“My students are falling asleep.” – Interactive ways to incorporate active learning activities into a typical lecture and classroom

“My students are falling asleep.” – Interactive ways to incorporate active learning activities into a typical lecture and classroom

Organized by Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning (CETL)

Facilitator: Dr Cecilia Chan, Head of Professional Development, Associate Professor, CETL
Date : 9 September, 2015 (Wednesday)
Time : 12:30 pm – 2:15 pm [Sandwiches will be served with coffee and tea.] Venue : Room 321, Run Run Shaw Building

Abstract:

In this workshop, we will discuss how a lecture environment can be changed so that there are more interaction between students and teachers, and students and students. Practical examples and methods will be shared and demonstrated to motivate students in a lecture and classroom.

Dr Wilton Fok, Assistant Dean of Engineering, HKU, will also demonstrate the iClass mobile apps which was developed in HKU on how to facilitate teaching and learning in classroom.

About the Speaker:

Dr Cecilia Chan from CETL has been involved in the implementation of outcomes-based approach to student learning, assessment, feedback and technology enhanced learning pedagogies and tools. She provides consultations to faculty regarding the design and assessment of innovative educational research projects, grants and initiatives. She also leads, builds and supports faculty efforts to incorporate community to develop skills and knowledge related to the scholarship and assessment of teaching and learning.

Dr Wilton Fok from Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering received his B.Eng degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the University of Hong Kong in 1993. Dr Fok also received two other M.Sc. degrees in Industrial Engineering and Environmental Management from this University in 1996 and 1999 respectively. In 1998 and 2007, he also awarded a MBA degree and a PhD degree from the University of Cambridge and Renmin University of China respectively. Before joining the department, Dr Fok was the e-Business Development Manager of the E-Business Technology Institute (ETI) of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and the Senior Business Development Manager of the ETI Consulting Limited (ETIC). He led a team to commercialize and transfer technologies in the area of IT and e-Business and other emerging technologies developed in the HKU to the industries.

For enquiries, please contact Ms Ivy Lai by email laichun2@hku.hk.

Motivations for experts’ knowledge sharing in online communities: What can we learn from Google and Symantec

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Organized by e-learning Pedagogical Support Unit, CETL

Speaker: Dr. Jingli Cheng, e-learning Pedagogical Support Unit
Date : 13 August, 2015 (Thursday)
Time : 12:45pm – 2:00pm
Venue : Room 321, Run Run Shaw Building

Abstract:

Communities of practice as an approach to informal learning has received attention from various types of organizations, including higher education institutions. A fundamental process underlying successful communities of practice is knowledge sharing. Yet, empirical understanding of motivations for knowledge sharing is lacking, especially with regard to an important subset of participants in these communities, the experts. Based on a research study that the speaker conducted with Google and Symantec, this presentation will highlight the key factors that motivated expert participants’ knowledge sharing behaviors in the two companies’ online user communities.

Colleagues who are considering implementing communities of practice or knowledge sharing initiatives in and beyond their organizations may get useful insights from this presentation. Teachers who are thinking about motivating student participation in online communities may also find this workshop beneficial. All are welcome.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Jingli Cheng has extensive experience applying instructional design theories and best practices in various organizational settings to help learners improve their knowledge and skills. Before joining HKU’s e-learning Pedagogical Support Unit, he worked as Instructional Designer at Stanford University, the Hewlett Packard company and several other organizations in the United States. His research interests include motivation for knowledge sharing in online communities and informal learning in organizational settings.

Please send enquiries to Miss Cherry Lai
Email: cherry.lai@hku.hk.

CETL Programme: Introduction to Teaching and Learning @ HKU

Organized by Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning (CETL)

Date: 8th September, 2015 (Tue) 
Time: 9:30am – 3:30pm
Venue: Multi-purpose Zone, 3/F, HKU Main Library

Introduction to Teaching and Learning

This one-day ‘Introduction to Teaching and Learning @ HKU’ programme is a foundation programme in teaching and learning at the University of Hong Kong and is designed for teaching staff, regardless of previous teaching experience, who are new to teaching at HKU. The overall aim is to provide new staff with a better understanding of specific issues relating to teaching and learning context in Hong Kong and at HKU. Staff will hear from leading Senior Academics in areas of strategic importance to the University.

