HKU Teaching and Learning Fellows

Secondment Period: September-December 2021
acotsang@hku.hk

Biography
Dr Anderson Chun-On Tsang is a neurosurgeon and Clinical Assistant Professor in the Division of Neurosurgery at The University of Hong Kong. He obtained his MBBS degree at The University of Hong Kong in 2010, after which he joined the Department of Surgery at Queen Mary Hospital where he received training in neurosurgery. His research interests focus on cerebrovascular disease and clinical neurosurgery.

Project Topics

• Devising discipline-specific pedagogic resources to enhance VTL; and
• Developing effective hybrid/dual-mode/ hyflex pedagogies.

Project Aims
On colleagues’ teaching practice:

• The development of discipline-specific materials in medical virtual education will support teaching staff in teaching clinical diagnostic skills virtually with confidence.

On students’ learning experience:

• Educate students on professional manners and unique skill-set for telemedicine consultation;
• Open up a new dimension of online learning beyond student-tutor but also student-patient interactions; and
• Enable inter-disciplinary learning with the help of Telehealth technologies.

Secondment Period: January-June 2022
matthew.pryor@hku.hk

Biography
Mathew Pryor is an Associate Professor (Teaching) within HKU’s Faculty of Architecture. He teaches Design Studio as well as technical courses in landscape ecology and sustainable technologies.

In addition to the HKU University Distinguished Teacher Award (2021), he has also received awards for teaching excellence and innovation from the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (USA), the University Grants Council HK, and Hong Kong University.

His pedagogical research examines the student experience in design studio, transdisciplinary learning and online learning environments. He is co-author of the award winning Curios / Digital Exhibition Space, an innovative virtual learning management system that allows students to work together to develop, visualise and discuss coursework projects through the medium of a virtual exhibition gallery.

Mathew is a Registered Landscape Architect in Hong Kong and the UK, and a Fellow of the HKILA.

Project Topics
Project to develop a mechanism for peer observation of teaching in design-based studio courses.

Key words: evaluation of teaching performance, peer observation, teaching development, teaching mentorship, design studio.

Project Aims
Project to create a structured mechanism for peer observation for design studio courses in the Faculty of Architecture, which could:

• support teaching development and recognize achievement in teaching and learning in design
• engage colleagues in teaching discussions relevant to the built environment disciplines (incl. architecture, planning, surveying, landscape, urban design, heritage conservation etc.), especially around best teaching practices, relevant educational theory, and the need for sharing and reflection.

Secondment Period: January-June 2022
khfkwok@hku.hk

Biography
Dr Kelvin Kwok is an Associate Professor and Associate Dean (Academic Affairs) at the Faculty of Law. Together with three other colleagues, he convenes the T&L Interest Group in the Faculty. He is a Fellow of AdvanceHE (FHEA) and has mentored and evaluated applicants under the HKU AdvanceHE scheme. He has received the Faculty Outstanding Teaching Award in 2016 and the University Early Career Teaching Award in 2017. He has assumed significant leadership roles in teaching and learning over the years, including serving as a Co-Director of the BBA(Law)&LLB double-degree programme and the Director of International Mooting. He has been active in promoting experiential learning through mooting, coaching student teams for two international mooting competitions and winning championship on 3 occasions.

Project Topics
Exploring VTL platforms such as the HKU e-Portfolio System.

Project Aims
To enhance colleagues’ teaching practice and students’ learning experience in law courses through VTL.

Secondment Period: January-June 2022
lui2012@hku.hk

Biography
Dr Rachel Lui was recruited as a Lecturer in the Faculty of Science in 2012. She actively experimented with different teaching tools such as flipping the classroom and gamification, and has received numerous Teaching Development Grants. Supported by the Teaching Exchange Fellowship Scheme, she collaborated with colleagues in UCLA to develop teaching materials using a new technology called Learning Glass. Recently she proposed a Common Core Course Artificial Intelligence: Utopia or Dystopia?  and it is well received by her students. She, together with her colleagues, received the Faculty Award for Teaching Innovations in E-Learning in 2016, and the Faculty Knowledge Exchange Award in 2014. In 2019, she achieved the status of Senior Fellow of The Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) in recognition of attaining proficiency in the knowledge and professional values set out in  the UK Professional Standards Framework for teaching and learning support in higher education. She also received the Award for Teaching Excellence in the Faculty of Science in 2020-21.

