E-learning delivers results for Uni in HK

Sunday, 12 February 2012

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Education IT

By Kelly Ng | 30 March 2010

In recent years, there has been an upsurge in e-learning at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). Speaking to FutureGov, Dr. Carmel McNaught, Director & Professor of Learning Enhancement, Centre for Learning Enhancement And Research, whose Centre works closely with the IT Services Centre in e-learning development, discussed major e-learning initiatives and their impact.

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Mapping factors that impinge on change is complex and one can often only note that changes are coincident and not necessarily correlational. Evaluation data at CUHK has shown significant improvement in students’ confidence in broader lifelong critical skills. For the past five years, the University has conducted an annual programme-wide study on how students perceive their development of critical thinking and communications skills, and the overall learning and teaching environment.

“We have been observing a positive gradient in the scale of students’ confidence over the last three or four years. The fact that this result is consistent across the entire university is extremely encouraging,” stated McNaught.

At the same time there has been a significant increase in the use of technology-enhanced learning at the University. In addition, every funded educational technology project at CUHK is evaluated by data on students’ performance and perceptions. Hopefully, the two changes are linked.

Peer review is increasingly used in the class to improve students’ communications and critical thinking skills. “Providing feedback on their classmates’ work not only improves the quality of their work, the exercise develops their ability to critique, judge and provide constructive feedback,” she said. While peer review is possible and has been done in the past, technology has made it a lot easier than shuffling pieces of paper around. Web 2.0 tools – such as Wiki, Google docs, Moodle, Facebook – and online communication tools such as Skype and MSN are commonly used among faculty and students to collaborate and interact with one another.

CUHK has been developing online tutorials and quizzes so that students can practise basic skills and get feedback on their own learning. According to McNaught, courses in Medicine and Nursing have found these online assessments to be very useful. For example, a student will be presented with a clinical scenario, followed by multiple-choice questions to test her or his understanding of the best next move. If the student picks the wrong answer, the system gives instant feedback and additional information for her or him to reconsider the answer.

Visual media is used in online tutorials and quizzes to make them more engaging. Professors can include x-ray images, a chart of the patient’s vital signs over 24-hours, a photograph of the patient’s tongue (specific to traditional Chinese medicine) to add more depth in the question. “Business courses which aim to improve students’ presentation or interview skills will use embedded videos of mock sessions. Students can watch the video, and study and discuss the strengths and weaknesses,” she added.

Clickers have been particularly effective in breaking down long one-way lectures into engaging learning experiences. Teachers can get instant feedback from the class on their expectations of the course, the students’ understanding on a challenging concept, and so on. Clickers are popular tools which teachers use to create ‘Buzz Groups’. After providing initial answers to the question posed, students get into small groups to discuss and give feedback to one another. “A lot of clarification and learning takes place in these small groups,” observed McNaught. Moving forward, CUHK is looking at how mobile phones can be used as clickers.

“Professors have to juggle between their research and teaching responsibilities. If a technology takes up too much time to adopt and implement, it will not work,” concluded McNaught. In order to encourage technology integration into learning, CUHK holds fortnightly seminars on e-learning which are kept within two hours. By providing bite-sized project ideas and the opportunity for face-to-face knowledge-sharing among faculty – which is often lacking these days – CUHK hopes to continue making real impact on students’ learning.