Faculty Publications and Conference Presentations

Short Descriptions

This project summarizes findings from a two-year teaching-cum-investigation of the way students use sources to write up Life-Science Op-Eds (which requires students taking a stance on science controversies and persuading the general public to accept their views). We assume that the use of in-text citations in the form anchor texts in model Op-Eds (course materials) fulfills in part the rhetorical purpose of persuasion, and hypothesize that explicit teaching of creating anchor texts would enable students to better use sources as Appeal to Logos in persuasive writing. At Level 3000, we stretch students to address wider audience and to engage more purposeful acts of communication. Op-Ed writing with digitized in-text citations would allow students to develop new skills while continuing to hone their academic skills.

Possible Benefits

To establish a 'communication-oriented' citation typology that may align with skills taught in other advanced writing courses, or may be applied to Level 2000 courses if appropriate.

Deliverables

Summer EYE - Short Paper session Journal publication (end of 2022)

Current assessment practices in higher education have seen a shift from assessment “of” learning to focus more on assessment “for” learning.  Traditionally, assessment of learning with summative assessment tasks and an indicative grade outcome has been the norm mainly because it fulfills the needs of course administration and performance differentiation.  Recently, assessment for learning which features formative and continuous feedback has become increasingly accepted for its manifested benefits in the learning and teaching process, albeit with challenges and issues.  Currently, assessment as learning which builds on meta-cognitive skills through self-assessment and self-monitoring is purportedly central to optimal learning.

I decided to investigate the students' experience and perceptions on the role of assessment as learning in the learning process. Throughout the semester, students in the course were asked to lead and participate in eight weekly guided topical tutorial activities that required self-learning and peer teaching/sharing in a self-chosen small group setting.  At the end of the semester, students produced a learning portfolio with self-reflection for assessment.  In addition, students were invited to complete a research questionnaire on their perceptions and opinions of their experience in the tutorial activities. 

Recently, I have given a peer-reviewed paper presentation to summarize:

1. the context of this postgraduate course that is purportedly in alignment with assessment of/for/as learning,

2.annotate the students’ perceptions of this learning experience,

3.and propose some pedagogical issues for discussion.

Part of my recent research has involved looking into the global landscape of science ESP and in particular the increasingly rich and varied approaches to teaching of scientific writing skills at UG level in other institutions around the world. Below is a brief snapshot from part of this research, for the purpose of sharing one of my own takeaways with colleagues: a reminder of the importance of taking a step outside our own contexts, to get fresh inspiration from diverse contexts when it comes to course development. 

Higher education institutions across the world increasingly recognize the need to help build students’ writing skills. However, instruction in scientific writing has traditionally been prioritized at postgraduate level. At undergraduate level, although there has been increasing focus on scientific literacy and recognition of the importance of the skills of scientific writing, formal training in such skills has not been widely offered (Brownell et al., 2013a) until more recently. Many undergraduate curricula still lack attention to reading and writing of scientific literature, such as those in US contexts reported by Lampert and Pearson (2021). Many others lack coherent opportunities across the years to develop writing skills, as reported in Australian contexts (Mercer-Mapstone & Matthews, 2015). And recent efforts to promote writing-to-learn practices at undergraduate level are not broadly implemented in STEM disciplines nor always effective (Moon et al., 2018); hampered by limited translation of the research into practice amongst other issues (Thompson et al., 2021). These concerns are echoed across the literature exploring tertiary institutions worldwide.  

However, some institutions around the world are starting to offer varied undergraduate support which could be built on to help develop students’ scientific writing skills. In North American and European contexts a wide range of learning opportunities beyond the formal curriculum are reported on. These include opportunities to participate in informal science outreach requiring communicating science with the public (Brownell et al., 2013b) and writing retreats supporting undergraduate projects (Sangster, 2021) and the expansion of undergraduate mentorship initiatives and programmes in scientific writing skills. Alongside many US and European student journals are also several student scientific journals from Cuba (Corrales-Reyes & Dorta-Contreras, 2018) and elsewhere, which undergraduates have opportunity to both write for and edit. In addition, a range of different types of formal instruction are reported on globally with a variety of pedagogies. Researcher-designed intervention courses which focus on discussion of seminal papers and peer evaluation of writing are reported in a Chinese student context (Deng et al., 2019). In North American contexts, courses have been designed to mimic the peer review and publishing process (Guilford, 2001), link composition courses to scientific discipline courses (Lampert & Pearson, 2021) and incorporate writing instruction into laboratory courses (Dansereau et al., 2020). Other institutions around the world are expanding programmes in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and discipline-specific language courses, particularly in Asian countries (Petraki & Khat, 2020) and our own HKUST context.  

All of these approaches and various others (more detail on this link) appear to have potential to contribute to some extent to undergraduates’ emerging skills in scientific writing style, and could serve as a spark of inspiration and fresh thinking for our own context. 

