Chat-n-Snack Session: Curious about Teaching a Common Core Course?

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Dear Colleagues,

As a way to prime the pump for next year’s Proposal Process—which will be modified and streamlined—we will have an informal gathering in the CC Lounge for those interested in the possibility of developing a Common Core proposal. We will be seeking, as always, the courses that you most want to teach that are for students across all the faculties, interdisciplinary and multimodal in nature, make use of active assessments, and are organized around issues of “profound importance.” We are also seeking courses that are highly experiential, use a flipped classroom or other alternative forms of design, and that align with one of our newly formulated “clusters”.

Chat-n-Snack Session
“Curious about Teaching a Common Core Course?”

Date: April 19, 2016
Time: 3:30pm – 4:30pm
Venue: Common Core Lounge, Room 150, 1/F, Main Building

Everyone is welcomed! And snacks included….

All best,
Gray

Gray Kochhar-Lindgren, PhD
Professor and Director: The Common Core

Common Core: Pizza & Pedagogy – A Book Club for Teachers and Tutors

The Common Core presents

Ever heard of the “Dr. Fox” effect in teaching? What do “top teachers” expect from their students? Are you aware of any stereotypes regarding HKU students and how they are addressed? Longing for a book club that combines pepperoni, pedagogy, and passion?

5:00-6:30pm Nov 26 (Thur)
The Common Core Lounge, Room 150, Main Building

Pizza & Pedagogy

Chat-n-Snack Session: Curious about Teaching a Common Core Course?

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Dear Colleagues,

The Common Core Curriculum (CCC) Committee will soon launch the 2015 Call for Course Proposals for the CCC. I will be hosting a Chat-n-Snack Session “Curious about Teaching a Common Core Course?” on September 17, 2015, to talk to interested teachers, informally, about the development of course proposals as well as the teaching of CCC courses.

Chat-n-Snack Session
“Curious about Teaching a Common Core Course?”

Date: September 17, 2015 (Thursday)
Time: 3:30pm – 4:30pm
Venue: Common Core Lounge, Room 150, 1/F, Main Building

All interested teachers are welcome to join.

All best,
Gray

Gray Kochhar-Lindgren, PhD
Professor and Director: The Common Core

Common Core Orientation Workshops for Semester 1 Tutors

Dear Colleagues,

Orientation Workshops for Common Core Tutors, Semester 1, 2015-16

I and all of those in the Office would like to warmly welcome both new and experienced tutors to the Common Core and hope very much that you will be able to attend one of the sessions of this semester’s workshop, Activating Learning.

We invite all of you who will be running course tutorials in the first semester to attend one of two orientation workshops to be held on September 1st or 4th, 2015 in the Common Core Lounge, Room 150, Main Building. We will work together on sharing ideas, tools, and methods to enhance active learning such as discussions, role-plays, making art, community engagement, and student projects. Several experienced tutors will also give us their input about how to keep the tutorials running most smoothly, as well as on questions of grading, enrollment, the Mysteries of Moodle, assessment, and increasing the pzazz factor.

A. Activating Learning
Date: 1 September, 2015 (Tuesday)
Time: 2:30pm – 4:30pm

B. Activating Learning
Date: 4 September, 2015 (Friday)
Time: 10:00am – 12:00pm

Again, each day offers “identical” content, so although tutors are of course welcome to come on both days, given everyone’s complex schedules we wanted to be sure to provide alternative times.

Attached please find an invitation letter. For logistics purposes, we would appreciate it if you could register your attendance with Miss Emily Chan (chiting@hku.hk) by Wednesday Aug 19, 2015, along with:

  1. Your full-name
  2. HKU email address
  3. Departmental affiliation
  4. Staff number/ University number (for RPG students)
  5. Course code of your CC course
  6. Your preferred workshop: A / B

Please, throughout the year, always feel free to write me with questions and suggestions for improvement, since you are the ones that live “most closely” to the student learning.

All best,

Gray

Gray Kochhar-Lindgren, PhD
Professor and Director: The Common Core
https://tl.hku.hk/common-core-curriculum/
+852 2219 4956

Common Core Sharing Session on 6 May 2015

Resources (HKU Portal Login Required)

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A Common Core Sharing Session was held on May 6, 2015 from 2:30 to 5:00 pm in Room 115, Knowles Building.