Project Topics
Developing effective and authentic online assessment

Project Aims
On colleagues’ teaching practice:

• Develop innovative authentic online assessments;
• Help to uphold academic integrity; and
• Enhance engagement in a quality online environment.

On students’ learning experience:

• Engage the course content at a deeper level;
• Improve the quality of the work; and
• Measure all-round student competencies.

Secondment Period: January-June 2022
binbinz@hku.hk

Biography
Dr Binbin Zheng is currently an associate professor in the Bau Institute of Medical and Health Sciences Education (BIMHSE) in the LKS Faculty of Medicine. Her training background is in Education Technology and her current research focuses on examining the effectiveness of online teaching and learning in medical education.

Project Topics

• Develop a near-peer teaching program in Faculty of Medicine;
• Develop an online teaching certificate program for near-peer tutors; and
• Develop a formative assessment model to evaluate the effectiveness of the near-peer teaching program.

Project Aims

• Promote the “students as partners” initiative;
• Increase student agency by encouraging them to get involved in the curriculum design, decision-making, implementation, and assessment in the formal curriculum;
• Provide teaching opportunities for medical students to better prepare them for future career;
• Strengthen students’ professional identity development;
• Establish a training model for near-peer tutors in different disciplines;
• Provide best practices for implementing near-peer teaching programs in formal curriculum; and
• Develop an observation protocol to observe near-peer tutors’ teaching and facilitating skills.

Secondment Period: September-December 2022
chancelia@hku.hk

Biography
As a social work researcher and practitioner working in healthcare settings, Celia works closely with different professionals and integrates best research evidence with interdisciplinary and clinical experience by applying the Integrative Body-Mind-Spirit Intervention Model, an empirically-based approach to assessment and treatment which connects Western therapeutic techniques with Eastern philosophies and practices.

Her major areas of research and training: Research and practice on fertility and infertility counselling; Interdisciplinary Medical Social Work: Psychodermatology, gynaecologic oncology and paediatric psychology; Family-based research and practice; Evidence based social work practice: Integrative Body-mind-spirit Intervention Model.

Project Topics

• Sharing and developing good practices in virtual experiential learning; and
• Devising discipline-specific pedagogic resources to enhance VTL.

Project Aims
On colleagues’ teaching practice:

• Share this learning experience with colleagues in the Department through curriculum and courses review; and
• Devise new teaching and learning activities.

On students’ learning experience:

• New teaching and learning devises can help in the integration of both classroom and fieldwork learning experience of the students.

Secondment Period: September-December 2022
amyhchen@hku.hk

Biography
Dr Chen Hui obtained the Bachelor-Master Integrated Degree in Dentistry from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2013, PhD and Doctor of Clinical Dentistry in Prosthodontics from the University of Sydney in 2017 and 2020, respectively, and the Membership of Royal Australasian College of Dental Surgeons (RACDS) in Prosthodontics in 2020. She is the member of Australian Prosthodontic Society, International College of Prosthodontists, and International Team of Implantology. Dr Chen is passionate about teaching and has been actively involved in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching since she joined the faculty. She also gives lectures to dentists both locally and internationally.

Project Topics
Create a series of Vicarious Learning Dialogue videos (VLDV) for Removable Partial Denture course, with the focus on the following VTL priority areas:

• Developing interactive, dialogic online and blended pedagogies; and
• Developing effective hybrid/dual-mode/ hyflex pedagogies.

Project Aims
On colleagues’ teaching practice:

• The VLDV aims to fill the knowledge and transition gap between managing a simulation scenario and a real-life case; and
• Help teachers save the time of repetitively answering similar questions.