References 

Brownell, S. E., Price, J. V., & Steinman, L. (2013a). A writing-intensive course improves biology undergraduates’ perception and confidence of their abilities to read scientific literature and communicate science. Advances in Physiology Education, 37(1), 70–79. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00138.2012 

Brownell, S. E., Price, J. V., & Steinman, L. (2013b). Science communication to the general public: Why we need to teach undergraduate and graduate students this skill as part of their formal scientific training. Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education : JUNE : A publication of FUN, Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience, 12(1), E6–E10. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24319399 

Corrales-Reyes, I. E., & Dorta-Contreras, A. J. (2018). Students’ scientific production: A proposal to encourage it. Medwave, 18(01), e7166. https://doi.org/10.5867/medwave.2018.01.7166 

Dansereau, D., Carmichael, L., & Hotson, B. (2020). Research and teaching: Building first-year science writing skills with an embedded writing instruction program. Journal of College Science Teaching, 049(03). https://doi.org/10.2505/4/jcst20_049_03_66 

Deng, Y., Kelly, G. J., & Deng, S. (2019). The influences of integrating reading, peer evaluation, and discussion on undergraduate students’ scientific writing. International Journal of Science Education, 41(10), 1408–1433. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2019.1610811 

Guilford, W. H. (2001). Teaching peer review and the process of scientific writing. Advances in Physiology Education, 25(3), 167–175. https://doi.org/10.1152/advances.2001.25.3.167 

Lampert, E., & Pearson, J. S. (2021). Use of a linked-course model to scientific writing to first-year undergraduates. Journal of College Science Teaching, 50(4), 58–66. https://www.nsta.org/journal-college-science-teaching/journal-college-science-teaching-marchapril-2021 

Mercer-Mapstone, L. D., & Matthews, K. E. (2015). Student perceptions of communication skills in undergraduate science at an Australian research-intensive university. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 42(1), 98–114. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2015.1084492 

Moon, A., Gere, A. R., & Shultz, G. V. (2018). Writing in the STEM classroom: Faculty conceptions of writing and its role in the undergraduate classroom. Science Education, 102(5), 1007–1028. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21454 

Petraki, E., & Khat, K. (2020). Challenges and constraints in the design of an ESP course in Cambodia: Implications for higher education institutions. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/02188791.2020.1798738 

Sangster, H. (2021). The use of “writing retreats” in supporting geography and environmental science undergraduate independent research projects. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2021.2007525 

Thompson, R.J., Finkenstaedt-Quinn, S.A., Shultz, G., Gere, A.R., Schmid, L., Dowd, J.E., Mburi, M., Schiff, L.A., Flash, P., & Reynolds, J.A. (2021). How faculty discipline and beliefs influence instructional uses of writing in STEM undergraduate courses at research-intensive universities. Journal of Writing Research, 12(3), 625–656. https://doi.org/10.17239/jowr-2021.12.03.04 

Short Descriptions

COVID-19 has posed many educational challenges to practitioners in Hong Kong and worldwide. It is particularly the case for traditional subjects such as English language, where face-to-face interaction is expected for students to develop their proficiency during which process teachers’ input and feedback play a significant role. The unexpected arrival of the pandemic required a change of teaching mode, where kindergartens, primary and secondary schools had to immediately switch to online teaching for the second half of the school term. Many tertiary institutions started the new semester entirely online, with the timely winter break allowing faculties to prepare for teaching online. Many university language centres have some experience of running online courses, blended learning courses and massive open online courses. They have a distinct advantage as they have historically included a strong element of self-directed language learning online. However, these were not directly applicable to the present situation as such courses are primarily designed to facilitate learners’ autonomy in an asynchronous teaching mode. Similarly, while the government has been supporting the development of e-learning initiatives and sharing the different e-learning and blended learning project outcomes via platforms such as HKedCity since 2000, most schools were not able to utilise many of the online resources: either they were inadequate to address the need for daily teaching, or these resources required certain amount of preparatory work to be done before they could be implemented by the schools. Most course coordinators found themselves in a difficult position due to a lack of prior experience (developing online teaching and assessment materials), with limited reference from sister schools (facing similar unprecedented challenges) and under time pressure (making all decisions in two to three weeks and refraining from major changes thereafter). It is also found that e-learning resources from the HKedCity were rarely used by the post-secondary/tertiary sectors, while the situation was the similar that public schools under EDB rarely utilised e-learning resources developed and provided by the tertiary. Not only language learning was severely affected in all sectors, but also the assessment of learning (for Chinese, English and other language subjects) was found to be more challenging than the other courses. Traditionally, the language courses tend to include the assessment of speaking to assess students’ spoken language competency. However, due to the pandemic, educators had to sacrifice the opportunity to practice and assess students’ spoken language competency as they were incapable to provide trainings and administer assessments of spoken language. Since 2020, the HKDSE had cancelled the Chinese and English speaking assessments for three consecutive years. Be that as it may, this territory-wide education ‘experiment’ has still offered invaluable insights for evaluating online language teaching, including course design and implementation, language learning and assessments, and psychological and physical constraints faced by different stakeholders (at institutional, course and individual levels). In 2020, the government also helped tackle the challenges by immediately allocating different resources and providing various special funding opportunities to accelerate the implementation of e-learning in local schools and invite different parties to submit T&L proposals and suggest new initiatives to tackle the challenges. In our study, we plan to focus on the language policy in Hong Kong and evaluate in what ways the e-learning policy and supports provided by the government were inadequate in all sectors, and how the current policy did not facilitate pedagogic research/SoTL exchange between the tertiary and the non-tertiary sectors. By identifying the primary challenges and the causes faced by different sectors, the project will propose a list of recommendations for the government and other key stakeholders in all sectors to consider not only the future directions of the e-learning initiatives for language learning, but also possible plans for cross-sector exchanges and collaborations. This study will use translanguaging as the research analytical framework to understand how and why certain language planning and policy (LPP) decisions were made at certain times (Li, 2022). For the methodological approach, I plan to use mini-ethnographic case study to compare and contrast 5 cases based on the five education sectors in Hong Kong (kindergarten, primary, secondary, postsecondary, tertiary). Each case will comprise of semi-structure interviews of the primary stakeholders of each sector, and complement with other systematic observations. Reference: Li, W. (2022) Foreword: translanguaging LPP. Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education volume 7(43)

