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Recipient of UGC Teaching Award 2011

Professor Rick Glofcheski

HKU colleague honoured with the UGC Teaching Award

HKU is pleased to share the good news that, Professor Rick Glofcheski of the Faculty of Law was conferred the inaugural UGC Teaching Award 2011. This new Award honours teachers in the UGC-funded institutions who have demonstrated outstanding achievements in enhancing student learning and in providing leadership in teaching and learning. Up to three awards can be made, but this year only two teachers were selected. The other recipient of the award was Professor Poon Wai-yin, Associate Dean (Education) of the Faculty of Science and Professor in the Department of Statistics at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Rick has taught at the University for over twenty years and is well-known to his colleagues and students for his relentless pursuit of excellence in teaching and learning. He was awarded a University Teaching Fellowship in 2004, the Outstanding Teaching Award in 2008 and most recently the University Distinguished Teaching Award in 2009.

Learner-centred approach to teaching

Rick is committed to a learner-centred approach to teaching and learning. He believes that good teaching should provide means by which students are able to connect their learning with the world around them, so that their learning will continue beyond examinations and after graduation. It is crucial to understand students’ learning needs, learning approaches and difficulties, taking into account the increasingly diverse student body coming from different learning backgrounds and traditions. It is also important to convey to students the learning outcomes of the courses they take and to ensure that the learning outcomes connect to the learning activities and the assessment, so that the course learning plan is coherent and credible and will be accepted by students. To achieve active and engaged learning, Rick tries to remember the names of his students and accommodate their different learning styles and personalities, and he turns the classroom into an open forum for discussion and debate among students and between students and teacher.

Innovative curriculum design

Curriculum and learning activities should be carefully designed to facilitate an effective and meaningful learning experience. Diverse learning activities and assessments are essential to achieve different learning outcomes. To Rick, assessment is a very important part of teaching and learning. Students are given an element of choice in assessment activities, and are able to view examples of the work of past students in order to make an informed choice. Rick sees assessment not only as a means to know how far students’ learning has progressed (assessment of learning) but also as a learning opportunity in itself (assessment for learning). Learning can continue after the assessment: all of Rick’s assessments include a post-assessment class or online discussion in which students debate and contribute to the proposed answer to be used as the marking guidelines.

Professor Rick Glofcheski and Mrs Laura Cha
Rick recently introduced four learning and assessment practices, they are:
  • Media-sourced authentic learning and assessment;
  • Reflective media diary;
  • Real-time feedback;
  • Collaborative assessment
[Read more on Rick’s teaching philosophy and pedagogy]
[Rick’s speech at the UGC Teaching Award Presentation Ceremony]
[The UGC press release of the Teaching Award]
[HKU press release of the Teaching Award]