Programme

2:30 – 2:35 pm Welcome – Professor Joseph Chan
2:35 – 3: 15 pm Highlights from External Examiners’ Reports – Professor George Tham, Dr David Pomfret, Professor Gina Marchetti and Dr Peter Cheung
3:15 – 4:00 pm Highlights from the SLEQ – Professor Grahame Bilbow and Professor Ian Holliday
4:00 – 4:15 pm Tea/Coffee Break
4:15 – 5:00 pm Next Steps – Professors Gray Kochhar-Lindgren, Joseph Chan and Ian Holliday

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Previous Common Core Forums

Common Core Open House: Curious about Creating a Common Core Course?

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Dear Colleagues,

I would like to invite you to an Open House to have an informal discussion about creating a Common Core course that you might like to propose for 2016-17.

Date: 13 May, 2015 (Wednesday)
Time: 2:30pm – 3:30pm
Venue: Common Core Lounge (Room 150, Main Building)

My only advice is that you focus on creating the course that would most deeply engage your own thinking and imagination at the points where they intersect with student thinking and imagination. The field is wide open. Come chat with others interested in inventing courses in Science and Technology, the Humanities and Arts, China, or Global Issues (and all of their multiple intersections).

I look forward to meeting you in the Common Core Lounge!

All best,

Gray Kochhar-Lindgren, PhD
Professor and Director
Common Core Curriculum

Join-the-Conversation: Assessment in the Common Core Curriculum

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Co-organized by Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning and Common Core Curriculum Office

Panel-led discussion session 1: Assessing in-class participation

Date: 12 May (Tue)
Time: 11:30 – 12:45
Venue: Rm 321 & 322 Run Run Shaw Building
Panellists: Dr. S.J. Aiston; Professor A. Djurisic; Professor Y.K. Kwok

Panel-led discussion session 2: Assessing presentations and groupwork

Date: 12 May (Tue)
Time: 13:45 – 15:00
Venue: Rm 321 & 322 Run Run Shaw Building
Panellists: Professor H. Corke; Ms. T.Y.C. Kee; Dr. S.Y.W. Shiu

Co-chairs:
Professor Grahame Bilbow, Director of Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning, HKU
Professor Dai Hounsell, Professor Emeritus, University of Edinburgh
Professor Gray Kochhar-Lindgren, Director of Common Core Curriculum Office, HKU

Abstract:
As part of the ‘Wise Assessment Community of Practice’ project, CETL has been working with teachers across the University of Hong Kong to identify and surface particularly effective assessment practices that are currently being used within the University.

At this first ‘Join the Conversation’ event, we should like to take the opportunity to share with you some of our preliminary findings regarding effective approaches to assessment within the Common Core Curriculum, specifically in connection with the assessment of in-class participation, presentations and groupwork. To date, we have conducted informal interviews with seventeen Common Core course teachers and tutors, and compiled three Wise Assessment Briefings, detailing a range of assessment practices that take place in Common Core courses.

In the two panel-led discussion sessions, our panellists will outline assessment practices in their Common Core course(s) and invite questions and discussion. Copies of the Wise Assessment Briefings will be provided for participants.

About the panellists:
Dr. S.J. Aiston, Assistant Professor, Division of Policy, Administration and Social Sciences Education, Faculty of Education, Course Co-ordinator and Teacher of CCHU9043 “Thinking” Women: Their Oppression and Resistance
Professor H. Corke, School of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, Course Co-ordinator and Teacher of CCGL9016 Feeding the World and CCGL9017 Food: Technology, Trade and Culture
Professor A. Djurisic, Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Course Co-ordinator and Teacher of CCST9038 Science and Science Fiction
Ms. T.Y.C. Kee, Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture, Course Co-ordinator and Teacher of CCHU9037 Street Sense: The City and its Environments
Professor Y.K. Kwok, Associate Vice-President (Teaching and Learning), Associate Dean of Engineering, Course Co-ordinator and Teacher of CCST9003 Everyday Computing and the Internet and CCST9015 Electronic Technologies in Everyday Life
Dr. S.Y.W. Shiu, Associate Professor, Department of Physiology, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, Course Co-ordinator and Teacher of CCST9006 Biomedical Breakthroughs in a Pluralistic World

Interested participants are welcome to attend either or both of the sessions.
Hot lunch will be provided.

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