CUHK's educational philosophy stresses the all-round graduate. The broad range of desired learning outcomes rely on curricular components and also on rich experiential learning opportunities. This session talks about the experience of CUHK in developing and providing the variety of experiential learning opportunities to its students.

This presentation will cover the subject of the current implementation status of outcomes based teaching and learning (OBTL) at City University of Hong Kong.  There will be an account of the interim findings of the formative feedback exercise (FFE) research.  A framework will be explained in order to help place into context the current level of implementation and indicate where the focus of improvement can be made. 

The extent of documentation associated with the implementation of OBTL is immense. The Department of Building and Construction of CityU developed a web-based information management system to streamline this documentation process. The web-based platform makes use of simple technology to provide conducive platform to facilitate the implementation of OBTL.

This session will use a case study to show how adopting OBL as “student focused learning” rather than a particular approach to curriculum planning can open up possibilities for highlighting learning at all levels of the institution. The strategic directions of an institution can embrace student focused learning and therefore exert influence throughout the institution. Student focused strategies then become the driving force for further changes both at institutional and programme levels. Questions such as what kind of graduates do we wish to produce become questions that can be addressed at all levels: institutional, programme and course. What is more, they are meaningful questions that can lead to the development of agreed outcomes that can be both horizontally and vertically developed. The benefits in this process are that it can be collegial and lead to the development of a set of coherent student experiences expressed in terms of institutional, programme and course outcomes. Thus OBL is not merely a curriculum planning processes but a process for enhancing student learning at all levels of the institution.

One of the key issues in the development of OBA is the identification of institutional learning outcomes, the development of programme level learning outcomes related to the institutional learning outcomes and finally the course level learning outcomes. This presentation will describe how HKU is addressing these developments and discuss a number of issues in their implementation.

This short presentation will explain and demonstrate use of the free Program and Courses Outcomes System (PACOS) which can be used to organise programs, courses and the relationship between them in the context of OBE.

In this session, the speaker would share some of the experiences in applying OBTL in Electronic Engineering discipline courses to enhance student learning. In particular, the teaching and learning activities, and assessments methods for some selected courses will be discussed.

The subject ELC3611 is aligned with several BME subjects in three aspects. First, the English teaching materials are developed with close reference to the BME subject matters. Second, the assessment tasks of the English subjects and those of the BME subjects are either the same or complementary in nature. Third, ELC3611 is divided into 3 parts, each of which being scheduled in such a way as to match the learning schedule of the BME subjects. The effects of the above alignments on learning outcomes achievement will be studied with three types of findings: (1) the internal and external assessors’ comments on performances of student assignments, (2) two student feedback questionnaires and (3) the English subject teacher’s observations and/or reflections on students’ learning and his teaching experiences.

Adopting the outcomes based approach has been a step into the unknown but the speaker has discovered its considerable value and potential in helping faculty members learn how to transform and enhance the education we provide. The speaker will share some lessons from experience over the past couple of years. These include ideas about appropriate formats for rubrics and the need to keep them as simple as possible; surprising discoveries about colleagues in business departments are seeking to assess; the need for close and collegial dialogue across disciplines; and the value and power of developing a commitment table.

Assessing students’ attainment of both institutional and programme learning outcomes is crucial to the improvement of a university’s effectiveness in achieving its stated educational objectives. This difficult task will pose a lot of challenges to university teachers and senior administrators. This session introduces a two-tier framework for institutional learning outcomes assessment at PolyU, and discusses some of the direct and indirect measures that will be used for assessing broader learning outcomes at the institutional and programme levels.

Setting outcomes is a key part of the OBA process, and once outcomes are set they are 'locked in'  for a significant period of time. Hence the quality of the outcomes is an important determinant of the difficulty and success of the assurance process. Criteria for determining the quality of outcomes are discussed.

CUHK’s teaching and learning policy mandates that all relatively junior teachers, new to CUHK, need to receive professional development, including an assessment component. This includes postgraduate students who will be teaching assistants (TAs). The principles underlying these professional development courses (PDCs) will be explored, as will the logistics and options for completion. In the years 2002-2009, 548 teachers and 2002 TAs completed a PDC.

