CELT Newsletter, Fall 2008

Abstract

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Center for Enhanced Learning and Teaching CELT Newsletter Fall 2008 Looking Forward to the 08-09 Academic T his CELT newsletter contains updates on current developments and new initiatives fur supporting your teaching and your students' learning at HKUST. There is a new call for proposals for teaching development projects focusing on assessment for outcome-based education in your courses and programs. If you have a project idea that falls outside this, then please contact either Christine Chow (ctchris, ext 8907) or myself (ctnick, ext 6809). This semester we will be starting a new Student Learning Center (see below), so if you have students in your programs that might benefit from help related to study and learning skills, please talk with or have them contact Dr Lucia Yeung (ctlueia, ext.894O). Looking Forward to the 08-09 Academic Course Evaluation at HKUST-ASSET student Engagement and Satisfaction Questionnaire Latest Development of LMES CELT Tech Camp Series Galling for Proposal IALO TA Comer and Upcoming Events Finally, we would like to increase our services in terms of teaching development, so if you have ideas for things you would like to see CELT offering to teaching staff(e.g. seminar or workshop topics, funded teaching and learning communities around cross-disciplinary areas like critical thinking, a workshop series or a course on teaching and learning in higher education), do please drop me a line. Student Learning Resources Center (SLRC) SLRC is a new student learning support center jointly established by CELT and Publishing Technology Center (PTC). The Center provides CELT and PTC an outlet to reach out and deliver a range of supporting services to our students, including :free resources and professional advisement on how to be an effective learner, courses and workshops about learning skills, research about student learning, and printing services for students. In addition, the Center will also work in partnership with instructors to help students cope with their learning tasks. SLRC is A place to find resources to improve learning to do assessment to understand their study habits A place to get professional learning advice All the services provided are FREE. Fall 2008

A New Beginning for Course Evaluation at HKUST HKUST recognizes excellence in teaching as a crucial part of its mission. Collecting students' feedback about their learning activities has always played a key with schools, departments and the Language Center, was put to trial use involving 189 sections. Results of the trial showed that the new and old questionnaires are comparable. With the endorsement of the CTLQ, role in assessing and assuring the teaching quality of the education programs offered by the university. With the support of the Senate Committee on Teaching and Learning Quality (CTLQ), a revision was made on the Course Evaluation Questionnaire (CEQ), which has been used to evaluate teaching at HKUST since 1996. In spring 2007. a new set of questionnaires, Student Feedback Questionnaires (SFQ), drafted in consultation Student Feedback Questionnaires SFQ1 Lecture-based sections SFQ2 Team teaching lecture-based sections SFQ3 Seminar/discussion-oriented sections SFQ4 Project-based sections SFQ5 Language learning sections SFQ6 Laboratory sections the SFQ will be adopted to collect feedback from students about their learning experience from Fall 2008. Instead of having just one standard questionnaire for all kinds of sections, different questionnaires are made available for the following six types of sections. Compared with the old course evaluation questionnaire, these new questionnaires are much shorter. Number of Questions

