms.
- Various apps have also been developed, including Newssary and the Prevention of Sexual Harassment (P-SHOC) app, to enrich students’ learning experience.
Collaboration and outreach: To maximize our impact on teaching and learning, our team also regularly collaborate with other institutions in organizing events and conferences. One major initiative is Asian e-Table.

Following Professor Kwok’s introduction, representatives from our team showcased our projects, including the production of Small Private Online Courses (SPOCs), Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), flipped classrooms and data analytics.

Roundtable discussion on the e-learning landscape of HKU and PNU; and challenges in developing online learning materials.

EdTech Demo: Introducing Useful E-learning Tools to Our Fellow Educators
Since our guests are teacher educators, we introduced several e-learning tools suitable for training teachers, including Google Slides, Kahoot! and Mentimeter. All these tools are free and can be used in any educational context.

“We want to make sure every student is covered with the e-learning tools we are using. No one is left behind,” said Mr. Donn Gonda, our assistant instructional designer.

We also showcased our equipment and productions in our multimedia office.
Showing our guests around our multimedia office.

It is our team’s mission to connect with the international academic community and promote knowledge exchange. It is also our pleasure to meet with fellow educators enthusiastic about e-learning. We look forward to more opportunities to connect with institutions worldwide!

e-learning HKU Philippine Normal University PNU