On students’ learning experience:

• Prepare junior dental students with real-life clinical experience; and
• Help students achieve better understanding of knowledge.

Secondment Period: January-June 2023
tavaresn@hku.hk

Biography
Nicole Tavares (FHEA) is Senior Lecturer in the academic unit of Teacher Education and Learning Leadership at the Faculty of Education. She teaches on BA&BEd, PGDE, MEd and MA programmes, specialising in English language teaching (ELT) methodology and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). She is currently MA(TESOL) Programme Director and Coordinator of her Faculty’s English Language Proficiency Tests, a graduation requirement for all BA&BEd(LangEd)s.

Nicole Tavares (FHEA) is a Senior Lecturer in the academic unit of Language and Literacy Education at the Faculty of Education and the Teaching SIG leader in her unit. Her expertise is in English language teaching (ELT) methodology, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), and teacher language awareness. She teaches related courses on the BA&BEd, PGDE, MEd and MA programmes and has been the MA(TESOL) Programme Director since 2020.

Nicole has published in the areas of online teaching and learning, 21st century skills, using educational technologies in promoting teacher development, good ELT and CLIL practices, and Interactive Assessment.
Nicole has received multiple teaching awards, notably the HKU Teaching Innovation Award (2020), her Faculty’s Emergency Remote Teaching Award (2020), and HKU Outstanding Teaching Award (2015). She is keen on experimenting with innovative pedagogies and acknowledged for her creative design of collaborative activities that maximise student voice. She enjoys professional dialogues with educators on how research informs practice and has initiated several professional development activities within her Faculty and beyond.

Project Topics
Developing interactive, dialogic online and blended pedagogies.

Project Aims
To advance teaching and learning across the University and ensure that students’ learning experiences are not compromised despite the challenges known globally about online, hybrid and dual teaching modes through working closely with TALIC colleagues and T&L Fellows to:

• Cultivate a warm and supportive campus environment for like-minded colleagues to come together to share teaching experiences and good practices, engage in collaborative ?(action) research and broaden our repertoire of effective T&L strategies; and
• Enrich teachers’ pedagogic, assessment and feedback practices in promoting learner engagement, capitalising upon individual differences and maximising student voice both in and out of the virtual and physical classroom.

Secondment Period: January-June 2023
tgruene@hku.hk

Biography
Tim Gruenewald researches and teaches US cultural and visual studies with a focus on popular culture, including virtual reality, film, television, graphic narrative, and museum exhibitions. His research investigates how narrative construction of contested pasts intersects with the imagination of collective identities in the present. He is currently working on a UGC funded research project on virtual reality film. Prior to joining the University of Hong Kong, he taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and at the University of Washington in Seattle. He has served as the Director of the American Studies Programme since 2014.

Project Topics
Develop pedagogies designed to take advantage of selected affordances of the metaverse for teaching and learning, with the focus on the following VTL priority areas:

• Devising discipline-specific pedagogic resources to enhance VTL;
• Developing interactive, dialogic online and blended pedagogies; and
• Sharing and developing good practices in virtual experiential learning.

Project Aims
On colleagues’ teaching practice:

• Provide an introduction and specific advice on how to make use of Virtual Reality and Web3 applications for teaching.

On students’ learning experience:

• Motivate students’ learning;
• Afford a multitude of experiential Web3 learning activities;
• Enhance student interactivity; and
• Teach technologies that will be essential for students’ future careers and lives.

Secondment Period: January-June 2023
ganotc75@hku.hk

Biography
Dr Fraide Ganotice is currently an Assistant Professor and the Program Coordinator of the Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice (IPECP) at the Bau Institute of Medical and Health Sciences Education, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong. His training background is in educational psychology, measurement and evaluation, and group processes in a large-scale multi-institutional collaboration in Medical Education.