Possible Benefits

The outcomes of the project will provide future project directions and be beneficial to facilitate the development of extended curriculum and outreach projects between language centres, and beyond the tertiary sectors.

Deliverables

1. Project report 2. LLP/Applied Linguistics/Higher Education/E-learning related Journal publication

Short Descriptions

Being a mentor of a teacher-to-be, I realized that a mentee needs so much more than what is being taught in class or from lesson observations. It is interesting to find out from the mentees' reflective writings that they do have some worries or issues that refrain them from feeling comfortable and confident standing in a classroom and teaching in front of students. If we can identify these issues, it would be helpful for us to better design teaching materials for the mentees' specific needs and we could improve the way we coach our mentees in conducting teaching practice.

Possible Benefits

MAILE is a relatively new developed programme; it is obvious that it can be expanded further as we see a need for teacher training in the market. If we could provide more than theories from textbooks and offer customized help/coaching to our mentees, they will have more confidence in us. It will be good to see that our Center is not only a center that teaches Languages; but also a center that trains good language teachers.

Deliverables

Deliverable 1: Provide feedback to the coordinator by analyzing the reflective writing of four mentees (Three from Teaching English stream+ One from Teaching Chinese stream) Deliverable 2: Make suggestions on the implementation of the MAILE internship programme. Deliverable 3: Present the results in EYE programme.

Center for Language Education (CLE) has developed a competency framework for the university's languages curriculum, aiming at applying it into newly revamped Chinese and English common core courses in order to adapt to a new trend of higher education development around the world.

The new global environment of higher education has made new demands on future talents. As a Chinese teacher, do we need to re-considerate our future teaching career? Does our current teaching philosophy need to be updated? Does our expertise need to be improved? Do our professional skills need to be strengthened? Are we ready to guide students towards a series of new standards proposed by the competency framework for languages curriculum? A couple of questions mentioned above are actually more or less related to the future professional development route of ourselves.

The professional development of Chinese teachers refers to the cyclic process of teachers constantly reflecting on their teaching, summarizing experience and lessons from teaching practice, planning their future teaching, and then reflecting and planning again. According to Professor Ding (2022), the competence of Chinese teachers covers three aspects, professional knowledge, professional skills and professional practice. Professional knowledge refers to educational knowledge, knowledge of Chinese and linguistics, knowledge of Chinese culture and Chinese national conditions, knowledge of second language acquisition; professional skills refer to Chinese elements (pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and characters etc.) teaching, Chinese language skills teaching, cross-cultural communication, educational technology; professional practice refers to classroom teaching planning, teaching resource selection and utilization, classroom organization and management, learning assessment and feedback. The last but not the least, in the professional development of Chinese teachers, teachers’ professional concepts cannot be ignored. Professional concepts refer to professional ethics and professional beliefs.

