Recap: Online Faculty Professional Development Workshops on Community Building and Online Assessment
Watch Video Highlights here:
On March 18th, CTLE held the first online professional development workshop via Zoom. The workshop addressed two themes: building online teaching community; conducting effective online assessment. About 60 academic members from different faculties and institutes joined the workshop.
| In the first part of the workshop, Prof. Emily Wang from ICMS shared difficulties encountered by the graduate students at ICMS during distance teaching. Students generally study in laboratories, which is hindered by the current situation. During class suspension, she communicates with her students regularly through online platforms such as Zoom and Wechat. |  |
Prof. Katrine Wong, Director of CTLE, then chaired the discussion session. Faculty members from different academic units had a lively discussion on building online teaching communities and shared teaching practices that engaged students:
- Prof. William Hughes (FAH): teachers can communicate face to face directly with students in Zoom, which is more engaging than text chat.
- Prof. Javier Cuervo (FBA): teachers can try to use different platforms and tools to complement online teaching.
- Prof. Alice Lei (FED): we can set goals for quiet students in our class and adopt ways for students to communicate with each other.
- Prof. Barry Reynolds (FED): distance teaching and learning require flexibility and teachers must be open to students.
- Dr. Joan Tang (FAH-ELC): we need to give students more time to carry out learning activities. Too many goals and activities will make it difficult for students to follow.
- Mr. Miguel Costa (FST): online teaching present with us with various issues. Teachers should keep a positive mind, whereas undergraduate students will benefit from developing normal daily routine.
- Prof. Muruga Ramaswamy (FLL): it’s crucial that teachers look at the entire learning process and experience calculating the semester scores.
Prof. Katrine Wong added that both teachers and students need to be mindful of physical and mental health when conducting online teaching and learning; we need to take regular breaks from our screens and rest our eyes regularly. She also reminded colleagues of assignment design as students take multiple courses. To help solve potential problems of students who are unable to access certain online material or join online class meetings owing to regional connectivity, teachers can upload such teaching materials and recordings to UMMoodle for students.
| In the second part of the workshop, Dr. Alice Lee (FAH-ELC) showed faculty members how to use Quiz and Discussion, two features in UMMoodle, to check learning outcomes. She spoke about giving Turnitin assignments to further engage students in learning. Meanwhile, she reminded all participants that no one had expected such changes in teaching and learning styles before class suspension happened: ‘Let’s show empathy and understand our students’ difficulties when teaching online.’ |  |
| According to Prof. Thomas Lok (FST), students of FST tend to remain quiet in class. He conducted a survey in one of his courses before the mid-term exam, and found out how and when students wanted to take the exam. He then issued relevant regulations and made arrangements for that to happen. |  |
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