CELT Newsletter, Summer 2009

Abstract

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology CELT Newsletter Summer 2009 Center for Enhanced Learning and Teaching Preparing for an New Era of Teaching and learning In this issue of CELT newsletter, we highlight some of the recent developments since the start of the academic year, such as the Pilot OBE Course Project, the OBE Syllabus Builder and the new sub-projects for the Innovative Assessment of Learning Outcomes project. From Fall 2008 to Spring 2009, CELT has organized and delivered numbers of seminars and workshops in order to prepared faculty and teaching staff for the highly advocated outcome-based education and equip them with new pedagogical initiatives. One of our new initiatives is the Professional Development Week for Faculty and Research postgraduates. During the week of 12 Jan 2009, we conducted a series of seminars for faculty to provide them information about developing their career at HKUST, research grants and successful proposal writing in Hong Kong, up-to-date research about student learning at HKUST And teaching and learning. For research postgraduates, New sessions included PhD supervision and career development. This Professional Development Week will become a regular CELT feature, along with teaching and learning related sessions, at the beginning of the Fall and Spring semesters. If you have any suggestions for additional topics for this program or any other seminars and workshops for teaching or research, please contact Nick Noakes (ctnick, ext 6809). Sept 2008 -3 50+ Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story-Alan Levine, The New Media consortium u, An Introductory Workshop on LMES Oct2008 . 4 How Well Equipped are our Students for HKUSTs Graduate Attributes and University Study? A Report on the Student Characteristics of the 2007- 10 Cohort- Dr Tak Ha. CELT Nov 2008 -3 OBE Seminar Series: The Roles of Learning Outcomes at a Research University: Challenges, Successes, and Lessons Learned - Dr Spencer Benson, University of Hong Kong Launching of the Pilot OBE Course Project Jan 2009 3 Professional Development Week for Faculty 9 Professional Development Week for Research Postgraduates d An Introductory Workshop on LMES Feb 2009 -3 OBE Seminar Series: Content Assessment and Pedagogy: An Integrated Design Approach for OBE at the Course Level- Prof Karl Smith, Purdue University and University of Minnesota d Facilitating Innovation and Creativity in a Team Environment- Prof Karl Smith, Purdue University and University of Minnesota 4 TA Induction Program 3 New Faculty Professional Development Session- Are you a quick start? Mar 2009 d Encouraging students to do lots of high quality work without over-stressing them: Findings from a research project about Preparing for an New Era of Teaching and learning 1 OBE Pilot Course Project . - 7 OBE Syllabus Builder 3-5 Student Engagement and Satisfaction Questionnaire Survey 0 Student learning Research I Innovative Assessment of learning Outcome 8 TA Corner and Events Highlights + 9 Upcoming CELT Events Id student workload in Hong Kong-Prof David Kember, University of Hong Kong April 2009 3 Advanced LMES Workshops on LMES May 2009 4 Tech Camp 2009 All our previous seminars can be retrieved from the Seminar Archive of the CELT website

Outcome-Based Education The Pilot OBE Course Project In the last academic year, a lot of effort has been put in drafting provisional intended learning outcomes (ILOs) for Schools and undergraduate programs. In the long run, these program-level learning statements will need to be reflected in the courses that comprise programs. To explore these implications, the OBE steering group is undertaking a Pilot OBE Course Project to identify To know more about the Pilot OBE Course Project, please how the OBE approach can be scaled up for general visit the Project webpage or contact the School OBE implementation in the special circumstances of HKUST. representatives: The Project was launched on 2gfh November 2008. At present, 54 instructors from various departments of the SBM: Prof Larry FARH (mnlfarh@ust.hk) four Schools have participated, corresponding to 48 pilot SENG: Prof Mounir HAMDI (hamdi@cse.ust.hk) courses that involve more than 3000 students, that is, SHSS: Prof Barry SAUTMAN (sobanys@ust.hk) about 50% of the total. A sharing session will be held SSCI: Prof King L. CHOW (bokchow@ust.hk) within Schools in the middle of the Spring semester for the instructors to share successes and challenges. At the same time, Schools continue to prepare faculty for OBE by organizing support with the I: Prestigious scholars have been invited to be the external OBE consultants, Prof Harvey Brightman for the School of Business and Management, Prof David Lange and Prof Karl Smith for the School of Engineering, Pro Hung for the School of Humanities and Social Science and Prof Spencer Benson for the School of Science. Their valuable input and advice are helping formulate a long-run plan for introducing OBE at the course-level in the University. Outcome-Based Education The OBE Syllabus Builder - a start-up tool for your OBE syllabus o facilitate faculty and teaching staff in aligning the learning outcomes, the teaching and learning activities and the learning assessment in their courses, CELT has developed an OBE Syllabus Builder. Here is a quick step-by-step introduction to the Syllabus Builder. Step 1: Getting started with the OBE Builder To open the Syllabus Builder, you can go to the OBE website and click on the OBE Syllabus Builder button (Fig 1). Outcome-Based Education OBE Development at. Fig 1 The Syllabus Builder (Fig 2) will then pop up. Its structure is based on the Bloom's revised taxonomy of cognitive outcomes. Fig 2 Summer 2003 Outcome-Based Education The OBE Syllabus Builder- a start-up tool for your OBE syllabus Step 2: Building your OBE syllabus If, for example, you want to work on the ILO statements, then: d. After finishing your ILO statements, you can go ahead to plan for the assessment (OBA) and teaching and