Communities of Practice at CityU

Past Grants

In the 2012-15 triennium, the UGC introduced the new teaching and learning initiative,to establish ‘Communities of Practice’ (CoPs) that can enhance teaching and learning for our students. As the name implies, CoPs enable colleagues with similar teaching and learning interests to share ideas and practices. With the UGC funding, the following five CoPs as identified in our Academic Development Proposal (ADP) were set up at CityU in 2013:

Discovery & Innovation Community

Contact Person: Dr. Kong Bieng Chuah (SEEM)

Abstract


The Communities of Practice (CoP) on Discovery & Innovation (D&I) aims to enhance the teaching and learning culture in City University of Hong Kong to support the “Discovery-enriched Curriculum(DEC)” as initiated through the Academic Development Proposal 2012-15 (ADP). Efforts will be focused on developing pedagogical and assessment strategies and building the capacity of staff and students in D&I. Professional development of staff and whole person development of students will be addressed. The final goal is to enhance the three A’s in D&I learning, namely, positive Attitude toward D&I, Ability to do innovation, and Accomplishment in D&I. To accomplish the abovementioned objectives, an e-platform will be established and a series of seminars and sharing activities will be organized for both teachers and/or students. Members sharing with others on D&I will be given incentives such as conference support, student activity support and recognition of such activities under the education domain in the annual PBPR. The future plan is to expand this CoP to members outside of CityU.

 

Gateway Education Community

Contact Person: Dr. Louisa Wei (SCM)

Abstract


The Community of Gateway Education, which will be built with both an institutional platform of blackboard and non-institutional platform of Facebook, aims to involve all teaching and learning parties of CityU. Our goals and objectives include: to develop a social network through an on-line platform for the free exchange of ideas, comments, and suggestions for existing and future GE courses and the GE Program in general; to create a forum for GE Course Leaders, so they can share the most productive practices and innovations, and discoveries to arise from their experiences; to create a forum for GE students managed by volunteer students, so they can exchange information and assessments on courses offered at CityU and other universities; to reach out to secondary schools, to develop inter-communication with various school sectors, and to build our curriculum with a better understanding of students’ previous learning, especially in Liberal Studies and high school level GE courses; to provide a friendly learning environment where students can interact with students and teachers across academic units, potentially broadening opportunities for students considering minors and double degree programs; to advance the development of DEC: since most GE courses are open to students across school year and disciplines, it is possible and productive to place pedagogical emphasis on discovery and breadth of knowledge; and to open up an avenue for gathering feedback and moderating deliberations on desirable directions of development for the GE Program at CityU.

 

Social Responsibility and Ethics Community

Contact Person: Dr. Ho Mun Chan (POL)

Abstract


This establishment of this CoP aims to encourage and strengthen the culture of sharing and continuous improvement in regard to the quality teaching and learning of social responsibility and ethics by building a community of like-minded individuals who nevertheless come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Community members include faculty, academic staff, management, research fellows and assistants, administrators, students, and external partners. The objectives of founding this CoP are as follows:

  1. To enable the University to improve the teaching and learning of social responsibility and ethics through the extensive interaction, sharing, and collaboration among the partners of the CoP
  2. To build a web-based platform for exchanging ideas, sharing experience, good practices and teaching/learning materials, and reaching out to the community outside the University.
Activities of this CoP include:
  1. To hold regular CoP meetings for exchanging ideas, sharing of experience and good practices, and monitoring the development of the community.
  2. To develop a web-based platform
    • to facilitate communication among CoP members, the sharing of teaching/learning materials, and the planning of collaborative activities and projects; and
    • to provide links for networking with prospective external partners and to enhance the visibility of the CoP.
  3. To organize co-curricular activities, where appropriate, to encourage discussion and reflection on matters of ethics and responsibility in a university/societal context. These activities may take various forms, e.g., forums, lectures, seminars, focus group discussion, reading clubs, social service, and field visits.

 

Sustainability Community

Contact Person: Dr. Xiaowei Luo (ACE)

Abstract


Our Community of Practice for Sustainability (CS) consists of faculty, staff and students from different backgrounds and cultures who share their daily practices of sustainable living within CityU. This group of people, sharing the same goals and visions, propose to create a driving force that will seek to influence, by example, future environmental practices within the CityU community, thereby cultivating a better campus for our staff and students. Our objectives are to promote the development of sustainable culture by gathering and unifying various environmentally-related groups within the campus; to form a new sustainable cluster to share information by building an informative knowledge system; to reach inside and outside campus forming a sustainable network and to promote sustainability through education and learning. We are building a functional website and a Facebook® centralizing all sustainability information within the campus and organizing lunch time forum for education and networking purposes. We are sharing information on lasses offered by the university that are related to sustainability, list of educational materials on sustainability and links to major environmental groups in Hong Kong. The major on-campus collaborators include the CityU departments and offices, the Environment Protection Society, the Environment Committee and the Campus Development and Facility Office and the off-campus organizations are the Hong Kong Green Building Council, WWF, Sustainable Development Councils, professional bodies e.g. the Hong Kong Institutions of Engineers, Surveyors and Architects and government departments.

 

Technology and Creativity Community

Contact Person: Dr. Joe Yuen (CS)

Abstract


This community aims at developing teaching and learning related software and hardware platforms, and applying emerging technology in enhancing teaching and learning experience for each party at CityU. A collaborative platform is setup to enable sharing teaching and learning activities among the members in this community. Mobile Apps, immersive teaching and learning, collaborative creativity and other new initiatives are the key components in this community. We also provide support to teachers in adapting technology in their teaching classroom, and collect feedback from the corresponding students. Interested colleagues are welcome to join this community.

 

The UGC’s expectations for CoPs are described in more detail at https://www.cityu.edu.hk/provost/stafflan/cap_files/UGC_Annex.pdf.