Good Practices in Teaching and Learning Identified from Common Core Course Cycle Review 2017‐18

1. Ask students in the first lecture about their motivation and knowledge background on the topic, as well as their expectations for the class and the questions they would like to get answered in the class. These ‘student questions’ were included in most lectures throughout the term. This worked well in raising students’ learning interest. (S&T)
2. The course objectives and ILOs are listed in the course book, course website and well‐ communicated to teachers and students during class and meetings. Classes begin with clear learning outcomes about whatstudentsshould know and be able to do by the end of the class period. (C‐Comm)

Build an easy, relaxing and engaging class atmosphere, where students got lots of chance to practice and improve their skills, and felt motivated and enjoyable in learning topics that are in their interested areas. (E‐Comm)

1. Invite guestspeakersfrom the industriesto stimulate the connections between the CILOs and the real‐world needs/applications. (S&T) Hold guest lectures to help students learn about ethical, governance and corporate social responsibility issues in different industries. (SA)
2. Use daily and real‐life examples to complement theories. (SA, S&T) Use up‐to‐date examples in teaching, connecting the theories/models to the real world phenomena. (SA) Work with the Center for the Arts to design real‐life assignment to allow students to learn from work practice. (Arts)
3. Provide appropriate reading materials and writing activities through Canvas to promote wide reading and support students’ development of critical reading skills for purposeful, critical reading and active discussions in class. (E‐Comm)
4.  Provide a choice of interesting topics for the class to explore the concepts and questions and enable students to make connections with their lives outside the classroom. (E‐Comm)

1. Adopt experiential learning approach to allow students to study the subject based on their interest and conduct hands‐on individual and group projects outside the classroom. It promotes students’ interests in the subject and enhances their learning process. (Arts, C‐Comm, H)
2. Develop the course as a blended learning course using online videos, bringing about creative redesign of course delivery, as well asthe opportunity to think about how to improve existing face to face presentation and evaluation methods in teaching. (SA)
3. Organize field trips (compulsory or voluntary) to enhance students’ learning with activity outside the classroom. (Arts, H) Arrange students to visit, observe and interview the target informants off‐campus in the real context to collect documentary materials which helps increase the authenticity of the work and facilitate students’ understanding of the materials
   and the art form. (Arts) Arrange site visits and hands‐on activities to guide students on the scientific understanding of the environmental issues in the society, e.g., measuring water wastage in the public toilets at UST, identifying ventilation facilitating features in their living communities. (S&T)
4. Incorporate guided tours to the library’s exhibition into the course to enhance understanding by the students. (C‐Comm)
5. Arrange optional tutorial sessions, at which students could ask questions, and instructor explained answers to end‐of‐chapter exercises. These tutorials were especially helpful to students without the subject background. (S&T)
6. Provide good quality programming demonstrations related to lecture content to help illustrate new concepts and provide a framework for discussion, such as by organizing a set of presentation materials together with example code that can be demonstrated during the class, or constructing ad‐hoc examples during class for demonstration. (QR)
7. Engage students in practical and skill‐based experience before teaching them theories. (Arts)

1. Illustrate the chemical concepts and knowledge through videos, experiments and1 demonstration, which would not only help studentsto understand difficult concepts, but also be effective in enlivening the lectures and creating a lively learning atmosphere. (S&T)
2. Movies were played in classto help explain and reinforce the conceptstaught. Studentsfound the movies inspiring and effective in helping them understand more about the topics. The movies also added a fun element to students’ learning experience and stimulated their interest in the subject. (S&T)
3. Conduct the class with circular seating so that each student is encouraged to speak up. (Arts)
4. Pre‐announce the objectives of the next lesson and announce them again at the beginning of the lesson to help engage students in the classes. (Arts)
5. Create positive competitive learning atmosphere in class by inviting students to vote for the Best Presentation and the Best Speaker who would receive awards. (Arts, H)
6. Release simplified version of PPTs before lectures but leaving out important points, to help students get an idea of the contents and encourage them to raise questions during class. The full version of the PPT files would be released after class. (Arts, H)
7. Use practical cases to discuss the concepts helps to address the issue of diverse student backgrounds. Ask students to share their life experience on different subjects of the engineering discipline would motivate them to think. (S&T)
8. Make use of Canvas in‐class survey to encourage students’ participation. (QR)

1. Use critical commentary as an analytical and reflective process for students to consolidate, articulate and demonstrate their learning in a written format. (Arts)
2. Design assessment tasks with progressive demand on the abilities of the students. For example, assigning individual research and presentation before group project on the final public artwork. This helps students gain knowledge on the art practice before creating the artworks. (Arts)
3. Incorporating in‐class PRS quizzes as one of the assessment tasks helps to keep students’ attention in class, and enhance the interactivity between instructors and students. (S&T)
4. Assign classwork to reinforce students’ learning right after an introduction of a topic. (SA)

Design exam questions that encourage students’ understanding of the materials, but not memorizing. (SA)

1. Appropriately scaffold/support students’ completion of assessed tasks and promote sustainable feedback practices, through such practices as breaking down huge tasks into achievable goals, assessing students in different stages, providing feedback to students on their weakness and making suggestions for improvement. (E‐Comm)
2. Arrange regular consultation for relatively low‐performed students such as those whose grade is below average for the 1st and 2nd quizzes. (Arts, H)
3. Point out students’ achievement and strengths, and guide them to see what other abilities could be developed to enrich their creative works. (Arts)
4. Remind studentsregularly of the progress of the course and help them navigate their learning journey so that they can have clearer idea about how to manage their time, expectation and group relationship with the classmates. (Arts)

Provide detailed assessment rubrics allows students to have clear understanding about the instructor’s expectation at the beginning of the semester. (Arts)

Establish a programming common in the Library to offer consultation to students on programming skills and to resolve students’ diverse programming problems. (QR)