learning activities (TLA). Outcome-lased Education The OBE Syllabus Builder- a start-up tool for your OBE syllabus Step 3: Outputting your OBE syllabus You can always copy your syllabus to another document or directly print it out. Or click Copy and your syllabus will then pop up in a new window. Design your OBE syllabus with the OBE Syllabus Builder now! Student Engagement and Satisfaction Questionnaire Survey To ensure the quality of the undergraduate programs, the studied. After the first launch of the Survey in May 2007, Student Engagement and Satisfaction Questionnaire the second round of the Survey was conducted during the (SESQ) Survey, which forms part of the periods of March to June in 2008. All the University's quality assurance measure, final-year undergraduate students in is conducted annually to garner the the 2007/08 academic year, a total feedback from the graduating of 1888 students, were invited to Students on the programs they complete the survey online. Among all, 783 students completed the survey, representing a response rate of 4 1.5%. Students in general found their UG education as effective in helping them to develop their general competencies, especially in presentation skills, collaborative work, self-learning, time management, like the university to improve in the areas of campus getting along with people as well as critical and facilities (e.g. student canteen, library, sports facilities and analytical thinking. residential halls), support services for students (e.g. learning support for those with poor academic performance, career Comparing with 2007, more final year students in 2008 preparation and job search), and support for student found their UG experience as either 'rewarding' or 'very activities, etc. rewarding', evidenced by nearly 7 1 % of the students expressing such view as compared with 60% of students in 2007. When students were asked if they would recommend the UG program they had completed to other students, over 70% of them answered 'definitely yes' or 'probably yes'. 5.1% chose 'definitely no'. The result is an improvement on that of the SESQ in 2007 when around 10% of the students chose 'definitely no'. Similar to the results of last year, having a too heavy workload is still a major complaint of students. They would like to see a reduction in their workload so that they can have a more balanced and all-rounded university education. Apart from this, they would also Student Learning Research Since 2007, CELT has been conducting a series of studies about HKUST students. It is hoped that findings from these studies will help to build a scientific and evidence based understanding of our students, thus to provide useful information that would guide teaching improvement, policy making and program development. Below is a list of studies undertaken by CELT on HKUST students. Annual recurrent studies since 2007 .d Student Intake Survey (Year 1 Fall) d Student Engagement and Satisfaction Questionnaire (SESQ) (Year 3 Spring) Longitudinal Study A longitudinal study about value-addedness of UG education (2007-10) Studies done in each semester since 2007 Below are some highlights from the studies: Analysis showed that motivation has a significant positive correlation with students' academic performance. In the 2008-011 cohort of UG students, ratio of local and non-local students is 80:20. Over 60% of the students spent over 1 hour traveling to campus. A In a critical thinking skills survey on a random sample of the 2007-10 cohort of UG students, results indicated that students performed particularly well in inference and deduction thinking compared to the U.S. norm. From a leadership survey on a random sample of the 2007-10 cohort of UG students, UST students are generally good at working with other students. However, they are weak in self-understanding, A study about Student Motivation (Spring 2008) change for oneself and A study about Student Orientation (Summer 2008) others in the society. A study about Effective Learning Environment (Fall 2008) of our students, their general competencies such as critical thinking, information literacy, learning and study strategies, leadership skills, study habits and use of technologies etc. The findings of these studies have been disseminated through CELT newsletters. seminars and A meetings. If you are interested in the findings of the above studies or possible A collaboration, please do not hesitate to contact Dr Tak Ha (cttsha@ust.hk) or Dr 1 Lucia Yeung (ctlucia@ust.hk). h Innovative Assessment of Learning Outcomes In summer 2008, CELT introduced the Innovative Assessment of Learning Outcomes project in response to the coming 4-year undergraduate curriculum and the outcome-based approach strongly advocated by UGC. The project encourages faculty and teaching staff to propose sub-projects for assessment of learning that is innovative and bounds to an outcome-based approach. For the first round of application, seven sub-projects from all four Schools were funded. A brief description of them is given below: Development of a New Assessment Method for CBME 1,aboratory (Prof John BARFORD, CBME) This project aims at re-designing the lab course assessment from report-based assessment to comprehensive viva-like oral-based assessment and examination. The new assessment allows students to demonstrate their in-depth understanding of relevant theory associated with the experiments, technology used in the experiments and the relevant theory related to the core lecture courses in CBME. An IT Platform for Assessment in Linear Algebra (Prof Shiu Yuen CHESG, MATHS) d This project will design an IT platform with test bank for continuous assessment to enhance students' conceptual understanding of the Linear Algebra and lessen their stress over examination. Group Project Assessment - Ensuring Grading Fairness and implementation for Educational Merit (Prof King CHOW, BIOL) This project tries to apply the Games Theory for group project assessment to encourage students to contribute their full and best efforts to achieve the