UGC recognises teaching excellence
The University Grants Committee (UGC) held a presentation ceremony for the 2018 UGC Teaching Award today (September 6) to honour academics of the UGC-funded universities for their outstanding teaching performance and achievements, as well as their leadership and scholarly contributions to teaching and learning within and across universities.
The recipients of the 2018 UGC Teaching Award, in alphabetical order, are:
General Faculty Members/Teams
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The Leadership and Intrapersonal Development Team of Hong Kong Polytechnic University, led by Professor Daniel Shek (Chair Professor and Associate Vice President (Undergraduate Programme)), with Dr Lu Yu (Assistant Professor), Dr Cecilia Ma (Assistant Professor), Ms Yammy Chak (Teaching Fellow) and Dr Li Lin (Research Assistant Professor) as team members
Early Career Faculty Members
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Dr Jason KK Chan, Lecturer, School of Science/Department of Chemistry, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Dr Kang Jong-hyuk David, Assistant Professor, Department of Literature and Cultural Studies, Education University of Hong Kong
The citations of the awardees are at Annex 1.
The Chairman of the UGC, Mr Carlson Tong, congratulated the awardees and nominees on their accomplishments, and thanked the UGC-funded universities for their support for the UGC Teaching Award. Mr Tong said, "The UGC attaches great importance to quality teaching and learning. The UGC Teaching Award provides an annual opportunity to acknowledge teaching excellence in the UGC sector." He added that all the nominees had made great efforts in teaching and motivating their students to learn.
The three recipients of the 2018 UGC Teaching Award were selected from among 22 outstanding nominees through a rigorous process undertaken by a Selection Panel convened by Professor Jan Thomas. The selection criteria and the composition of the Selection Panel for the 2018 UGC Teaching Award are at Annex 2.
When announcing the results of this year's UGC Teaching Award, Professor Thomas said, "The Selection Panel was deeply impressed by the nominees' commitment to their own teaching and to the learning of their students."
The presentation ceremony was well attended by UGC Members, representatives of the UGC-funded universities including their Council Chairmen and Heads, as well as those nominated for the award.
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Annex 1
2018 UGC Teaching Award Citations
The Leadership and Intrapersonal Development Team, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
The team, led by Professor Daniel Shek, with Dr Lu Yu, Dr Cecilia Ma, Ms Yammy Chak and Dr Li Lin as team members, launched the Leadership and Intrapersonal Development (LIPD) initiative with four different yet related subjects in the undergraduate curriculum in 2010. The aim is to nurture essential personal and social competences in the students through the experiential learning approach, and to enhance the undergraduate curriculum, thus providing a holistic learning experience for every first-year student in the new four-year undergraduate curriculum. The LIPD Team plans to use the award grant to develop a series of training modules for teachers and allied professionals interested in offering a LIPD subject, "Tomorrow's Leaders", as a credit-bearing subject or a non-credit-bearing leadership programme.
Dr Jason K K Chan, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Since Dr Jason K K Chan took up teaching in 2014, he has been determined to make his Chemistry courses a central element of his students' education at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). To demonstrate basic principles and theory, he puts together exciting demonstrations, engaging experiments, animated video clips and experiential learning to form an efficacious compound with a motivational effect on students. Dr Chan's passion for pedagogy and for Chemistry extends beyond the campus of HKUST. He appears on television, in schools and in the community. He always shares his love for his subject with others and seeks to engage, involve in and educate others about Chemistry. Dr Chan will use the award grant to develop a new undergraduate experiential learning course focused on studying the soundness of scientific matters with societal relevance in Hong Kong.
Dr Kang Jong Hyuk David, The Education University of Hong Kong
Dr Kang Jong Hyuk David is a historian and a dedicated educator who devotes himself to finding creative ways to motivate his students to learn history. He developed more than ten new history courses as he advanced novel history programmes. The learned-centred approaches and innovative teaching methods adopted in these courses not only benefited history majors, but also inspired students from other disciplines to develop a meaningful engagement with the past by using his "4-'re'" history teaching method: reconstruct, reread, reflect and research. Dr Kang plans to use the award grant to incorporate STEM-focused activities in secondary school history lessons in order to improve students' understanding of Chinese history and increase their appreciation of Chinese culture.
Annex 2
Selection Criteria of the 2018 UGC Teaching Award
Selection Criteria
All nominees for the Award were assessed based on the following three criteria -
(a) Adoption of learner-centred approaches, ability to engage/inspire/impact on students and demonstration of superior classroom acumen, which may include a good understanding of pedagogy, understanding how students learn and adopting suitable teaching and assessment approaches that can achieve better student learning outcomes; being able to interact with students and engage them in learning with enthusiasm; inspiring and supporting students, with respect for their diverse learning needs, to build confidence and capability (including critical thinking, analytical skills, values, etc.); and outstanding classroom (as well as outside-classroom) teaching.
(b) Course/programme/curriculum design that can reflect a command of the field, which may include demonstrating up-to-date knowledge of the field of study in the design of the curriculum and student learning resources (e.g., textbooks, e-learning resources) and adopting complementary research-informed teaching practices; and developing appropriate student learning outcomes and adopting innovative approaches to teaching and assessment which can facilitate students' achievement of the learning outcomes.
(c) Past/present achievement(s) and leadership in teaching and potential scholarly contribution to and impact on the development of effective teaching practice within the nominee(s)' own university and/or in other institutions, which may include demonstrating educational research and innovations in the field of study; and demonstrating leadership in the promotion of teaching excellence within the university and/or in other institutions. In the case of early career faculty nominations, the focus will be on the nominees' potential of leadership in teaching as well as their past achievements. In the case of team nominations, the impact of the collaborative work of the team on the development of effective teaching practice will also be considered
The three criteria carry no specified weighting. The Selection Panel considered each nomination on its own merit with reference to the criteria.
Composition of the Selection Panel
Professor Jan Thomas (Chairperson)
Member of the Quality Assurance Council
Vice-Chancellor, Massey University, New Zealand
Dr Kim Mak
Member of the University Grants Committee and Quality Assurance Council
President, Caritas Institute of Higher Education and Caritas Bianchi College of Careers
Dr Don Westerheijden
Member of the Quality Assurance Council
Senior Research Associate, Center for Higher Education Policy Studies, University of Twente, The Netherlands
Professor Suzanne So
Awardee of the 2017 UGC Teaching Award
Associate Professor of the Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Professor Ian Kinchin
International Expert of the Selection Panel
Professor of Higher Education, University of Surrey, UK