Dr Ganotice’s research focuses on examining individual- and group- level variables that explain IPE outcomes among students, and the use of technology to facilitate student engagement, collaboration, and achievement. His research aims to tear down educational silos to achieve optimal patient-centered care. He is committed to contributing to science and scholarship of medical education by untangling important instructional, motivational, and psychological constructs that underpin the success of IPE.

Project Topics

• Promoting cross-institutional collaboration through interprofessional education: Forging alliance in healthcare education;
• Uncovering the basic instructional, motivational, and psychological principles that underpin the success of IPE.

Project Aims

• Provide best practices for implementing a global partnership model in interprofessional education and collaborative practice;
• Promote the “students as partners” and “near-peer-teaching” initiatives in IPE;
• Determine the factors essential for successful interprofessional education for healthcare professionals;
• Explore non-cognitive constructs (e.g., motivation and emotions) in explaining medical students’ engagement and achievement;
• Develop best practice models of facilitating a large-scale cross-discipline, cross-faculty, and cross-institutional team-based interprofessional education;
• Promote the use of innovative pedagogical approaches using advance technology to connect teachers and students from diverse complementary expertise in the promotion of collaborative and team-based interprofessional education.

Secondment Period: September – December 2023
li.carrie@hku.hk

Biography
Dr. Carrie Li is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Work and Social Administration. She was trained as a psychologist and feminist criminologist. Having a multi-disciplinary background, Dr. Li is passionate about re-thinking pedagogy to enhance students’ cross-disciplinary learning.

Dr. Li studies intimate partner violence across cultural contexts and recently expands her research to Chinese society. Her approach to research is to use quantitative, qualitative, and experimental methods, as well as multiple theoretical frameworks to answer important questions about factors, patterns, etiology, intervention, and policy related to intimate partner violence and interpersonal violence. Dr. Li also takes a feminist and intersectionality approach to create knowledge for women, vulnerable, and marginalized populations.

Dr. Li’s recent work has appeared in top journals, including Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Violence Against Women, and Family Process. Dr. Li is the winner of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences graduate student paper award. Her work has been recognized by three Research Scholars Award from the College of Social Science and a Disciplinary Leadership Award from the Council of Graduate Students at Michigan State University. Dr. Li is also a recipient of two International Peace Scholarship and a Criminal Justice Community Psychology Scholarship.

Project Topics
Assessing and Strengthening the Development of Students’ Generic Skills within the Social Work Discipline

Project Aims
Empower students to develop critical thinking, foster intercultural awareness, and become change-makers via the use of interdisciplinarity, international, and innovative approaches

Secondment Period: September – December 2023
vackova@hku.hk

Biography
Dr Dana Vackova is a Principal Lecturer at the School of Public Health (SPH) in the LKS Faculty of Medicine, which she joined in 2006. She is responsible for leading SPH teaching team and coordinating SPH undergraduate courses, planning and developing the MBBS curriculum, SPH MBBS courses coordination and undergraduate teaching. She developed MBBS courses such as interdisciplinary HRP, Occupational Medicine, Challenges in Health Care Management and online Induction course for Enrichment Year students. She is a convener and coordinator of the LKS Faculty of Medicine MBBS Enrichment Year Humanitarian Services committee, a member of the BIMHSE Taskforce for Inter-professional education and a member of the LKS Faculty of Medicine Clinical Curriculum Reform committee.

Dr Vackova received grants for medical education research and presented her research results at medical education conferences in Hong Kong and abroad. She is an author of many cases for MBBS Problem Based Learning (PBL) and case studies for SPH MBBS students.

Dr Vackova is a Fellow of The Hong Kong College of Community Medicine, HKAM (Community Medicine) and the Higher Education Academy. As a HKU Teaching and Learning Fellow she is interested to develop further students partnership at the co-designer and consultant levels and explore how such partnership may shape students’ professional development.

Project Topics
Students as community educators: Engagement of undergraduate students in the work for communities through interprofessional partnership and active involvement in community services

Project Aims
Work closely with colleagues from TALIC and other Faculties and develop Student Partnership at the co-designer and consultant levels, and explore how Student Partnership may shape students’ professional development and how teachers may help them to enhance their new skills.

