Happy New Year! Welcome to the e-bulletin of Communities of Practice (CoPs), where you will be able to catch up with our most updated events and information of the five CoPs in PolyU.

Updates on the Departmental CoP activities

All of the second round funded departmental activities were successfully completed by the end of December 2015. Thanks to all participating departments. Below is a list of activities.

BME - Workshop for Study Concentration and Oversea Exchange Selection
ITC - Academic Advising Orientation for Senior Year Admitted Student & Training Pack for ITC Student Ambassador 2015/16
ITC - Outstanding Study Plan Competition & Site Visit for Freshmen
SHTM - The 3W1H of my WIE: A Treasure-hunt Journey for Career Development
SN - e-booklet on "Academic Advising –Teachers' and Students' Experience"
SO - White Coat Ceremony

Please click here for details about these activities.

On 4 and 11 December, Dr Josie Csete conducted two workshops entitled "Becoming a Scholarly Teacher". This workshop series was designed to provide an overview of the growing field of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). The following topic areas were addressed across the series of workshops accompanied by hands-on activities:

(1) Scholarship in Higher Education
(2) Planning an SoTL study
(3) Library resources and research skills for SoTL
(4) Negotiating publication of the outcomes of your SoTL study

This series provided opportunities for participants to develop new skills and meet colleagues interested in SoTL. The information presented and skills practiced were found useful for teachers interested in reflecting on their own teaching (drawing on theory and evaluation data) and/or developing plans for small SoTL projects.

This activity was supported by EDC and CoP on Developing, Recognising and Rewarding Excellent Teaching.

The International Conference on the Development of English Across the Curriculum was successfully held on 14-15 December 2015 in PolyU.  The conference was a deliverable of the competitive UGC funded project on "Professional Development in Enhancing English Across the Curriculum", which is an extension of the CoP in Enhancing Students’ English Abilities, and comprises team members from PolyU, CUHK, HKUST and CityU. 

The two-day conference brought together a large global community of practice, featuring 3 plenary speakers: Prof Terry Zawacki (USA), Dr Ursula Wingate (UK) and Chemistry professor Rainer Glaser (USA); and over 60 colloquia and paper presentations. AVP(L) delivered the opening welcome address.  Presenters came from a myriad of disciplines in arts and humanities, business, sciences and social sciences.  PolyU colleagues from FB, FH, FHSS and SD presented their scholarly work in EAC, including their collaborations with ELC on CoP English.  Over 270 participants registered for the conference from around the world, including Australia, Finland, Hong Kong, Japan, Kuwait, Macau, Mainland China, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, UK and USA.  Locally, participants came from all 8 UGC-funded tertiary institutions, 7 post-secondary institutions and 6 secondary schools. 

An interactive staff development workshop entitled "A 'Backwards-by-Design' Approach to Developing Effective Writing Assignments" was delivered by Prof Terry Myers Zawacki on 16 December 2015 in the English Language Centre.  Members of the CoP in Enhancing Students' English Abilities were invited to attend this 90-minute practical workshop.  Prof Zawacki was the first plenary speaker at the International Conference on the Development of English Across the Curriculum that was held on 14-15 December in PolyU, a conference that was organized by the UGC funded project "Professional Development in Enhancing English Across the Curriculum", which is an extension of the CoP in Enhancing Students' English Abilities.  Academics from a number of disciplines including ELT, business, engineering and health sciences from four institutions in Hong Kong attended the workshop, in which they discussed alignment of writing assignments and learning goals, shared their current practices, and revised one of their writing assignments.

A Preliminary analysis of the data has been conducted for the Online Survey of Blackboard Usage. Students’ responses show that the majority of the students

- were satisfied with Learn@PolyU;
- found Learn@PolyU helped to make their learning more effective and improve communications;
- sought help from classmates and/or teachers when having technical problems; and
- wanted to have more subjects on Learn@PolyU.

The responses from teaching staff indicate that the user level varied and the tools frequently used were the same as those were found easy to use. The majority of the teachers:

- agreed Learn@PolyU improved communication and allowed them to try different teaching approaches;
- encountered little and no technical problems; and
- were also satisfied with the technical supports provided.