Have you ever questioned where in the world do we live, and what lies beyond the visible world? These have been intriguing questions for humans since 5000 years ago, for which our ancestors actively sought answers and went on expeditions into deep space, just to answer the existential question: where’s our place in the Universe?
On June 2, 2018, Professor Sun Kwok held a public lecture in the Hong Kong Space Museum’s Lecture Theatre, attracting a crowd of over a hundred. Students, professionals, families and astronomy enthusiasts flocked to listen to Professor Kwok speak about how man made sense of our surrounding environment, and the development of a scientific mind throughout this process.
Professor Kwok illustrated how our ancestors’ practical needs of planning for agriculture prompted them to closely observe the environment, turning their attention to the skies to examine how stars moved. From observations, humans began to imagine, hypothesize and correlate phenomena, eventually coming up with theories to explain how the celestial sky works. Slight discrepancies of actual observations with proposed theories sent them thinking further, resulting in more accurate explanations of the nature being born, and in the long course of history, the development of the scientific way of thinking and rational mind. Man deconstructed and constructed knowledge and built up a legacy of what we have today – a chest full of rich astronomical understanding to our disposal. Understanding how we have come this far is equally important as knowing what our current comprehension of the Universe is.
Towards the end of the lecture, Professor Kwok engaged in a lively exchange of questions and answers with the audience, where visitors raised curious questions about specific details of the talk. Furthermore, visitors had an enjoyable time trying out the Armillary sphere app, co-developed by HKU TELI and Professor Kwok. With the aid of animated instructional videos and the guidance of TELI’s staff, visitors learnt how to operate this digitized ancient instrument. The app is powerful enough to predict the Sun’s motion on any given altitude, and some visitors even tried to work out the sunrise and sunset times on their birthdays!
Many also took the opportunity to learn about the upcoming free MOOC course Our Place in the Universe, launching on June 12, 2018 on EdX. If you missed the public lecture, here is your chance to embark on a journey with us through the stars and into history!
Where are we? How did we come to realization of where we are? Our curiosity of our environment sparked countless questions, to which our ancestors observed, experimented, thought and calculated. It has brought us to deep ventures into the night sky and beyond. This is a tale of us, trying to finding our Place in the Universe.
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The MOOC Our Place in the Universe goes online on June 12, 2018! Professor Sun Kwok, world-renowned astronomer and former Dean of Science of The University of Hong Kong, will take you on a 4-week journey through the stars, illustrating how our quest for understanding of the Universe over 5 millennia drove the development of rational thinking, and how of our perception of self and the world evolved through discoveries in astronomy.
What you will learn from this course:
How the scientific method was developed and its application
Qualitative and quantitative everyday astronomical phenomena and patterns and how such understanding has evolved over history
How to assess the effects of social environments on intellectual development through historical examples
The role of science in transforming our philosophical thinking
The Universe in a Nutshell… no, in an App.
To spice up the learning experience, you will learn with a free app specifically designed for exploring the Universe, on top of informative videos and engaging animations.
(Antonio Santucci’s Armillary Sphere, Museo Galileo)
Have you seen this fancy instrument in museums? This is an Armillary Sphere: for many millennia, our curious ancestors tracked the movement of the Sun, Moon and stars, and came up with patterns and theories to explain celestial movements. The Armillary Sphere crystallizes their astronomical discoveries and is a powerful instrument that can predict the time of Sunrise on any given day and on any altitude on Earth, and much more!
The Armillary Sphere is richly packed with astronomical information, waiting for you to explore and unlock by learning how to read it. It now has a digital incarnation in form of an app developed by Professor Kwok and TELI: download and learn how to use it by enrolling in the course!
Professor Kwok actively promotes learning about the beauty of our Universe to everyone. In addition to creating this MOOC, Professor Kwok has also delivered many lectures and public talks. One of which is his public lecture in the Hong Kong Space Museum on June 2, 2018. Our Place in the Universe is also available in form of a book, if you cannot wait for the course to start learning about the Universe, you can also check out his book on Amazon!
郭新：探索無涯宇宙 尋找生命起源[Translated: Sun Kwok: Exploring the boundless Universe and finding the origin of life] (The Stand News, Oct 27, 2017)
港大太空研究實驗室總監郭新宇宙知識改變教育思維[Translated: Chair Professor of Space Science and Director of Laboratory for Space Research Sun Kwok: Knowledge of the Universe changes educational thinking] (Hong Kong Economic Journal, Oct 27, 2017)
Assessment drives learning, and authentic assessment is key to producing better, deeper and more sustainable learning, said Professor Rick Glofcheski in the Authentic Assessment Symposium: The Transformation of Learning in Higher Education on May 3, 2018. In this Symposium, practitioners from various disciplines in HKU shared how they transform students’ learning experience with authentic assessments and technology.
Group photo of speakers, panel discussant and student representatives.
