Remarks by Chairperson, 2018 UGC Teaching Award Selection Panel at the Presentation Ceremony of the 2018 UGC Teaching Award (6.9.2018)
Presentation Ceremony of 2018 UGC Teaching Award
6 September 2018
Remarks by Prof Jan Thomas
Chairperson, 2018 UGC Teaching Award Selection Panel
Council Chairmen, Heads of Universities, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Good evening to you all. I am honoured to chair the Selection Panel for this year's UGC Teaching Award, and regret that a schedule conflict prevented me from joining you in person. It is my privilege to work with other Members of the Selection Panel for this important endeavour of UGC to give due recognition to teaching excellence.
2. In the past few weeks, Members of the Selection Panel reviewed 22 nomination submissions from universities. We were deeply impressed by the nominees' commitment to their own teaching and to the learning of their students. This has made the task of the Selection Panel very challenging. Indeed, every nominee is clearly deserving of recognition.
3. The Selection Panel met the six finalists this Monday and discussed with them their teaching philosophies. The assessment was based on three criteria which represent the important aspects of teaching: first, the adoption of learner-centred approaches; second, curriculum design; and third, demonstration of achievement and leadership in teaching and scholarly contribution to and impact on the development of effective teaching practice. After a detailed deliberation, the Selection Panel agreed that three of them should receive the 2018 award.
4. Now let me announce the three awardees.
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Firstly, The Leadership and Intrapersonal Development Team from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
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The next awardee who is from the category of early career faculty, is Dr Jason Chan from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
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The third awardee, who is also from the category of early career faculty, is Dr David Kang from The Education University of Hong Kong
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, i.e. 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.
Congratulations, Prof Shek and his team!
Since Dr Chan took up teaching in 2014, he has been determined to make his Chemistry courses a central element of his students' education at 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.
Congratulations, Dr Chan!
Dr Kang 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.
Congratulations, Dr Kang!
5. In a moment, the awardees will share with you their teaching philosophies. Before that, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all nominees for their participation. I also thank my colleagues in the Selection Panel – Dr Kim Mak, Dr Don Westerheijden, Professor Suzanne So and Professor Ian Kinchin for their support and hard work. I am grateful to UGC for entrusting me with the work of chairing the Selection Panel. Thank you.