An Adaptation of "All-round Development of Science Students through Project Courses" in Biological Sciences and Science Education Program

Project Title

An Adaptation of "All-round Development of Science Students through Project Courses" in Biological Sciences and Science Education Program

Project Leader

Prof K L Chow

School / Dept

SSCI / BIOL

Project Duration

Oct 2004 - Feb 2006

Project Description

The ongoing reform in Hong Kong education system emphasized on all-round development of students according to his/her own attributes. A group of students in the Physics Department were given opportunities to strengthen their skills in searching, discovering, integrating and organizing knowledge and training in their collaborative and communication skills. This project aimed to give similar learning opportunities and training to the students in the BSc in Biology and Science Education, providing them an invaluable experience for self-evaluation, improvement and building their confidence in public speaking. For those who had not considered a teaching career, the exposure may open up their mind towards this alternative.

Project Outcome

By the time of project completion, nine students from three different classes have taken part in this project helping with the organization of six talks in five different schools.  Students gained extensive experience on the preparation of public seminars, gathering relevant scientific information, polishing their presentation skills and in turn helped to establish an outreach program for the department.  The objectives (and deliverables) are highlighted as follows:

• Training of students on seminar preparation – These students working in groups of two or three have selected topics of interest relevant to the high school biology study.  They have attended training workshops conducted by ID team of CELT and project members.  They have acquired basic skills in multimedia technology for presentation. 

• Training of students on presentation skills – In order to ensure quality delivery of the presentations, multiple rehearsals were organized before each school visit, so that the presentation team will have the best coordination during the visit.  This benefit of practices has indeed been highly remarked by some secondary school teachers because of the high quality of the presentations.  These rehearsals also help to fine tune the seminars for the audience of different age groups, which spans from Form 1 to Form 6.  While students need to give more than one presentations, they were asked to evaluate their own and others’ performance in different visits.  Major improvement in presentation skills, confidence and effectiveness of communication was noted, which is a good reflection of the success of this training.

• Acquisition of scientific knowledge for the presentation - With respect to the scientific content, the participating students have developed the story line of the presentation based on current scientific research relevant to the secondary school science syllabus.  They have consulted project members from the Biology department and AMCE program to develop a better understanding of the subject matter related to evolution and adaptation before the subject was organized and tailored for the student audience.  The learning process has been very productive for the participating students.

• Outreach program – Having students enthusiastically going out to visit secondary schools, it prompts us to consider formalizing the outreach program with heavier student participation.  The extension of this program may represent a continuing effort we take to reach out to science students in the secondary schools.

Status

Completed

Project Documents
(Only accessible by HKUST users)

• Project Plan
• Progress Report
• Final Report

Adaptation

Adpataion from All-round Development of Science Students through Project Courses