HKU ANNUAL REPORT 2025 TEACHING AND LEARNING 11 10 CROSSING DIVIDES A cross-disciplinary project in which students from four countries collaborated on sustainability initiatives was recognised in the QS Reimagine Education Awards 2024 with the Global Silver Award for Sustainability Education Literacy. Students from HKU, Mexico’s Tecnológico de Monterrey, Thailand’s Srinakharinwirot University, and the International Islamic University Malaysia came together in the project ‘Cross-Cultural Classroom: Empowering Future Leaders with Sustainable Citizenship’. They each identified a problem in their home country with reference to the UN Sustainability Development Goals, then worked in cross-country, interdisciplinary teams to create a viable product that would work in all four settings. The results included compact portable water filters, water recycling systems, apps to reduce healthcare inequalities and traffic accidents, and an AI-supported triage system. Dr Tim Yung of the Faculty of Arts and Dr Khong Mei-li of the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine led the HKU team and said the experience enriched everyone involved: “Thinking about sustainability beyond one’s discipline, while empathising with other cultural contexts, is essential for higher education – for both students and educators!” MOST INNOVATIVE TEACHER Mr Samson Wong Ki-sum, an assistant lecturer in the Medical Ethics and Humanities Unit of the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, was the inaugural winner of the ‘Most Innovative Teacher of the Year’ in the Times Higher Education (THE) Awards Asia 2025, for his innovation in grief literacy education. Mr Wong uses an immersive virtual reality game, together with a mini-lecture and two debriefing sessions, to deepen secondyear MBBS students’ understanding of anticipatory grief in family members of dying patients. Mr Wong’s unique pedagogy was published in the journal Medical Education. The THE judges noted that anticipatory grief is a ‘highly important challenge’ in medicine. “The adoption of digitalvisual technology to bring this to the attention of medical students, particularly in the early stage of their education and training, can thus have a long-term positive impact on their professional maturation and readiness,” they said. “[Mr] Wong’s effort deserves recognition for its relevance, innovation and demonstrated effectiveness.” Prior to the THE award, Mr Wong was also a finalist in the 2023 and 2024 QS Reimagine Education Awards for the ‘Nurturing Values and Ethics Award’. AN AI ASSISTANT FOR SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION A new AI-learning innovation is providing social work students with richer opportunities to practise counselling and interview skills and to reflect on their interactions with different kinds of virtual clients. The specially developed AI chatbot overcomes the challenges of traditional simulation-based learning, such as the lack of real client involvement and limited opportunities to practise, by offering complex, lifelike scenarios that students can interact with at any time or place. A pilot version was led by Dr Johnson Cheung Chun-sing in the Department of Social Work and Social Administration in collaboration with Professor Ben Kao and his team at the Tam Wing Fan Innovation Wing, and students from both social work and engineering were also involved. The project is now being expanded over two academic years and will be further fine-tuned and integrated into the curriculum. “This initiative illustrates the transformative potential of GenAI for experiential learning in social work education, and demonstrates how cross-disciplinary partnerships can drive practical innovation, benefitting students, faculty and the wider professional community. The project also reflects HKU’s commitment to pioneering educational practices for social good,” Dr Cheung said. Dr Tim Yung (right) of the Faculty of Arts and Dr Khong Mei-li (left) of the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine. Mr Samson Wong Ki-sum (fourth from left) was honoured as the Most Innovative Teacher of the Year in Asia 2025 by Times Higher Education. The AI chatbot developed by a cross-disciplinary team at HKU provides social work students with richer opportunities to practise counselling and interview skills. Dr Johnson Cheung Chun-sing (second from right), Professor Ben Kao (first from right) and the project team. HKU teachers and projects were recognised internationally in 2024–25 for their innovation and excellence. Innovative Teaching
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