During this programme, participants will be able to gain knowledge and to engage in discussions relating to issues relevant to teaching and learning at HKU. These will include the overview of the 4-year undergraduate curriculum reform delivered by Professor George Tham, Associate Vice-President of HKU, the demography and culture of HKU students, English as a medium of instruction, the common core curriculum, the role and nature of academic advising and about e-learning at HKU. Participants will also have the opportunity to talk in small groups to Outstanding Teaching Award (OTA) winners at HKU and learn about the diverse ways that have made HKU teaching more outcomes-based and how these have enhanced the learning effectiveness of their teaching.

Online Registration

The maximum capacity is 80 on a first-come-first-serve basis. Registration will close on 2nd Sept 2015 (Wed) at 3pm.

For information on registration, please contact:
Ms. Ivy Lai, CETL
Phone: 3917 8996; Email: laichun2@hku.hk.

e-learning News from EPSU – June 2015

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Recent MOOC Developments at HKU

The HKU Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) initiative continues its momentum. In addition to the successful conclusion of HKU02.1x: The Search for Vernacular Architecture of Asia, the E-learning Pedagogical Support Unit (EPSU) is working with the course teams on designing and running a few other MOOCs:

You can register for these HKU MOOCs at edx.org.

Recording available: Knowledge Gained from the First HKU MOOC

From September to December 2014, HKU’s first MOOC, HKU01x Epidemics, ran on the edX platform. Over 10,000 learners enrolled in the course. HKU01x course teachers and EPSU conducted a seminar titled Broadening Horizons: Knowledge gained, experiences shared and lessons learned from HKU’s first MOOC HKU01x Epidemics, in which the speakers explored various viewpoints arising from the course. The recorded seminar can be viewed here.

Selected Video Resources for E-learning

Hands-On Workshops on Moodle and Panopto Unison

A new function, Panopto Unison, is now available. Panopto Unison module allows teachers to upload their existing video files in other formats to the Panopto system and share the uploaded video with the students in a Moodle course.

A new hands-on workshop PAN-004 “Share existing video to a Moodle course using Panopto Unison” is scheduled among other workshops on Learning Management System (LMS) – Moodle and Lecture Capture Service (LCS) – Panopto. Details of workshops can be found in the online training schedule.

E-learning Consultancy

EPSU works closely with Faculties, Departments, programme teams and teachers on various e-learning initiatives, including flipped classroom, online learning modules and technology-enhanced assessment as well as analytics-informed course planning. For more information, please contact Ms Trudi Chan (Phone: 2241 5282; Email: trudi@hku.hk.)

EPSU Seminar – How to design, produce, and run a MOOC with confidence

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Organized by e-learning Pedagogical Support Unit, CETL

Speaker: Dr. Jingli Cheng, e-learning Pedagogical Support Unit
Date : 9 July, 2015 (Thursday)
Time : 12:45pm – 2:00pm
Venue : Room 321, Run Run Shaw Building

Abstract:

How Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are changing the higher education landscape is much talked about in academic and popular writings, yet for professors, designers and support staff of MOOCs, very little exists that serves as practical guidance for design, production and implementation of MOOCs.

In May 2015, the University of Hong Kong successfully concluded a Massive Open Online Course on the topic of vernacular architecture. A rigorous design, production and implementation process was key to the success of this course. In this presentation, Dr. Jingli Cheng, lead instructional designer and project manager of the MOOC, will share experience, best practice, and lessons learned through the project.

Go behind the scene and learn about the essential elements that led to a successful MOOC!

About the Speaker:

Dr. Jingli Cheng has extensive experience applying instructional design theories and best practices in various organizational settings to help learners improve their knowledge and skills. Before joining the HKU’s e-learning Pedagogical Support Unit, he worked as Instructional Designer at Stanford University, the Hewlett Packard company and several other organizations in the United States. His research interests include motivation for knowledge sharing in online communities and informal learning in organizational settings.

