Teaching Approach

Effectiveness of Using Different Teaching Tools for Classroom Teaching

Project Overview
Project Title	Effectiveness of Using Different Teaching Tools for Classroom Teaching
Project Leader	Prof Irene M C LO
School / Dept	SENG / CIVL
Project Duration	Jan 2004 - Dec 2004
Project Description	A variety of teaching tools are needed to clearly and comprehensively explain the essence of academic theories. Ideally they should be integrated into daily life and motivate students to learn. These tools can be diagrams, models, worked examples, short video clips, 3D computer animations, and ill-structured examples. However, their effectiveness on learning is unknown and thus it is important to evaluate this. The findings from this evaluation of innovative teaching tools shed light on HK students’ learning styles, helping all faculty in preparing their teaching materials. The study was carried out in three phases, delivering classroom teaching by using each of the above tools, conducting a quiz and a survey after each lesson and analyzing the quiz and survey results, and comparing the effectiveness of each tool.
Project Outcome	Delivered an experimental classroom teaching by using six different teaching tools. Conducted quiz and survey after the classroom teaching. Analyzed the results of the quiz and survey and to compare the effectiveness of each teaching tool. Presented and shared our findings at the Teaching and Learning Symposium: Lo, I. M. C. and Young, B. (2004). “Investigation of the Effectiveness of Different Teaching Tools”, Proceedings of the Second Teaching and Learning Symposium, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong. Prepared a full paper and submitted it to an international journal: Lo, I. M. C. and Young, B. (2004). “Effectiveness of Classroom Lecture using Different Teaching Tools”, International Journal of Engineering Education (Submitted). The paper is currently under review.
Status	Completed
Project Documents (Only accessible by HKUST users)	Project Plan Final Report
Adaptation	Full Project

Improving Time Management for Students through the Use of an Educational Game

Project Overview
Project Title	Improving Time Management for Students through the Use of an Educational Game
Project Leader	Prof David Rossiter
School / Dept	SENG / COMP
Project Duration	Jan 2004 - Sept 2004
Project Description	Time management is a major problem encountered by students entering university and it impacts greatly on their learning. For instance, they do not always start working until the deadline is near, resulting in a rushed and poor quality assignment. They have to stay up late, attending early morning lectures with minimal attention or even missing them completely. This project aimed to cultivate an appreciation of effective time management which was achieved through an entertaining but educational game-style simulation.The time management program was similar to the popular ‘Sims’ set of games. Students interacted with the main (simulated) game character ‘Sim’, helping it to perform the major daily tasks they themselves were required to do. In working through this simulation, they learnt how to plan their time effectively.
Project Outcome	The major outcome of this project was the educational software which teaches time management in an original and engaging manner. Project website : http://www.cs.ust.hk/time_management/ Essential parameters in time management are embodied as different entities and attributes in the game. A conference paper named, “Improving time management for students through the use of an educational game” on the project was presented at the Teaching & Learning Symposium 2004.
Status	Completed
Project Documents (Only accessible by HKUST users)	Project Plan Final Report Project-end Review by Project Leader
Adaptation	Full Project

Promoting Active Learning through Just-in-time-teaching and Peer Interaction

Project Overview
Project Title	Promoting Active Learning through Just-in-time-teaching and Peer Interaction
Project Leader	Prof Rudolf Fleischer
School / Dept	SENG / COMP
Project Duration	Aug 2002 - Jun 2004
Project Description	Students always have to learn information in class by rote and then regurgitate it in the examination. This project planned to use teaching methods which encouraged students to learn actively and deeply. Instead of going through course materials in class, students worked on their own. Class time was used to engage them in active learning by requiring students to study materials in groups in advance, which they then had to post questions on the web, spending class time to address the questions posted and running the quiz in class and having students responded using PRS handsets.
Project Outcome	A web-based course support system for COMP272 was implemented, built on top of WebCT. This enabled a more smoothly implementation of the Just-in-time Teaching paradigm which fostered active and deep learning among the students.The system could also be used for other courses.
Status	Completed
Project Documents (Only accessible by HKUST users)	Project Plan Progress Report: First \| Second \| Third \| Final Report
Adaptation	Full Project

