Professor Darwin Tat Ming LAU

Recipient of 2019 UGC Teaching Award

Category
Early Career Faculty Members

Affiliation at the time of the award
Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Award Citation
Professor Darwin Tat Ming Lau, an expert in robotics, is known for his achievements in the learner-centred and experienced-based learning ideology. He is dedicated to bringing about meaningful hands-on experiences both within and outside the classroom to improve students' learning interest and outcomes. Professor Lau has introduced the "hands-on lectures" in which learning tools are used to aid students in better understanding abstract concepts. This makes learning more fun and relevant to the practical world and increases student motivation. Professor Lau will use his award grant to implement two initiatives. One initiative is to transition a course into a "student-driven course" through the development of a custom smartphone teaching app, and the other one is to deploy telepresence robots equipped with virtual reality capabilities to improve the experiential learning element.

Video on Teaching Philosophies