The project aims to strive to: (1) Help students develop a more proactive approach to learning by assisting students in developing the knowledge and skills in a holistic perspective necessary to work with others to solve problems. (2) Discover and disseminate new ways of learning through the development of innovative teaching methods. (3) Facilitate students in enhancing their creative and innovative skills in developing learning materials by themselves through diagrams and charts (based on the visualized learning model). In summary, the interactive exercise enhances students’ learning through instant response in a funny way. The notion of visual faces aligns with the use of multi-sensory teaching techniques to promote active learning. It also aims to promote students’ creativity and involvement in solving their problems.

This session will identify challenges that have encountered in OBA and academic quality enhancement. The speaker will then discuss solutions/strategies and solutions which have implemented to meet these challenges and the impact of these strategies on our progress.

Once universities have defined graduate attributes or outcomes, attainment of these become measures of quality in teaching and learning. To use the outcomes as a QA measure, it is necessary to have diagnostic programme-level instruments to obtain students’ perceptions of the attainment of the outcomes. To use the diagnostic information for quality enhancement, it is necessary to understand how teaching and learning environments, the curriculum and the co-curriculum can be designed so as to promote the development of graduate outcomes. Some aims can be nurtured through appropriate learning activities within disciplines, whereas others develop through engagement in co-curricula activities. This suggests that a holistic vision of curriculum design is necessary.

As an out-of-the-classroom activity, the project-based mentoring scheme aims to kindle students’ interest in science-based disciplines. Through self-designed projects undertaken overseas, students are exposed to challenges not only related to science content but also to life-long skills. This presentation shares the experiences in running this scheme for the past 10 years.

Programme-level surveys obtain students’ perceptions of their attainment of graduate attributes and programme level outcomes. How do we use this data to engage programmes, what is the value of using student voice and how has this data been used to improve the current curriculum and provide insights to design the new curriculum. These issues are discussed with illustrative examples from selected programmes.

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The speakers will talk on issues related to the development of learning outcomes at the programme level as well as at the module level.

The interview findings relating to the perceptions and opinions of the undergraduate students of Department of English, PolyU, about to what extent, and how, the ILOs of Work-Integrated Education are aligned with the programme-specific and generic ILOs will be analysed, and recommendations for change and improvement will be made.

This session describes efforts to redesign several courses using an OBA approach. It reports the success and pitfalls of the trial-run and makes recommendations for the improvement in the OBL course design based on these pilot courses.

Assessing students’ generic outcomes is considered one of the functions of the final year projects which are either in form of individual or team work. Collection of the final year project results will subsequently reflect students’ generic competence at the time of their graduation. The design and development of a mechanism to assess student generic programme outcomes with the final year projects in the four departments within the Faculty of Construction and Land Use, will be presented.

An entry survey on the programme intended learning outcomes (ILOs) was recently conducted with the first-year students in a BA (Honours) Programme in English for the Professions. The survey was conducted as the first phase of a three-year Learning Outcome Assessment Plan (LOAP). The results will be discussed.

This session will share the strategies and challenges of implementing a comprehensive staff development programme to build staff capacity in fostering an outcomes based culture in a teacher education institute.

Assessment of student learning outcomes is an integral part of OBE, all departments in the University are expected to develop and implement programme learning outcomes assessment plans for enhancing their programmes’ effectiveness.
This sharing session will present how the Department of Applied Mathematics has implemented the programme learning assessment process over the past few months. It will also cover some approaches that can help promote the use of OBA to teaching and learning.

This presentation focuses on strategies for student involvement and feedback in assessment of undergraduate courses. Specific topics include the strengths and limitations of end-of-semester student evaluations, the use of midterm student evaluations, involving students as discussion leaders and project managers, and methods for student evaluation and critique of each other’s work and performance.

This paper is set in the context of CUHK. The history of educational policy developments in Hong Kong is outlined, as is the way that government policy on an outcomes-based approach (OBA) to education is enacted at CUHK. The Quality Assurance Council (QAC) was established in 2006 with CUHK being the first institution audited in 2008. The quality initiatives at CUHK have also supported the University in preparing for 2012 when the normative length of an undergraduate degree will be four years (3+3+4, often called 334). There are considerable synergies between these pedagogical and quality initiatives that CUHK has been able to utilize.

This session will review the organization and implementation of outcome-based education in the School of Business at HKUST. It will describe the rationale for the approach taken by the School and review some early evaluation data, highlighting initial successes to date and challenges that remain.