All-round Development of Sciences Students through Project Courses

Project Overview
Project Title	All-round Development of Sciences Students through Project Courses
Project Leader	Prof K Y M Wong
School / Dept	SSCI / PHYS
Project Duration	Sept 2002 - Mar 2005
Project Description	The education reform emphasizes on all round development of students according to his/her own attributes. By introducing this project course, students had more opportunities to strengthen their skills in searching, discovering, integrating and organizing knowledge. Besides, their collaborative skills and communication skills were improved through assisting the juniors and presentations. This project basically followed the action research approach through stages of planning, action, evaluation and reflection. Science faculty members who shared the same vision of providing all-round education to UG students collected wide range of project topics. A proper computer and laboratory environment were set up for project work. Students were enrolled in project courses and choosed their own project topic and work under the supervision of a UST Science faculty, with assistance from TA’s, senior UG students, as well as external collaborators. They were evaluated by their project reports, plus their presentations both inside UST (such as UG seminars in PHYS180) and outside (such as popular lectures and secondary schools). Student evaluations were studied, and students were invited to share their experience. Experienced students wereinvited to be helpers for new project students in the coming year. This built a tradition of peer guidance.
Project Outcome	2002 - 2003 Spring: a) 10 students delivered 10 school talks covering 4 topics: The Science of UV, Binary Pulsars, Life Out There and Mobile Network; from March 2003 to July 2003; b) The seminars were held in 6 secondary schools including Baptist LMC, Christian Alliance Cheng Wing Gee, Sun Kei, Ng Siu Mui Technical School, St Joseph’s, and St Paul’s Co-educational; and c) Due to the unexpected outbreak of SARS, a number of secondary school talks were cancelled during Apr 03. The network with secondary schools was expanded and a few more secondary school talks were successfully arranged after SARS. 2003 - 04 Fall: a) 14 students delivered 8 school talks covering 4 topics: The Science of UV, Binary Pulsars, Life Out There and Mobile Network; from October 2003 to December 2003; and b) The seminars were held in 7 secondary schools including St. Clare, Chinese Women’s Club, St. Paul’s Covent, La Salle, Lam Kau Mow, Law Chan Chor Si, and Shung Tak. 2003 - 04 Spring: a) 11 students delivered 25 school talks covering 7 topics: The Science of UV, X-ray Astronomy, ER Fluid, Nanotechnology, Wonderful Butterflies, Special Relativity and Mobile Network; from March 2004 to July 2004; and b)  The seminars were held in 19 secondary schools including Lam Woo, Notre Dame, Tak Sun, Carmel Divine Grace, Cheung Chuk Shan, CNEC Christian, Siu Ming, Ying Wah, Lam Kau Mow, Shatin Methodist, Buddhist Wong Wan Tin, St Stephen Girls’, Shung Tak, St Mark’s, Buddhist Wong Fung Ling, Chinese Women’s Club, Sun Kei, Clementi, and Chan Nam Chong. 2004 - 2005 Fall: a) 8 students delivered 8 school talks covering 4 topics: The Science of UV, Microwave Oven, Nanotechnology and Special Relativity; from November 2004 to January 2005; and b) The seminars were held in 6 secondary schools including Bishop Hall Jubilee, Shung Tak, Ma Ko Pan, Memorial, Belilios Public School, Chan Nam Chong, and Buddhist Wong Fung Ling.
Status	Completed
Project Documents (Only accessible by HKUST users)	Project Plan Progress Report: First \| Second \| Third \| Forth \| Final Report
Adaptation	Full Project