Please send enquiries to Miss Carmen Cheung
Email: carmen.cheung@hku.hk.

Successful Conclusion of the International Conference: Assessment for Learning in Higher Education 2015

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The International Conference: Assessment for Learning in Higher Education 2015 was held on the 13th to the 15th of May 2015 by the Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning (CETL) at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). With the aim of sharing experiences, research, and practice in assessment and feedback in higher education, the Conference attracted educational practitioners, researchers, experts, and academics from around the world and successfully served as an international platform for dialogue on various teaching and learning-related themes.

Over 300 attendees came to the Conference, and more than half of this participation was from overseas: Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, China, Macau, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, Israel, South Africa, Chile, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Belgium, Finland, and the Netherlands. We received an overwhelming number of abstract submissions and there were over 100 oral presentations and 40 poster presentations over the three-day event, confirming the worldwide interest in teaching and learning in higher education and the timeliness and relevance of this conference.

On the 13th of May 2015, three pre-conference workshops were conducted by CETL academic staff together with overseas educational experts. Professor Grahame Bilbow, Director of CETL, and Professor Dai Hounsell, Former Vice-Principal of University of Edinburgh, presented on a community of practice project ‘Wise assessment: Towards a community of practice’. Dr. Cecilia K.Y. Chan, Conference Chairperson and the Head of Professional Development at CETL, and Professor Michael Prosser, Honorary Professor of CETL, conducted a workshop entitled ‘Evidence of student learning outcomes – Why and how?’. Finally, Dr. Susan Bridges, Associate Professor of CETL and Assistant Dean for the Faculty of Education, Dr. Michael Botelho, Clinical Associate Professor of Dentistry, and Professor Claire Wyatt-Smith, Director of Learning Sciences Institute Australia (LSIA) at Australian Catholic University, conducted a workshop entitled ‘Criteria, standards and judgment practices in assessing performance-based tasks in higher education: Opportunities from professional programmes’. These workshops were followed by a Welcome Reception hosted by the Conference Committee.

Professor Ian Holliday, Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Teaching and Learning, delivered the welcome speech for the opening ceremony of the Conference on the 14th of May 2015, and he reiterated the importance of assessment and feedback as well as the University’s commitment to teaching and learning. Professor Grahame Bilbow delivered a warm welcome to participants on behalf of CETL.

The two-day conference focussed on the following sub-themes within the broad framework of assessment for learning in higher education:

  1. Innovative Assessment Approaches
  2. Students’ Responses to Assessment
  3. Assessment and Feedback
  4. Institutional Initiatives in Assessment
  5. Assessing Professional Competencies

Professor John Biggs, former Professor of Education at HKU, Professor Royce Sadler, University of Queensland, Professor David Boud, University of Technology, Sydney, and Professor David Carless & Professor Rick Glofcheski, HKU were invited as keynote speakers to share their expertise on the main theme of the Conference, ‘Assessment for Learning’. The topics of their keynote speeches were, respectively:

The Conference Committee has received very positive feedback from conference participants, including expressions of interest in follow-up activities, and possibly another conference exploring other issues in assessment and learning in higher education.

This event was funded largely by the financial award provided by the Hong Kong University Grants Committee to Professor Rick Glofcheski, Professor of Law at HKU, on the occasion of his being named inaugural winner of the University Grants Committee Teaching Award.

For photographs of the Conference, please see Gallery.

Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning, University of Hong Kong, June 2015

Join-the-Conversation 4: Enhancing Feedback

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Organized by Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning

Chairperson: Prof Grahame Bilbow, Director, Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning, HKU
Speaker: Prof Dai Hounsell, Professor Emeritus, University of Edinburgh
Date: 18 June 2015, Thursday
Programme: 12:00 – 12:45 Sharing of HKU students’ voices on feedback (video and discussion)
13:15 – 14:00 Flipping Feedback
(Hot lunch will be served.)
Venue: Multi-purpose Zone, 3/F Main Library

Abstract:
As one of the Join-the-Conversation events, and also part of the Wise Assessment Community of Practice project, this particular event focuses on one critical and indispensable aspect of assessment – enhancing the effectiveness of feedback to students on their progress and performance. The aim of this event is to promote discussion about the importance of feedback, its impact on student learning, and the ways of providing and enhancing feedback. Our speaker, Professor Dai Hounsell, will give a talk and invite discussions.
Led by Professor Hounsell, four Wise Assessment Briefings have been compiled on this topic, discussing a range of theories and practices in enhancing feedback, and will be available for participants during the event. In addition, we will also share students’ voices about feedback, which were collected from informal interviews with a sample of HKU students on campus.

About the speaker:
Professor Dai Hounsell is Professor Emeritus of Higher Education at the University of Edinburgh. He was the University’s Vice-Principal for Academic Enhancement from 2009 to 2012, Vice Principal for Assessment and Feedback from 2012 to 2014, and Professor of Higher Education from 2000 to 2014. He has published widely on assessment and feedback and many other aspects of university learning and teaching, served in various editorial and refereeing roles, and led several multi-institutional higher education research and development projects with external funding. He coordinates the work of the Wise Assessment Community of Practice Project, which is led by the Director of CETL, Professor Grahame Bilbow.
In the panel-led discussion, our panellists will outline assessment practices in their programmes or courses that involve experiential learning and invite questions and discussions. Copies of the relevant Wise Assessment Briefings will be provided for participants.

For information on registration, please contact Ms Ivy Lai by email laichun2@hku.hk.

Join-the-Conversation 3: Assessing Experiential Learning

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Coordinated by Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning

Date: 16 June 2015, Tuesday
Time: 12:15 – 14:00 (Hot lunch will be served.)
Venue: Multi-purpose Zone, 3/F Main Library

Co-chairs:
Professor Grahame Bilbow, Director of Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning, HKU
Professor Dai Hounsell, Professor Emeritus, University of Edinburgh
Dr Albert Ko, Director, Gallant Ho Experiential Learning Centre, HKU

Panellists:
Mr Wilson Chow, Associate Professor, Head of the Department of Professional Legal Education
Dr Wilton Fok, Principal Lecturer, Assistant Dean, Faculty of Engineering
Prof Samson Tse, Associate Dean (Undergraduate Education), Director of Experiential Learning, Faculty of Social Sciences

Abstract:
This particular Join-the-Conversation event focuses on assessing experiential learning. We would like to take the opportunity to share with you some of our preliminary findings regarding effective approaches of assessing experiential learning at HKU and elsewhere from the literature. To date, we have conducted informal interviews with nine teachers and two students at HKU, consulted experts and scholars within and outside of HKU, and compiled three Wise Assessment Briefings about the topic, detailing a range of assessment practices in capstone projects and dissertations, courses and programmes, as well as the ethical dimensions in experiential learning.

In the panel-led discussion, our panellists will outline assessment practices in their programmes or courses that involve experiential learning and invite questions and discussions. Copies of the relevant Wise Assessment Briefings will be provided for participants.

For information on registration, please contact Ms Ivy Lai by email laichun2@hku.hk.

EPSU Seminar – Predicting Stopout in MOOCS: Mining Behavioral Data

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Organized by e-learning Pedagogical Support Unit, CETL

Speaker: Dr. Una-May O’Reilly, Principal Research Scientist, AnyScale Learning For All Group, MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Date : 16 June, 2015 (Tuesday)
Time : 12:45pm – 2:00pm
Venue : Room 321, Run Run Shaw Building

Abstract:

Understanding why students stopout will help in understanding how students learn in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). In this seminar, Dr. Una-May O’Reilly will describe how she and her research group build accurate predictive models of MOOC student stopout via a scalable, prediction methodology, end to end, from raw source data to model analysis. They attempted to predict stopout for the Fall 2012 offering of MIT’s 6.002x.