14 16 11 12 11 Varies with the number of instructors team teaching in the section At about the same time when CEQ was revised, a decision was made to develop a new online system to replace COSSET, the old online system which supported course evaluation. COSSET became obsolete because of significant changes in online technologies and users' requirements in recent years and thus the new system, called Academic Survey System and Evaluation Tool (ASSET) has been put into production to replace COSSET. Some core features of ASSET arc as follow: ASSET is an all-purpose survey tool with a highly configurable and flexJ.ble structure to cope with the complex and changing evaluation needs of the university. Support for advanced question formats including matrix type and multiple interaction questions. All-in-one user-interface for departmental surveys. A survey was conducted in May to collect students about ASSET, and most students found the new system user-friendly and easy to use. In general, do you find ASSET easy to use when completing course evaluation? Very Easy 2 Student Engagement and Satisfaction Questionnaire Survey As part of the University's quality assurance measure, CELT was commissioned to conduct a series of stakeholder feedback surveys. The Student Engagement and Satisfaction Questionnaire (SESQ) Survey was the first one to be launched in May 2007 to collect feedback from undergraduates who were in their final year of study. The purposes of the survey are three-folded: (iii) To solicit students' views regarding the overall evaluation of the UG programs. (i) To determine the level of students' engagement in learning during the three years of their UG study; (ii) To collect students' views about the effectiveness of the UG programs in helping them to develop their general competencies; and SESQ, was developed by CELT with input from school representatives, faculty and Student Affairs Office (SAO), based on findings about students' college experience from extensive research work carried out in North America, and in particular the work on the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) (http://nsse.iub.edul), which is an instrument widely adopted by more than 1200 different colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada. Here are the highlights of the 2007 survey results: 60% of the students regarded their UG experience at HKUST as either rewarding or very rewarding. About 85% of the students indicated that they mayor would definitely recommend the pro gram to other students. About 85% of the students replied that they mayor would definitely make the 50.0% 40.0% 20.0% 10.0% 0.0% 141 1 127.33%1 111.12%1 2 3 4 5 UG Experience at UST (l=Very unrewarding; S Very rewarding) same decision to enroll in this program if they were given the chance to start over again. In their comments, some students indicated that they would like to see a reduction in workload and assessment, improvement in the teaching and learning quality (such as the pedagogy and class size), allowing more flexibility in the course selection, improvement in the campus facilities (including the student canteen, library and residential halls), more support for student activities, and improvement in the student services (especially the career service) etc. Based on the findings and feedback from the university community, SESQ was subject to revision and the new version is shorter and more focused. Data collection from 2007-08 fina1 year undergraduates is now underway. Preliminary results should be available in fall. 3 Latest Development of LMES THE HONG KONG UNIVERSITY Of SCIENCE AND TKHNOLOGY Enhanced Discussion Responding to the users' feedback, we have enhanced the Discussion with two new features, debate and anonymous post. Debate: The new function greatly enhances the interaction among students. To set up a debate, you simply check the Debate checkbox while posting a topic in the discussion board. After getting into the debate topic, students have to choose between the Disagree and Agree sides. Then they can express their views in the message body. Length of the message can be pre-set as well. Anonymous Post: To protect the privacy of the students who post messages in Discussion, you can enable the newly-developed feature, Anonymous Post. After the function has been enabled, students can choose to post their messages anonymously. HKUST present its First President's Outstanding Service Award

Encouraging feedback from teaching staff and students In Spring 2008, we conducted surveys to teaching staff and students to solicit their comments about LMES. We successfully received feedback from 787 students and 52 teaching staff. Comments are summarized below: More than 88% of the teaching staff and 96% of the students find the system easy to use. Teaching Staff

Students Course Content is the most useful tool for both teaching staff and students.

Teaching Staff Students The surveys show that Gradebook chosen by teaching staff and Schedule chosen by students are the two tools that may need further modifications. We will continue improving the system to fit your teaching and learning needs. If you have any questions and feedback, please kindly contact us at Imes@ust.hk.

WebCT will be decommissioned after Spring Semester 2007/08 As all of the major functionalities in WebCT are available in LMES, the WebCT platform has already been decommissioned. CELT is helping migrate courses from WebCT to LMES. Please contact us if you have any queries about the migration. Information about LMES: http://celt.ust.hkllmes LMES sign-up form: http://celt.ust.hkllmesllmesform.html Enquiry email: Imes@ust.hk or hotline 2358-8458. 5 CELT Tech Camp Workshop Series Tech Camp came again! A series of three lunchtime workshops were held during the study break: of Spring semester from 19 - 21 May 2008. With the theme, Engaging Students with Web-based Tools, the workshops introduced online tools for participants to engage students in a motivating learning environment and allow students to express and present in a creative Comments from the participants: I can apply this for class projects in teaching or with my Colleague in the same teaching team.

and interesting way. The web-based tools included multimedia presentation and editing tools, blogs and social networking tools. Encouraging feedback was received from the 20 teaching staff who participated in the workshops. Participants found the tools applicable to their teaching and a few of them. even asked for advanced sessions. They also enjoyed the relaxing learning atmosphere. The workshop is useful It’s good to have some hands-on practice in a non-threatening environment to keep us updated with the new e-tools.. The facilitator is patient and helpful