Secondment Period: January-June 2024
tavaresn@hku.hk

Biography
Nicole Tavares (FHEA) is a Senior Lecturer in the academic unit of Language and Literacy Education at the Faculty of Education and the Teaching SIG leader in her unit. Her expertise is in English language teaching (ELT) methodology, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), and teacher language awareness. She teaches related courses on the BA&BEd, PGDE, MEd and MA programmes and has been the MA(TESOL) Programme Director since 2020.

Nicole sees students at the heart of her teaching and is dedicated to bringing out the best in every learner. She is acknowledged for her unique design of collaborative activities that create space for all students’ voices to be heard. She is honoured to have received multiple teaching awards since she joined the University in 2001, notably the HKU Teaching Innovation Award (2020), her Faculty’s Emergency Remote Teaching Award (2020) and the HKU Outstanding Teaching Award (2015). She warmly welcomes colleagues to her classes and enjoys professional dialogues with them as she shares how her research into her own teaching has informed her evolving novel practices.

Nicole’s research interests range from ELT and CLIL to online teaching and learning, technology-enhanced ELT good practices, E-learning platforms and technological tools in promoting teacher professional development, 21st Century Skills development, and creative use of digital feedback. Two of Nicole’s recent publications are ‘Empowering English Teachers to be Grammar ‘Experts’ and Coursebook Analysts via Perusall’ and ‘Maximising Student Voice’. Her work has been published in Computers & Education, the Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, the RELC Journal and others.

Over these years, Nicole has passionately supported TALIC in various capacities, including mentoring colleagues in their preparation for AdvanceHE fellowship applications, reviewing the applications, mentoring colleagues on the Post-Graduate Certificate in Academic Practice programme, speaking in seminars, and facilitating workshops.

As an HKU Teaching & Learning Fellow for the second year, Nicole is keen on working closely with TALIC to maintain the ongoing support she has been offering to colleagues who are interested in exploring how Perusall, a collaborative online annotation platform, may be used in teaching in both synchronous and asynchronous ways. Dedicated to reflective practice in teacher education, she initiated post-lesson joint reflection sessions with the teachers who opened up their classrooms at the 4th Teaching and Learning Festival – an exercise that both the observed and observers responded very positively to. She hopes to continue this practice at the 2024 Festival. As part of a new initiative, in 2012, she began piloting Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) projects with university teachers in the United Kingdom. Fascinated to have witnessed the impact of COIL on students’ pedagogic, linguistic, intellectual and personal growth, she wishes to learn more about the effective implementation of COIL with her Fellow buddies, TALIC experts and collaborators at partnering universities.

Project Topics
Internationalising Teacher Education through Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL): Opportunities, Challenges and Direction Ahead

Project Aims
With Student Learning as the Focus – Professional and Pedagogic Gains
Nicole is excited about the potential opportunities of working closely with like-minded colleagues across the University and beyond to examine how COIL modules can be designed to sharpen student(-teacher)s’ intercultural awareness, enhance their collaboration and communication skills and develop their learner autonomy. This targets empowering prospective teachers to be influential team players at school as they learn to celebrate diversity, welcome multiple perspectives, appreciate individual strengths and embrace challenges in multicultural environments.

Nicole also looks forward to actively seeking ways to widen students’ repertoire of ELT methodological practices adopted worldwide, broaden their scope of different classroom teaching skills, and advance their techniques in tailoring instructional materials to suit the needs of learners from diverse backgrounds. By identifying factors conducive to learning gains, she aims to contribute to COIL research findings and apply this new learning to curriculum development in and beyond her Faculty for richer student learning experiences.

In Higher Education
On the institutional level, Nicole is eager to reach out to a larger teaching community in higher education as she disseminates good practices learned about implementing COIL. She aspires to participate in universities’ broader education/global agenda to internationalise higher education programmes using the latest digital technology. With a deepened understanding of students’ perceptions of and readiness for COIL, as well as their learning processes, challenges and gains, her goal is to develop a set of guiding principles for designing COIL programmes not only in teacher education but across all other disciplines.