(From left to right) Back row: Professor Rick Glofcheski, Dr. Michael Botelho, Dr. Tim Wotherspoon, Mr. John Guest, Professor David Carless, Dr. Pamela Lee; Middle row: Mr. David Lee, Ms. Alice Lee, Ms. Xiaotian Zhang, Ms. Tess Hogue, Ms. Vincci Mak, Ms. Tanya Kempston, Ms. Andrea Qi; Front row: Ms. Sharon Kit-Yee Yuen, Mr. Santos Ting San Cheung, Mr. Anson Hui, Mr. Jun Seongjun Ko
What is Authentic Assessment?
An authentic assessment is one that requires real-world applications of learning. It often engages students in solving complex and ill-defined problems while taking into account the broad social context.
One of the fundamental goals of university education is to get students prepared for the challenges in the real world, and one way to facilitate their learning is to design authentic assessment tasks. As pointed out by Professor Glofcheski in his introduction, “students’ learning habits are to a large degree driven by how they will be assessed”, assessments are therefore vital in motivating students to make meaningful connections between doctrinal learning and the real world. This is where authenticity comes into play in assessment design.
Compared to conventional assessment, “[authentic assessment] produces better learning, deeper learning, and more sustainable learning”, said Professor Glofcheski.
The Use of Technology in Authentic Assessment Practices
Authentic assessment practices have been adopted across different disciplines in HKU, some of which are enabled by technology. Here are some examples:
Engaging Law Students with Reflective Media Diary
Professor Glofcheski engages his students with authentic news stories. In his tort law class, students are expected to identify and analyze news stories from a legal perspective, and create their own online news diary.
Unlike conventional examinations which often consists of hypothetical, artificial, and sometimes exaggerated problems, the reflective media diary engages students with real-world incidents. More importantly, it pushes them to exercise their own judgement in evaluating whether a news story is relevant to the subject matter. News writers normally do not use words such as “tort” or “negligence”, “this mimics how it will be in the real-world,” said Professor Glofcheski.
Facilitating Learning with Video Exemplars of Key Skills Performances in Dentistry
Dr. Michael Botelho from the Faculty of Dentistry facilitates learning and prepares students for assessment with videos. He video-recorded authentic, in-the-moment, evaluations of individual students’ performance and uploaded the videos to Moodle, an online learning management system (LMS), for all students to view. This gives students a clear idea about how they are going to be assessed and what clinical skills they are expected to develop, hence “opening the black box of stressful exams”. Since the videos are available online, students can review them multiple times before the actual assessment.
Assessing Medical Students Real-time with E-portfolio
Dr. Pamela Lee from the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine conducts real-time assessment of her students when they are practicing with real patients on-site. She observes students’ performance in the ward, an authentic workplace, and assess their practical competences on an e-portfolio system. This is an effective way to evaluate students’ competencies in practising in the real world.
(Left) Dr. Lee assessing students’ competence in examining real patients in the ward with an iPad.
(Right) The e-portfolio system for real-time assessment.
Facilitating Peer Assessment in Teaching Drama
“In authentic assessment, feedback is very important,” said Ms. Tanya Kempston, instructor of the Common Core Course CCHU9059 Making and Appreciating Drama. In her class, students perform drama in groups and assess their peers using an online tool called TEAMMATES.
In order to “make the assessment a more authentic experience for our students”, Ms. Kempston believes that assessment should not be unidirectional and carried out only by the course lecturer. Instead, students should be given the opportunity to provide formative qualitative feedback for their peers and grade them in terms of their contributions to the group.
Highlights of the Symposium
Check out the following recordings of the Symposium for more inspiring ideas in teaching and learning!
Authentic Assessment: Introduction and Example (Reflective Media Diary)
Professor Rick Glofcheski
Professor, Faculty of Law
A 3D approach to integrated learning and assessment
Ms. Alice Lee
Associate Dean (Academic Affairs), Associate Professor, Faculty of Law
Transforming Your own Teaching
Authentic assessments generate positive backwash effect on students’ learning experience. Contact us if you are interested in enhancing learning with authentic assessment and technology.
Organized by Technology-Enriched Learning Initiative (TELI)
Details of the event:
Date : 30 May, 2018 (Wednesday) Time : 4:00pm – 5:30pm Venue :CPD 2.42CPD 2.37, The Jockey Club Tower, Centennial Campus, The University of Hong Kong (Due to overwhelming response, the venue has been changed to CPD 2.42) Speaker : Toru Iiyoshi, Ph.D. (Kyoto University) Respondent : Professor Ricky Kwok (The University of Hong Kong)
Abstract
Emerging educational innovations and methods, such as MOOCs, SPOCs, OERs, Flipped/Blended Learning, Gamification, AI, VR, AR, and Analytics, are radically transforming learning and teaching in higher education. This talk addresses how we can strategically promote and enable Technology-Enhanced Learning at institution, department, and individual levels. It also reviews and examines some exemplary efforts and practices that help guide us towards inventing the “next-generation” higher education. Finally, with the participants, the session explores how we can create an ecosystem that enables us to build necessary support capacity for more personalized, flexible, and on-demand lifelong learning.