All-Round Development of Science Students through Mini-Lecture Series

Project Overview
Project Title	All-Round Development of Science Students through Mini-Lecture Series
Project Leader	Prof Jimmy Fung
School / Dept	SSCI / PHYS
Project Duration	Oct 2004 - Apr 2006
Project Description	The Hong Kong higher education reform emphasized on all-round development of students according to his/her own attributes. With the aim of drawing the best out of students and entailing intense participation and extensive teamwork, this project included more intensive training and extended the scope to include topics of Mathematics and Physics. In addition to organizing secondary school mini-lecture series for the participants, the project planned to arrange a few outstanding talks to be presented in UG seminar classes in the Departments of Mathematics and Physics. This benefited a larger pool of students with the aim to stimulate further participation and to enrich the academic culture.
Project Outcome	During the reporting period, a number of presentation rehearsals were arranged where Jack, Brian, CELT staff (both ID and ER team) and Prof Fung, Wong, Sou, and Ng, gave comments and suggestions to students. All school talks were video-taped and the website of the project (http://www.phys.ust.hk/genphys/) was updated regularly. 8 PHYS students took part in 8 school talks covering 4 different topics (The Science of UV, Special Relativity, Microwave Oven and Nanotechnology). The talks were delivered to 6 secondary schools (Bishop Hall Jubilee School, Shung Tak Catholic English College, SMKMCF Ma Ko Pan Mem College, Belilios Public School, HKSYC&IA Chan Nam Chong Memorial College and Buddhist Wong Fung Ling College) during the period of Nov 19, 2004 to Jan 25, 2005. Students attended CELT’s DIY workshop series (school talk training) on “How to Prepare Multimedia Instructional Materials for Physical Science Subjects” in the period of Jan 10-21, 2005.
Status	Completed
Project Documents (Only accessible by HKUST users)	Project Plan Progress Report Final Report
Adaptation	Adaptation from All-round development of science students through project courses

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

Project Overview
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

Understanding Bioinformatics: Direct Experience with Interactive Learning

Project Overview
Project Title	Understanding Bioinformatics: Direct Experience with Interactive Learning
Project Leader	Prof Xue Hong
School / Dept	SSCI / BICH
Project Duration	Jan 2004 - Jan 2005
Project Description	The field of Bioinformatics was advancing rapidly. Traditional teaching could not cater for the dynamic nature it now has. Besides studying books and other published materials, students needed an interactive environment to gain hands-on experience. They always had to use programmes with sophisticated algorithms and calculations. As some of them were unfamiliar with computers or mathematics, learning problems arise. This project aimed to help them overcome this obstacle and motivate them to learn. Modifications or add-ins were made to free software. Study aids were also designed to help students learn the programmes after class by themselves. These aids taught not only programme functions, but alsohow it could be applied to actual research. The work wasdone in modules according to various topics.
Project Outcome	As stated in the original proposal, we have made some modifications and add-in to some computer programs that perform various bioinformatics tasks. The operation of the original programs are usually in command line and difficult to use, which scared many of the student with less computer knowledge. We therefore made the graphical user interface which is more user-friendly and also easier for teaching. In addition, we also created some step-by-step study aids, which are pretty much welcomed by the students. These study aids mimic that someone is using the program on the screen and guide the students through different tasks. Different features of the programs can therefore clearly been shown. A forum was also created originally, but the rate of using is very low. Students seemed to prefer asking question in person or by email rather than by discussion board, so we have finally abandoned it. We also gathered many available resources on the web, for example the databases, computer programs sources, multimedia about basic biological knowledge etc. All the above mentioned outcomes and deliverables are put in our homepage. This homepage can therefore be the bioinformatics portal for the students. Students can find many materials about bioinformatics in this homepage, whenever they think of it.
Status	Completed
Project Documents (Only accessible by HKUST users)	Project Plan Final Report
Adaptation	Full Project

Stimulating Student Learning through Community Engagement: Fieldwork Participation as Learning Process