On a Personal Note
Through learning with and from colleagues in and out of HKU, Nicole is confident that she will gain new and renewed insights into how the course content of the modules she teaches can be enriched, her teaching approaches further diversified, and her innovations more impactful.

Secondment Period: January-June 2024
vtam@eee.hku.hk

Biography
Vincent Tam is a Principal Lecturer in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering. He teaches a General Engineering course as well as core/elective courses in Computer Engineering.

Vincent was awarded with the Faculty Best Teacher Award (2010), Faculty Outstanding Teaching (Team) Award (2013), Faculty Outstanding Teaching (Individual) Award (2017), the Faculty Outstanding Teaching (Team) Award (2019) in HKU. In addition, he was awarded with the Fellowship (FHEA) of the AdvanceHE (formerly as the Higher Education Academy) in 2019, and has been serving as both the mentor and reviewer for the HKU Advance HE Fellowship Scheme since 2020.

His research interests include artificial intelligence, e-learning, learning analytics, mobile computing, and information visualization.

Project Topics
Project to develop a new mechanism for assessing and documenting students’ generic skills with the potential integration of generative AI approaches in Engineering courses.

Project Aims
To help colleagues/students to appreciate the new and significant values of various generic skills with the potential integration of generative AI (GenAI) approaches, and their alternative/innovative assessments

Secondment Period: January-June 2024
jianyang@hku.hk

Biography
Dr. Jian Yang graduated from Peking University Health Science Center and went on to pursue a PhD in neuroscience at University of Bristol. He joined the Department of Anatomy, the University of Hong Kong after graduation in 2007, and has devoted his passion to anatomy and histology education since 2012. He is now a senior lecturer in the School of Biomedical Sciences, LKS Faculty of Medicine, HKU, leader in anatomy education and coordinator of HKU Body Donation Programme.

He dedicates his effort to converting instructional anatomy and histology classes into indispensable active-learning experiences. His research focuses on integrating digital/mobile technology to enhance active learning in anatomy and histology labs. He is now leading the Virtual Reality Anatomy Lab and the TechMezz learning space. The current projects include creating digital active learning and peer learning platform and integrating VR-enriched tasks (VRETs) into gross anatomy classroom.

Project Topics

• Co-Creating the Future of Education: Student Partnership in Anatomy Education
• Devising discipline-specific pedagogic resources to enhance VTL

Project Aims
On colleagues’ teaching practice:

• Create more interactive and personalized learning experiences
• Provide colleagues valuable direct feedback on teaching methods and strategies
• Encourage colleagues to reflect on their teaching practices

On students’ learning experience:

• Lead to more engaging, relevant, and reflective learning experience
• Deepen students’ thinking
• Prepare students with essential professional skills for career development

Secondment Period: September – December 2024
hh.cheung@hku.hk

Biography
Dr. H.H. Cheung obtained his B.Eng., M.Phil., and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Hong Kong. Prior to joining the University of Hong Kong, he has worked in manufacturing and IT industries as an RFID consultant for a number of years. He has gained substantial experiences in developing and managing RFID-based solutions, and the provision of consultancy services to implement RFID applications to various industries/enterprises. Dr. Cheung has also participated in a number of industrial application projects of RFID and IoT technologies, including RFID-based systems for product anti-counterfeiting, food processing management, manufacturing and logistics management of a global printing enterprise, governmental project for inventory management, and baggage management of a major international airport.

His research interests include CAD/CAM, Layered Manufacturing (3D Printing), Virtual Prototyping and Virtual Manufacturing, Product Development, E-commerce, RFID, NFC and IoT applications.

Project Topics
Developing Students’ Innovation and Entrepreneurship Skills through Experiential and Hands-on Group Projects

Project Aims
Adopting experiential teaching pedagogy in engineering capstone courses to enhance and develop students’ innovation and entrepreneurship skills