About the Speaker
Toru Iiyoshi is Deputy Vice President for Education, and Director and a professor at the Center for the Promotion of Excellence in Higher Education of Kyoto University. He also serves as Executive Director of KyotoUx. Previously, he was a senior scholar and Director of the Knowledge Media Laboratory at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and Senior Strategist in the Office of Educational Innovation and Technology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Iiyoshi has served as a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Technology and Education as well as a visiting professor of the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies at the University of Tokyo. He is a co-editor of the Carnegie Foundation book, Opening Up Education: The Collective Advancement of Education through Open Technology, Open Content, and Open Knowledge (MIT Press).
The University of Hong Kong (HKU) presents to you Asia’s first interdisciplinary Professional Certificate Program in FinTech on edX platform starting on May 15 2018.
FinTech – short for Financial Technology – is transforming the world of finance, especially in Asia at a rate never seen before. It is essential that professionals working in finance, technology, regulation or FinTech and students studying related subjects are equipped with in-demand FinTech knowledge and skills in today’s world of finance.
The FinTech Certificate Program compiles a series of three courses providing students with the tools to understand the interaction of finance and technology across the financial system as well as insight into the major technologies involved and the emerging business models and players in the industry. The first course Introduction to FinTech commences on May 15 and will be followed by two courses, FinTech Ethics and Risks and Blockchain and FinTech: Basics, Applications and Limitations, which will open over the coming year.
Each course brings together leading experts in FinTech from a range of backgrounds, including professors, market professionals and entrepreneurs. Designed by leading academics from a range of disciplines with input from industry leaders including among others SuperCharger, the Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship, Microsoft, PwC, the Asia Capital Markets Institute, the Standard Chartered Bank, Thompson Reuters, and other partners in financial services, FinTech startups and Techfins sectors. In each course, you will gain greater understanding of the key trends in finance, technology and regulation, to better prepare for not only the opportunities but also the risks and challenges, including to traditional financial institutions and business models and those working in them.
About this course
Over the past decade emerging technologies, paired with massive changes in regulations, have driven an unprecedented transformation of finance around the world. This process is happening more rapidly in China and Asia than anywhere else. This course is designed to explore FinTech fundamentals and help make sense of this wave of change as it happens.
New players such as start-ups and technology firms are challenging traditional players in finance, bringing democratization, inclusion and disruption. Companies engaged in social media, e-commerce, and telecommunications, as well as, companies and start-ups with large customer data pools, creative energies, and technical capacities, have brought competition to the existing financial infrastructure and are remaking the industry.
These transformations have not only created challenges but also unprecedented opportunities, building synergies with new business and regulatory models, particularly in emerging markets and developing countries. To meet these changes, 21st-century professionals and students must be equipped with up-to-date knowledge of the industry and its incredible evolution. This course – designed by HKU with the support of SuperCharger and the Centre for Finance, Technology and Education – is designed to enable learners with the necessary tools to understand the complex interaction of finance, technology and regulation.
In this course, through a series of video lectures, case studies, and assessments you will explore the major areas of FinTech including, beginning with What is FinTech before turning to Money, Payment and Emerging Technologies, Digital Finance and Alternative Finance, FinTech Regulation and RegTech, Data and Security, and the Future of Data Driven Finance, as well as, the core technologies driving FinTech including Blockchain, AI and Big Data. These will set the stage for understanding the FinTech landscape and ecosystem and grappling with the potential direction of future change.
What you’ll learn
The major areas in FinTech, including Money and Payment, Digital Finance and Alternative Finance
Major technological trends, including cryptocurrencies, Blockchain, AI and Big Data
FinTech Regulation and RegTech
The fundamental role of Data and Security in data-driven finance
Business and regulatory implications of technology for the financial industry
How regulations and RegTech are applied
Ways to analyse and evaluate what is driving technology innovation in Finance
How new technology impacts economies, markets, companies, and individuals
The key instructors of the course are:
Course Director
and Chief Instructor
Douglas Arner
Kerry Holdings Professor in Law,
The University of Hong Kong
Janos Barberis
Founder
SuperCharger FinTech Accelerator
Huy Nguyen Trieu
CEO of The Disruptive Group &
Co-founder of CFTE,
Center for Finance, Technology
and Entrepreneurship
Ross Buckley
Professor of International Finance Law,
University of New South Wales
Brian Tang
Managing Director,
Asia Capital Markets Institute
(ACMI)
Henri Arslanian
FinTech & RegTech Leader,
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)
– China & HK