Project Overview
Project Title	Stimulating Student Learning through Community Engagement: Fieldwork Participation as Learning Process
Project Leader	Prof Ngok Ma
School / Dept	SHSS / SOSC
Project Duration	June 2004 - June 2005
Project Description	To encourage students to better understand real-life politics through community engagement, this project prompts them to participate and analyze social situations using the knowledge they have learned. In SOSC200X Parties and Elections in Hong Kong, to be offered in Fall 2004, students will do fieldwork studies of the 2004 Legislative Council Election campaign. They will study the campaign process: observing different candidates’ campaign strategies, reviewing literature, interviewing voters and campaign volunteers, and analyzing the poll results. In this way, they undergo the campaign themselves. They have to write reports on selected topics based on their observations. Results collected in class projects will be uploaded to the website and published in multimedia forms, e.g. VCDs and booklets. Students will be given free copies as a reinforcement to study social issues. The project will be evaluated and the results will be incorporated into similar courses, which comprise fieldwork studies of social phenomena.
Project Outcome	Fieldwork participation was used as a major venue of learning in course SOSC 200V Parties and Elections in Hong Kong, offered in Fall 2004. The course received very good student evaluation in the course evaluation (COSSET course evaluation score 87.5, instructor score 91.7) and in the written feedbacks to CELT’s assessment questionnaire and other assessments (e.g., evaluation for the TA). Students were asked to present their fieldwork projects in a semester-end workshop in December 2004. The total of 20 group projects were published in the form of a book named Experiences on the Election (選舉初體驗), which can be purchased in major bookstores in Hong Kong. The Web CT for the course collects all the student projects, provides interactive chatrooms, and all the campaign materials of the candidates for the 20043 Legislative Council election. This Web CT can be readily used by this instructor, other instructors and students in the future.
Status	Completed
Project Documents (Only accessible by HKUST users)	Project Plan Final Report
Adaptation	Full Project

Using Scenario Analysis, Reflective and Social Communication Approaches for Teaching Debating Skills to Improve Students’ Critical Thinking

Project Overview
Project Title	Using Scenario Analysis, Reflective and Social Communication Approaches for Teaching Debating Skills to Improve Students’ Critical Thinking
Project Leader	Prof Chi Ming Chan
School / Dept	IPO
Project Duration	Jul 2011 - Sep 2012
Project Description	The project aimed at helping students to: Understand and recognize the fundamental theory, strategies, techniques and skills in debate. Know how to apply theoretical argumentation and debating skills to actual environments. Learn by using scenarios to combine action and learning to speed up the learning process. Adopt reflection practices by scenario analysis and professional debating activities. Develop critical thinking capabilities.
Project Outcome	A debate course was developed using the scenarios, reflective and social approaches to teach students the debate theories, concepts, strategies, techniques and methodologies. The learning and teaching activities in the debate course include workshops, student-led seminars, a set of debate scenario clips and exercises and a debate competition. From the pre- and post- tests on critical thinking, it was found that the students had significant improvement in critical thinking after they finished the whole course, especially after the scenario exercise. Also, the students have shown improvements in their debating skills by comparing their performance across the debate tests. Thus, the new teaching methodologies of scenario analysis have significantly improved students' debating skills and critical thinking and can be employed in other courses.
Status	Completed
Project Documents (Only accessible by HKUST users)	Project Plan Final Report Project-end Review by Project Leader
Adaptation	Full Project

Innovative and Active Overhaul of SOSC111

Project Overview
Project Title	Innovative and Active Overhaul of SOSC111
Project Leader	Prof Naubahar Sharif
School / Dept	SHSS / SOSC
Project Duration	Apr 2012 - Aug 2013
Project Description	The project intended to introduce an active learning approach in the existing course SOSC111 “Science, Technology and Society” to faciliate the implmentation of the 3-3-4 curriculum and outcome-based approach of teaching and learning.
Project Outcome	New material designed for exercises and discussion forum. Evidence of student experience that indicate enhanced understanding and application of critical concepts to issues of science, technology and society.
Status	Completed
Project Documents (Only accessible by HKUST users)	Project Plan Final Report Project-end Review by Project Leader
Adaptation	Full Project

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