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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Joint Seminar by Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning
E-Learning Pedagogical Support Unit & Technology-Enriched Learning Initiative

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.

Seminar by Technology-Enriched Learning Initiative

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.

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.

The 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.