From my point of view, the professional development of teachers is the prerequisite of understanding learners’ competency development, and it is also the key to the effective implementation of the competency framework. Only by increasing teachers' awareness of the competency framework and improving their own Chinese teaching ability can the competency framework be better applied in teaching practice. The relationship between the Chinese teachers’ professional development and CLE’s competency framework for languages curriculum might be shown in the figure as attached. Therefore, participating in various kinds of scholarly work not only cultivates our academic thinking, but also helps us improve our teaching practices and enhances our professional knowledge and skills. Furthermore, the improvement of teachers' quality and teaching ability can effectively promote the development of Chinese learners' competencies in four areas.

References:

Anqi Ding (2022) A Virtual Seminar on Chinese Teachers’ Training and Professional Development, From CPGS Perspective, East China Normal University.

Center for Language Education (2022) Common Core Programme and CLE Sub-Competencies.

Center for Language Education (2022) HKUST Competency-based Assessment Framework for CLE.

Center for Language Education and Cooperation, China’s Ministry of Education (MOE) (2021) Chinese Proficiency Grading Standards for International Chinese Language Education (CPGS).

Summary of the Article

This chapter aims to provide a theoretical discussion on the possibility of implementing HKE into the local ESL curriculum, with the potential benefits to both teachers and learners within Hong Kong.The discussion further extends to whether the implementation could apply to other contexts globally. Along with other chapters in this book, the discussion will be conveyed in a more practical tone, which fits the need of both language practitioners and linguists. At the end of the chapter, an activity that includes a task-based guided role-play on CS will be introduced for teachers.

Reference

Chan, K. L. R. (2022). Code-switching in Hong Kong: Key to Implement a Hong Kong English Curriculum?. In C. Palmar and M. Devereaux (Eds.), Teaching English Language Variation in the Global Classroom: Ideas and Activities from Teachers and Linguists (pp. 132-141). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003124665-17

This article is available at HKUST library.

Short Descriptions

For two Summers I did ad hoc course writing for CORE1401 and the new LABU course, to fill in the Summer WUs. After seeing CLE's curriculum plan unfolds over these two years, I wonder if it's time to establish continuity and principles in this repeated pattern of my 'ad-hoc' Summer work, and to revive a framework used in the past - Communication across the Curriculum (CxC) - for course writing/curriculum development. The main objective of this foreseeably longitudinal project is to address the need of quality materials as models of communication for teaching and learning, a need which most of us course writers have tried to fulfill during course write-up. Especially when CLE/we have started teaching multimodal communication in the new Common Core courses, a rich collection of models of hybrid genres (written-oral-visual) can reflect not only our course objectives, but also the consistency of our curriculum requirements across years and disciplines. These are the rationales behind this E-Reader project - to collectively build teaching-learning resources in a levelled reader, which may start as subject-/discipline- specific that features key learning outcomes (CILOs), yet can further expand to include cross-course learning outcomes to showcase CLE’s curricular goals (PILOs of multi-modality and competency development).

Possible Benefits

As part of a search for "reading" materials for the new Advanced Business writing course, I wish to start the ground work of building a outcomes-based E-Reader as teacher-learning resources. I hope the project might interest colleagues who teach other school-based courses and who also consider updating course materials (communication models) to align with CLE's competency-based programmes.

Deliverables

(short-term) A theoretical framework for selecting-collecting texts of discipline- and rhetoric-specific genres from multimedia, for training of written communication (intended for the Advanced Business Writing course); (long-term) A E-Reader that provides teaching/learning resources across disciplines and levels, for multi-modal communication training (of writing, speaking, visual, and hybrid communication).

Short Descriptions

This is an established community of support and practice sharing. This Community is funded by a Teaching Development Grant from the Office of the Executive Vice-President & Provost. The community comprises faculty and staff interested in enhancing the intercultural learning experiences and competence of both PG and UG students at HKUST. This community was established to address issues raised in a study of UG students’ expectations of their intercultural learning experiences in 2017.

Possible Benefits

As the community has met over the past 2 years and developed its mission and objectives, issues associated with and strategies for fostering a mindset of diversity have emerged. It is believed that without such a mindset, intercultural learning experiences will be of little value, possibly even ineffective, and that it is unlikely that intercultural competence will develop. The community will build on work already done and continue to support achievement of the University’s strategic objective to be a champion of diversity.

Deliverables

In the next academic year we propose continuing activities that have proven successful in the past, including providing seminars/workshops and training with invited speakers and trainers, as well as sharing sessions among University colleagues. Engaging students as partners in some of these activities has also proved successful, and we would continue to engage students in our activities. One of these will be the Diversity = Strength film festival and student forum to be held in October (postponed from February).

Short Descriptions

To ensure the CLE Competency-based assessment descriptors match with the university common core competency framework, our team plans to review the existing CLE Competency-based assessment descriptors. Through this process, we hope to evaluate the language used in these descriptors and determine their effectiveness and usefulness in learning and grading.

Deliverables

CLE Competency-based assessment descriptors will be the framework to assist all course leaders to develop their course specific competencies descriptors to fit in their course assignments.