Acing your SPOC: Analyze, Assemble, and Assimilate

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Organizer: SPOC team, Technology-Enriched Learning Initiative (TELI)
Date : January 26, 2016 (Tuesday)
Time : 12:30pm – 2:00pm
Venue :CPD 2.73, CPD 2.75 and CPD 2.77, 2/F, Chi Wah Learning Commons, Centennial Campus

About the interactive session:

Wondering what are the basics of an online course? Do you want to be innovative? But you don’t know where to start? If you have any of these questions, then maybe Small Private Online Course, commonly referred to as SPOC, might work for you. Come and join us in our series of TELI seminars on SPOC and learn its basic foundation and the different practices being applied in developing it.

In this interactive session, we will look closely into several SPOCs that are currently being developed in HKU. You will have hands-on experience with the different stages that spans from knowing the basic requirements to restructuring your course into an online mode, and from making a concise script to representing it visually through a storyboard. Plus, you can experience a mock-up studio filming and say a few lines in front of the camera. We will also explore different possibilities and options for collaboration to make your class more interactive, fun, and accessible through the use of different technologies and expertise available at TELI. This seminar is open to the first 30 registered participants to ensure that there is enough time to accommodate questions, provide comments, and give feedback for each participant. Late registrants will be placed in the waiting list and contacted when spots are available.

About the Team:

IMG_4027bOur team, formed with the support of a UGC grant, is part of TELI that takes charge of the development of SPOCs within HKU. It is composed of four researchers and one programmer handling ten different courses across five different faculties for its initial stage. Wincy Chan is an instructional designer and researcher for SPOC with interest in students’ social-cognitive and behavioural outcomes across learning designs. Her current projects cover student learning in the traditional and blended classrooms. Elizabeth Oh is the project manager who oversees all project- and research-related activities for the SPOC team. As an avid online learner, Elizabeth is passionate about assisting teachers and students to use technology to advance learning in engaging ways. Donn Gonda is a tech-savvy research assistant currently responsible for the engineering courses. He is experienced in creating online contents for teaching and research. Andrea Qi is a project associate and research assistant responsible for the development, implementation and evaluation of a series of SPOCs. She is an experienced teacher in both F2F and online mode, and an active online course learner. Alex Yi is a technical officer responsible for the development of “Learning Design Studio” which is a handy tool to design teaching plan. He is proficient in various programming language and well adept in delivering courseware materials to the online platform.

This interactive session is open to the first 30 registered participants to ensure that there is enough time to accommodate questions, provide comments, and give feedback for each participant.

Registration

For enquiries, please contact Miss Bonnie Yu by email yka0201@hku.hk.

Scaling out, scaling up: Broadening our perspectives of flipping with a MOOC

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Speaker: Dr. Masato Kajimoto, Journalism and Media Studies Centre
Professor Ricky Kwok, Associate Vice-President (Teaching and Learning)
Date : 14 January, 2016 (Thursday)
Time : 12:45 pm -2:00pm
Venue :Room 102, 1/F, K.K. Leung Building, HKU

About the seminar

Further to his seminar delivered on integrating a MOOC into on-campus teaching in October, Dr. Masato Kajimoto​ is offering to show us more data from the student evaluation of his online lecture experiment in the Fall semester of 2015-16. Some of his students are also joining the seminar to recount their experience of this flipped classroom arrangement. Professor Ricky Kwok will share with participants how he puts Masato’s initiative into context with the new paradigm of scaling out teaching and scaling up learning through the use of technology. We are planning to budget good enough time for you to raise questions, provide comments, and also to find out how the University might support your plans to introduce more innovative ideas in teaching and learning.

About the speakers

Dr. Masato Kajimoto is an Assistant Professor at the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at The University of Hong Kong (HKU). Masato specializes in news literacy education, multimedia storytelling, and social media in journalism. He taught the third iteration of HKU’s online course on edX titled HKU04x Making Sense of News from May to June 2015. The course will be re-run from February 16, 2016 (register here).

Professor Ricky Kwok is Associate Vice-President (Teaching and Learning) at HKU, assisting the Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning) in various endeavors related to e-learning (e.g., MOOCs, blended learning and gamification). He leads the Technology-Enriched Learning Initiative (TELI) team which consists of e-learning technologists, instructional designers, researchers in learning analytics, specialists in systems development, multimedia talents and collaboration associates. ​

Registration

For enquiries, please contact Miss Bonnie Yu by email yka0201@hku.hk.

Live web broadcasting to UCL

Live web broadcasting to UCL

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.

Live web broadcasting to UCL

Eliciting Short Responses: How and Why

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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?

Contact us.

Sharing by Rick Glofcheski on Flipped Learning

Video: Flipped Learning at HKU (LLAW 1005)
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.

The Successful Story of Professor Benson Yeh, a Teacher-turned-Entrepreneur

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Seminar: Flipped Learning at HKU

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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.

Ahead of the Game: the story of a teacher-turned-entrepreneur

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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.

For enquiries, please contact Miss Bonnie Yu by email yka0201@hku.hk.

Reading your Turnitin Originality Report

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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.

features-or-dv-lgThe 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.

Medical Students x TELI: Giving Back and Sharing Knowledge

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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.

IMG_0507Moreover, 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.