The Showcase Day of Online Interactive Modules was held on 21 June. The Showcase Day is part of a curriculum development and research project titled ‘Enhancing e-Learning Education with Interactive Software,’ which aimed at investigating the teaching and learning effectiveness of various online interactive modules developed by 10 participating instructors using a software toolkit, Articulate, which was implemented during this semester.
Prof Mei-hwa Sung gives opening remarks
The Dean of the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences (DHSS), Prof Mei-hwa Sung began the event by offering some opening remarks to begin the showcase day, which was followed by a group photo. The Showcase Day consisted of three parts. The first part was an invited speech delivered by the Director of Research at the Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK), Dr Li Kam Cheong, who spoke about ‘Capitalizing on Technology in Education: Opportunities, Strategies and Challenges’. “If you want to excel, make sure your teaching ability is superb”, said Dr Li before mentioning how technology has changed over the years and how teaching is changing too. He went on to talk about the generations of open education from postal mail to the use of synchronous technology. Dr Li also explained some of the experiences that his school has gone through.
Dr Li Kam Cheong speaks of ‘Capitalizing on Technology in Education: Opportunities, Strategies and Challenges’
The second part of the Showcase Day consisted of two parallel sharing sessions where six participating instructors shared the instructional design and student learning outcomes of their online interactive modules.
Dr Edith Yan chairs the Parallel Sharing Session 1
The Parallel Sharing Session 1 was hosted in T2-101, while the second session was being hosted concurrently in T2-102. DHSS Associate Professor and Programme Director for English Language and Literature Studies (ELLS), Dr Edith Yan, was the Chair for Session 1. Session 1 began with DHSS Assistant Professor, Dr Xi Xu, presenting ‘Online Learning of Figurative Language Through Articulate Rise’. His presentation examined how an online learning exercise had been designed and applied to help Year One students learn figurative language. The exercise had been created by ‘Rise’, which is a feature of the online interactive learning software Articulate. Dr Xu’s presentation covered three aspects. Firstly it explained the purpose of designing the exercise and its connection with the Course Intended Learning Outcomes. Secondly, Dr Xu spoke about the basic structure of the exercise and the problems before finishing with the feedback from students that was obtained through questionnaires and interviews. Advantages and disadvantages of using this online exercise were discussed.
Dr Xi Xu presents ‘Online Learning of Figurative Language Through Articulate Rise’
This was followed by Division of Business and Management (DBM) lecturer, Ms Claudia Chow, and DBM Foreign Intern, Mr Gregory Lewis, who presented their discussion ‘Using Articulate 360 to Master Assignment Tutorial Effectively’. They discussed how Articulate is a useful tool that can break down complex sets of information and make it more usable. They used Rise, the online platform for Articulate, in order to separate each piece of information into more bite-size pieces. Rise offered several ways in breaking information down by making it interactive. The end result was that Individual Assignments were more uniform as well as being of higher quality compared to the Group Project.
Ms Claudia Chow and Mr Gregory Lewis discuss ‘Using Articulate 360 to Master Assignment Tutorial Effectively’
DHSS Assistant Professor, Dr Seongyong Lee gave a presentation about the Extended Exercises on Media Literacy in ‘Language, Media and Culture’. The presentation showed how elearning education with Articulate provides an extended opportunity for students to be engaged in hands-on training. The exercise was divided over three weeks of the course. Week 9 focused on training students in media literacy skills, while week 10 had online activities that were designed to help students understand important concepts in the course. Week 12 required the students to become proficient in analyzing a variety of media content in different genres so that they could be well-prepared for group presentations.
Dr Seongyong Lee presents the Extended Exercises on Media Literacy in ‘Language, Media and Culture’
DHSS Assistant Professor, Dr Sheena Van Der Mark, was the Chair of Session 2. The second session began with DHSS lecturer, Ms Sophia Hye-Young Jee, who discussed ‘Extended Language Exercise on Vocabulary and Listening in ‘Korean II’’. The presentation showed how online-based language learning can be applied for a Korean course. The reviews of course content and after-class extra language training were the two complementary goals for this eLearning activity. Ms Jee provided supplementary training materials for students to review what they had to learn in the class by using familiar characters and pictures. After that, she created game-base materials in order for students to be highly motivated in learning more vocabulary outside the classroom. Listening practices based on real-life materials were intended to offer opportunities for students to be exposed to a variety of language-related social contexts. In the end, a survey was conducted to receive detailed feedback, which provided instructional suggestions for further eLearning education.
Dr Sheena Van Der Mark chairs Session 2
Ms Sophia Hye-Young Jee discusses ‘Extended Language Exercise on Vocabulary and Listening in ‘Korean II’'
DHSS Assistant Professor, Dr Jackie Lay Kean Yeoh gave her presentation on ‘Extended Lesson on Assessing Listening in ‘Assessment and Evaluation’’. Dr Yeoh pointed out that Romiszowski claimed that elearning provides a new learning environment to students. The presentation investigated to what extend students have benefited from the teaching and learning of an extended lesson on Assessing Listening using the feature ‘Rise’. The presentation shared Dr Yeoh’s experience of designing the extended lesson on Assessing Listening as well as showing a preliminary analysis of students’ perception of online interactive modules that was collected via a student questionnaire. Finally, Dr Yeoh shared students’ feedback of their learning experience using the online module obtained from formal and informal interviews.
Dr Jackie Lay Kean Yeoh gives her presentation on ‘Extended Lesson on Assessing Listening in ‘Assessment and Evaluation’’
DHSS Assistant Professor, Dr Benjamin Barber gave a presentation titled “Using Articulate Rise to Master Terminology for Rhetoric and Logic”. Dr Barber’s presentation explored the affordances and limitations of the e-learning program Articulate Rise as a means for Year Three students to master Ciceronian rhetorical devices and common logical fallacies. Mastery of these subjects is part of the course’s intended learning outcomes for ENG 3043: Rhetoric, Argumentation, and Debate. Exhibiting two sets of online exercises completed by ENG 3043 students, Barber’s presentation described the process of the exercises’ conception and construction, which he prefaced by admitting his reservations about introducing another level of technological mediation into an already complex learning environment. He went on to describe challenges in encouraging students to engage with the exercises in self-directed study, considered the experience of having students interact with the e-learning exercises in class, and ultimately evaluated the relative advantages of tasks mediated through Articulate Rise to traditional pen and paper learning tasks.
Dr Benjamin Barber's presentation is about “Using Articulate Rise to Master Terminology for Rhetoric and Logic”
The third part of the Showcase Day was a presentation on the ‘Preliminary Findings of the Teaching and Learning Effectiveness of Various Online Interactive Modules’. Dr Sheena Van Der Mark and DHSS Teaching Assistant, Ms Monica Xiaoling King, presented their mixed-method study that aimed to establish a pedagogical framework and lesson templates for effective learning by investigating the teaching and learning effectiveness of various online interactive modules. Data was collected from 10 instructors and their classes through questionnaire surveys, interviews, as well as retrieving Moodle Logs and grade reports. Six research questions were formulated and the findings had implications on developing effective autonomous online learning tools for students.
Reporter: Samuel Burgess
Photographer: Liang Tianshi (Y2, AE)
Editor: Samantha Burns
(from MRPO)