This involved the meticulous and crowd-sourced engineering of over 25 predictive features extracted for thousands of students, the creation of temporal and non-temporal data representations for use in predictive modeling, the derivation of over 10 thousand models with a variety of state-of-the-art machine learning techniques and the analysis of feature importance by examining over 70,000 models. They found that stopout prediction is a tractable problem. Their models achieved an AUC (receiver operating characteristic area-under-the-curve) as high as 0.95 (and generally 0.88) when predicting one week in advance. Even with more difficult prediction problems, such as predicting stop out at the end of the course with only one weeks’ data, the models attained AUCs of ~0.7.

About the Speakers:

Dr. Una-May O’Reilly (http://people.csail.mit.edu/unamay/) leads the AnyScale Learning For All (ALFA) group (http://groups.csail.mit.edu/ALFA) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. ALFA focuses on scalable machine learning, evolutionary algorithms, and frameworks for knowledge mining, prediction and analytics. She received the EvoStar Award for Outstanding Achievements in Evolutionary Computation in Europe in 2013 and serves as Vice-Chair of ACM Special Interest Group for Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (SIGEVO).

Miss Carmen Cheung
Email: carmen.cheung@hku.hk.

EPSU Seminar – Education 3.0: How Our Learning World is Changing

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Organized by e-learning Pedagogical Support Unit, CETL

Speaker: Professor Curtis Bonk (Professor of Instructional Systems Technology, Indiana University)
Date : 5 June, 2015 (Friday)
Time : 12:45pm – 2:00pm
Venue : Room 321, Run Run Shaw Building (registration is capped at 60 due to room capacity)

During the past few years, learning has become increasingly collaborative, global, mobile, modifiable, open, online, blended, massive, visually-based, hands-on, ubiquitous, instantaneous, and personal. This is the age of Education 3.0 where learning is about playful and highly engaged design where learner creation of products is the new norm, often with the use of digital media. We humans tinker, invent, and express ourselves, and we find meaning in our playful pursuits. Fortunately, we are living in an age of educational resource abundance where passion, play, purpose, and freedom to learn take precedence over the more mind-numbing traditional information reception models of learning.

Instructors and experts are most effective as curators, counselors, consultants, concierges, and cultivators of student learning. These are the new instructional “C” words; gone are words like learning coercion, credit management, and fixed notions of correctness. Education 3.0 instructors are the ones who foster students’ autonomy and self-directed learning pursuits while, simultaneously, offering insightful guides and timely scaffolds where and when appropriate.

Attend this talk and find out how Education 3.0 will impact instructors and students, and how, in turn, we all can significantly impact it.

About the Speakers:

Dr. Curtis Bonk

Dr. Curtis Bonk is Professor of Instructional Systems Technology at Indiana University. A prolific author and internationally known speaker, he has published more than 300 articles and books on e-learning and has given more than 1,200 talks on many topics related to learning technologies and human learning.

Dr. Bonk received the CyberStar Award from the Indiana Information Technology Association, the Most Outstanding Achievement Award from the US Distance Learning Association, and the Most Innovative Teaching in a Distance Education Program Award from the State of Indiana. From 2012 to 2015, Bonk was named annually by Education Next and listed in Education Week among the top contributors to the public debate about education from more than 20,000 university-based academics. In 2014, he also was named the recipient of the Mildred B. and Charles A. Wedemeyer Award for Outstanding Practitioner in Distance Education.

His books have been translated into multiple languages and used internationally. These include The World Is Open: How Web Technology Is Revolutionizing Education (2009), Empowering Online Learning: 100+ Activities for Reading, Reflecting, Displaying, and Doing (2008), The Handbook of Blended Learning (2006), and Electronic Collaborators (1998). His latest book, Adding Some TEC-VARIETY: 100+ Activities for Motivating and Retaining Learners Online (2014), is freely available to download as an eBook at http://tec-variety.com/. His next book with Routledge, MOOCS and Open Education Around the World, will be out in June 2015.

Miss Carmen Cheung
Email: carmen.cheung@hku.hk.