intended learning outcomes of the courses. Adopting Computer Algebra Systems in Engineering Education: Curriculum and Assessment Issues (Prof Thomas HU and Prof Xueqing ZHANG, CIVL) a This project tries to reform the assessment focus of engineering courses with permission and encouragement using CAS (computer algebra system) calculators in examination to enhance students' problem solving skills with more complex, realistic and creative modeling questions. Teamwork Development Across the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Curriculum (Prof Edmond KO, CBME) This 3-year project develops an assessment strategy for the systematic MBTI-based teamwork training to students through explicit instructions, practice opportunity and formative feedback throughout the undergraduate curriculum in the department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Student Self Assessing Practice Test Sites (Prof Barry SAUTIMAN, SOSC) d This project will develop an online self-assessed practice test site with interactive study resources, including annotated model essays, self-assessed directional question bank and discussion board, to improve students' ability to apply declarative knowledge, writing skills and enhance their exposure to the social phenomena or events that are significant to China and the world. Establishing an Assessment Reporting System for Undergraduate Programs (Prof Mike SO, ISOM) This is a program-level project that aims at developing a new assessment and reporting system for the new program - Risk Management and Business Intelligence to understand individual students' strengths and weaknesses as well as to keep track how program intended learning outcomes achieved throughout the course study. Application for the new round of sub-projects has been started. Deadlines of applications are 30 June 2009 and 30 Nov 2009. For enquiries, please contact Christine Chow (christine.chow@ust.hk) Spring 2009 Teaching Assistant (TA) Training Program Support programs are all TAs every academic year. This year the Spring 2009 Enhancement Program for TAs was offered from 4 to 20 February 2009. It provided an opportunity for TAs to polish their skills and/or to make-up for any , incomplete training which the University offered in Fall 2008. The program Induction (mandatory according to department), the ICAC seminar (mandatory) and Competency Enhancement Workshops (optional). on their TA training. TAs also shared their problems with their TACs and other TAs. The event was rounded off with a delicious BBQ. All TAs were satisfied and enjoyed In the feedback session, TAs expressed m various concern and issues. The following are the four major ones: 1) They want to develop better relationships and communication with supervisors and students. 2) They want to have training to enhance their teaching skills, e.g. z 'How to deal with students in If you want to know more about the Spring TA class?' Program, you may take a look at the brochure at 3) They want to know more about how to identify and http://celt.ust.hk/ta/photo.news.htm. tackle the problem of plagiarism. Fall 2008 TA Event-'Teaching Assistants on FIRE 4) They want to be equipped more with career managing skills to increase their employability in a business The Fall 2008 TA Event - 'TAs on FIRE' organized by environment. the Teaching Assistant Coordinators Committee (TACC) and the center for enhanced Learning & Teaching (CELT) Seminars and training for all research postgraduate students was completed successfully on 8 Nov 2008 (Sat). Ikf01-e addressing their concerns were delivered during the than 50 TAS from different departments participated in the Professional Development Week in January 2009. event. All TAs were seated together in the BBQ site for the sharing session. The event provided a relaxing environment To view the snapshots of this event, please visit for TAs to express their opinions on their needs and feedback Itttp://celtt.u st.hWta/photo.htm. TA Events Highlights Spring 09 TA Induction Program was held from 4 to 20 Feb 2009. March 09 TA Event-'A Good Show Part 11' was held on 20 March 2009. TA Certificate of Achievement Presentation Ceremony will be held on 19 May 2009. Details of the event are available at http://celt.ust.hk/ta/news.htm. Upcoming CELT Events May 2009 Tech Camp 2009 are running from 18- 19 May. With the theme, 'Let's Google! Facilitating students' project work with Google applications', you will be introduced to the handy online Google applications that you can use to engage students in active learning by facilitating their project work, from planning, to information searching, to content composing, to progress tracking and presenting. More information is available at http:flceIt. nust. hk/instrflech Camnphnclex htnd Assessment of Business Students Intended Learning Outcomes at HKUSE The Experience at the School of Business and Management by Prof Larry Farh of SBM (26 May 2009). Please click here for details and registration. June 2009 J Strengthening Research-Teaching Linkages as a means of promoting Inquiry-Based Learning by Prof George Gordon, University of Strathclyde (2 June 2009). Please click here for details and registration. Developing Research Students and Newer Researchers by Prof George Gordon, University of Strathclyde (3 June 2009). Please click here for details and registration. Application for project funding for the new round of Innovative Assessment of Learning Outcomes has started. Deadlines will be 30 June 2009 and 30 Nov 2009. More information is available at http://celt. ust. hMalo/irzdex. html. Summer 2009 New Faculty Orientation (17-21 Aug 2009) TA Induction Program (24-28 Aug 2009) Fall semester 2009 The following programs are also planned for the Fall semester. Details will be announced soon. Outcome-based Teaching and Learning Workshops Series (Nov 2009) Experience Sharing with OBE Course Pilot Project Leaders (mid Dec 2009) Professional Development Week for Faculty (1 1 - 15 Jan 201 0) Professional Development Week for Research Postgraduates (1 1 - 15 Jan 20 10)