Calling for Proposals for Innovative Assessment of Learning Outcomes CELT is now accepting proposals for Innovative Assessment of Learning Outcomes. Teaching team. or individual teaching staff is invited to submit their teaching and learning proposals with a focus on innovative assessment that facilitates outcome-based teaching and learning. No funding limit will be set for each project. Proposal will be evaluated by the project committee made up of one Associate Dean from each School, an Associate Director from the Language Center, and chaired by Dr David Mole of AVPAA and CELT as the secretariat Criteria which will be used to select the proposals include: Outcome-based education: Facilitate outcome-based teaching and learning Student learning: Promote improvement in student learning Evaluation: Clear and systematic evaluation to provide solid evidence to show effectiveness of projects including a generic and subject specific baseline measurement Wide applicability: Number of students being impacted immediately and potential for continuation in other courses and programs Feasibility: Scope is realistic given the funding, resources and time frame Collaboration: Inter-departmental collaboration and involvement of peers

Application deadline is 12 September 2008 and results will be announced in November in the same year. Proposal template, information about assessing learning outcomes and application procedures can be obtained from http://celt.ust.hklobe/call Jar ....Proposal. html Resources for various assessment projects and tools: Assessment Resource Centre of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University http://www.polyu.edu.hklassessment/arc/about/arc.htm Higher Education Academy from the UK http://www.heacademy.ac.uklourworkllearninglassessment Internet Resources for Higher Education Outcomes Assessment hosted by North Carolina State University http://www2.acs.ncsu.edulUPAlassmtlresource.htm

7 2007-2008 Teaching Assistant (TA) Training Program More than 300 Year-1 Teaching Assistants (TAs) from different departments participated in the TA Orientation and Induction Training Program for 2007-2008 academic year, Most of them received the certificates of completion from Dr David Mole of AVPAA in the TAs' Certificate of Achievement Presentation Ceremony held on 23 April 2008. According to the TA Program Opinion Survey which was conducted during the departmental feedback: session, the induction program was well received by TAs. A majority of TAs (81 %) expressed that the TA training program appropriate and useful and 73% rated the overall TA program effective. Most of the TAs (80%) were satisfied with the performance of their Teaching Assistant Coordinators (TACs) and 70% rated the work: of TACs beneficial to them. Among the mandatory training workshops, 'Departmental Briefing Sessions', 'Marking & Grading' and 'Orientation' were found to be the most applicable to TAs. Sharing of Best TAC Winners I would like to express my sincere gratefulness and thanks to all the people who supported my nomination during the best TAC election campaign. It is a great honour for me to serve as ECE TA Coordinator and to know that so many people listen and agree with my opinion, read my emails and finally have voted for me. I can share In March 2008, all TAs were invited to vote for their departmental TA Coordinator (TAC). Two outstanding TACs, Mr Wong Yan Fang from BIOL department and Mr Alexander Muravsky :from ECE department who were voted by TAs and Committee respectively, received the Best TAC Award. my feeling on the keys of a ' ...... When I was an undergraduate student at HKUST, remarkable creative personality I learned from TAs. When I became a graduate student noticed by others: at the university, I have been a TA and assisted students. - Believe in yourself, as it is the Will to success Now, I am so delighted to be a TA coordinator between - Seek for your own way and be active you all and thanks for your kind support and appreciation - Look around and Reflect your point of view throughout this year - Alex-ECE (Best TAC 2007-08) - Fung-BIOL (Best TAC 2007-08) Upcoming Events Fall 08 TA Induction Program is held from 26 Aug to 2 Sept 2008. For details, please go to http://celt.ust.hlrltalindex.html Faculty Orientation is held from 27 to 29 Aug 2008. For details, please go to http://publiskust.hlrIfacoIschedule.JXff or contact Tammy Sha (cttammy, cxt 6803) . Proposal submission deadline e for Innovative Assessments of Learning Outcomes is 12 Sept 2008. For enquiries, please contact cwJi@ust.hk. 8