HKU Bulletin May 2012 (Vol. 13 No. 2)

Teaching and Learning The Common Core Curriculum aims to get undergraduate students to step beyond their disciplinary studies and consider issues of importance to contemporary society, such as the impact of technology, sexual diversity, China’s growing power, and climate change. But students are not the only ones who are being challenged to think differently. Teachers are required to push their own boundaries by developing materials and forms of assessment that are accessible to students from unrelated disciplines and applicable in large classes. Dr Eric Chui, Associate Professor of Social Work, who teaches ‘Youth in a Global World’ which examines how globalisation affects youth, how young people can have an impact in a changing world, and the meaning of global citizenship, says the task was initially challenging. His usual teaching load involves training social workers according to the prescriptive requirements of the profession, but this didn’t fit with the broader demands of the Common Core and a class of nearly 100 students. “I’ve had to go beyond my comfort zone to teach students from different backgrounds, but it’s been a really good experience in terms of my reflections on my teaching,” he says. “Previously I taught in a very didactic way – traditional lecture and tutorial. However, the Common Core from the very beginning allows us to think creatively and pay more attention to students’ active learning.” Making it accessible Students from non-social science backgrounds struggle at first with the theories that underpin his teaching. However, they soon begin to see their application in such things as the impacts of globalisation on Chinese hip hop music, the phenomenon of Lan Kwai Fong and the promotion of citizenship education in Hong Kong schools. “One engineering student said he had never come across a course like this and it gave him breathing space to think about what he really wants,” Dr Chui says. Dr Michael Adorjan, Assistant Professor of Sociology, who teaches ‘Cybersocieties: Understanding Technology as Global Change’, similarly underpins his course with theory and peer-reviewed research. “It’s fair to say that students from the natural sciences found sociological theories more challenging at the beginning of the year, but everybody was on board by midway through. And the students from natural science backgrounds, having absorbed and thought through the theories, took a lot away from the course.” “Part of the challenge in teaching Common Core courses is that you have to be aware of your audience and be accessible while also being rigorous in theory and example. By the end they were using the theory to critique the course itself. I found that really delightful.” Feeding back Students also have input to the course content. Dr Adorjan asks students to find YouTube clips and discuss them in the context of what they learned in class in their reflective journals. Some of these examples then become raw material for class discussion on such things as online identity. For example, students found clips of teenage girls giving tours of their bedrooms, something Dr Adorjan says he would not have found on his own. His experience with the Common Core is feeding back to his other teaching in criminology, where he now plans to introduce at least one lecture on cyber crime. He is also investigating how to incorporate the experiences of students in his Common Core course into his research. This synergy between the Common Core and other academic activities is one of the hoped-for goals of the new curriculum. The Director of the Common Core Curriculum, Gwyn Edwards, says the feedback from both students and teachers has been generally very positive. In student evaluations of the courses, “Certain terms creep up again and again – ‘I understand other cultures better’, ‘I see thinking from different perspectives’, ‘It’s opened my mind’. These are some of the aims of the Common Core,” he says. A flagship course Students also report enjoying the tutorials that are required of the Common Core and the variety of learning experiences, such as field trips, guest speakers, reflective journals, making videos and doing group presentations. But the workload is a concern and teachers such as Dr Chui have adjusted their expectations of students – and of the Common Core. “I was reluctant to do a Common Core course at first and it was a lot of hard work,” he says. “But now, it is a flagship course for me. It’s a golden opportunity to influence young people other than social workers on how they can make a difference.” “I know it’s a large class but it is easier to teach because there is more interaction. I’m going to enjoy myself in every moment of this course.” M Teachers Learn, too, in the Common Core HKU’s innovative Common Core Curriculum has received much positive feedback from students. But what do teachers think about this new approach to teaching and learning? Dr Eric Chui in his class of ‘Youth in a Global World’ Dr Michael Adorjan giving comments on students’ YouTube group presentation 43 May 2012 The University of Hong Kong Bulletin