Showcases

The EAC team has been collaborating with Prof Sidharth Jaggi of the Department of Information Engineering since the 2016-17 academic year. Knowing Engineering students often encountered difficulty in English writing and speaking, the EAC team has been offering a series of language support to IE students who work on their Final Year Projects (FYPs) to fulfil the academic programme requirements and the Hong Kong Institute of Engineers (HKIE) attributes.

Textual/needs analyses: One analysis was conducted on over 100 FYP sample, interim and final FYP reports of previous two academic years, with key findings established in January, 2017. Another analysis was conducted on about 60 FYP group presentation videos and posters of previous two academic years, with key findings established in March, 2017. Based on these analyses, the foci of the two respective workshops were identified.

Tailor-made materials: Two sets of learning materials, including some annotated student works and extracts, guidelines of report writing structure and of poster designing structure, and examples of effective language usage in each section of the report and of the poster, were prepared for the two corresponding workshops.

Trainings for teaching assistants: In 2016–17 academic year, two one-hour training sessions for the content TAs led by Mr Chris Rozendaal and Mr Rickey Lu were held on 18 January and 30 March, 2017 respectively. The former focused on training the TAs about grading FYP reports and giving appropriate feedback to students, while the latter focused on grading posters for FYP presentation and giving appropriate feedback to students. Language rubrics created by the EAC team were introduced to the content TAs as assisting tools.

In 2017-18 academic year, the same session for training new TAs about grading and giving feedback on FYP reports was held again on 6 October, 2017. In addition, elements about FYP proposals and more practical suggestions were provided, and the whole session was lengthened to one and a half hour.

Grading and feedback system: In 2016–17 academic year, the content TAs were responsible for grading and giving feedback on the first two FYP interim reports, and for double-grading the FYP final reports. Prior to the deadlines of grade submission, Mr Chris Rozendaal and the EAC team checked the comments and language marks given by the content TAs, and gave some comments/suggestions to the content TAs about their work. Mr Rozendaal also offered a session of score moderation to help the content TAs with the grading of boundary and problematic cases.

In 2017-18 academic year, the new content TAs are required to grade and give feedback on an FYP (interim) proposal and report, and an FYP final report in each term. Mr Rozendaal and the EAC team have planned to hold a moderation meeting after every due date of students’ reports to facilitate the content TAs’ grading and feedback-giving process.

Workshops for FYP students: In 2016–17 academic year, one compulsory workshop on writing an FYP report in Information Engineering (IE) was held on 18 February, 2017. The second workshop held on and 24 April, 2017, was optional, which focused on designing a poster for FYP poster presentation in IE.

In 2017–18 academic year, the mandatory writing workshop was held again on 9 October, 2017, to brief the new cohort of IE FYP students. In additional, elements about FYP proposals and more practical suggestions were provided. The whole session was lengthened to one and a half hour due to positive requests from students of the previous cohort.

Common objectives of workshops:

• To familiarise students with overall structural conventions normally associated with IE report writing and presentation poster designing
• To help students relate structural elements to section headings in their FYP Reports and poster for presentation
• To give students direction in writing an abstract and a proposal
• To review basic standards of referencing on both a report and a poster

Student feedback survey: Feedback was collected from students through a questionnaire survey immediately after each workshop. Likert scale and open-ended questions focusing on the usefulness of the workshop were used. Suggestions for improving the workshop were also being solicited.

Poster presentation observations: The EAC team attended one session of the interim IE FYP poster presentation in early December, 2016, and another session of the final FYP poster presentation in early May, 2017. Through talking to some groups of students about their proposed projects and studying their posters, the EAC team grasped the language performance and needs of the students. Ideas were incorporated into tailor-made activities and materials so as to help the students improve their skills of presenting project objectives and concepts to both professional audience and laymen.

Interviews with teaching assistants: After a series of EAC supporting activities, the EAC team invited the three content TAs to a one-hour interview for obtaining some first-hand opinions on the students’ language use and performance in FYP report writing, and suggestions for improving the collaboration.

The collaboration model of the EAC team and the Department of IE has been well established within only one academic year. The series of language supporting events have been well-received as reflected in the student feedback surveys. All three content TAs of the previous year shared similar views that they have learnt more about report writing as well as balancing between content and language during the grading process. Therefore, the EAC team will continue to work with Prof Jaggi, the new content TAs and the Department of IE in the 2017-18 academic year. A new series of language supporting events has already been scheduled.

In the first term of the academic year 2015-16, the EAC project team collaborated with the Department of Statistics in an attempt to enhance students’ language awareness and language use in writing an evaluative report for the course STAT3005 Applied Nonparametric Statistics. These students encountered difficulty in explaining technical information to their target audience.

Needs Analysis: The task and the mid-term reports of students were analyzed to identify features of an exemplary evaluative report and the students’ areas of improvement. A 20-point rating scale was used to score for the key features of an evaluative report.

Tailor-made Materials: Learning materials, a model text, and some annotated student works were prepared for the invited session to enhance the language awareness of the students.

Feedback: A debriefing session was conducted by the EAC project team during their regular lecture to share the findings with the students. All learning materials and the model text were uploaded to Blackboard for independent learning after class.

The students received remarkably higher language marks in writing the evaluative report in the final examination.

• Since the 2016–17 academic year, the EAC team has been collaborating with the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (EESC; formerly known as the Earth System Science Program) to enhance the language awareness and skills of first-year and final-year students for explaining complex science concepts to lay audience, writing research reports, and delivering academic presentations.

For First-Year Students:

• Needs Analysis: Senior Project reports and research presentations from the previous cohort were analyzed to identify areas for improvement.
• Materials Design: Learning materials on how to give an effective poster presentation were prepared for the guest lecture.
• Guest Lecture: In the first few years, the EAC team delivered a lecture on giving effective poster presentations. All materials were then shared with students for independent post-class study.
• Group Presentation Consultations: Following changes in assessment requirements, the intervention approach shifted to group consultations in recent years. In these sessions, students delivered a mock poster presentation to the EAC team for instant feedback. Previously developed learning materials were assigned as self-study. 

For Final-Year Students:

• Needs Analysis: The team analyzed Senior Project reports, posters, and presentation videos to determine key areas for improvement.
• Workshops: A series of language enhancement workshops was conducted to sharpen students’ skills in writing research reports and delivering presentations.
• Individual Consultations: In order to further enhance student learning, the team provided personalized feedback on students’ research report writing, poster designs, and academic presentations during individual consultation sessions.
• eLearning Platform: To consolidate these efforts and facilitate student self-study, the team developed eLearning modules, supplemented by exemplary journal articles written by EESC professors.
• Assessment Rubrics: EESC adopted the FYP assessment rubrics designed by the EAC team; these rubrics also factor in scores from the team’s accompanying eLearning exercises.

Over the past decade of collaboration, the working model between the EAC team and EESC has become highly integrated and effective. Both the consultations and eLearning materials have been well-received, as reflected in student feedback surveys.

Students reported difficulties in reading the required texts in two required General Education courses, namely UGFH 1000 In Dialogue with Humanity and UGFN 1000 In Dialogue with Nature. The goal is to help a large number of students from diverse backgrounds to understand the gist and structures of these texts. Therefore, the EAC project team held a Professional Development Workshop for University General Education teachers to bridge the gap between teachers’ expectations and students’ performance.

Needs analysis: 10 students were interviewed to understand and confirm their needs and difficulties in reading the texts. Excerpts from On the Origin of Species, In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and The Social Contract were also analysed.

Teachers gained support at different levels:
Discourse/text level:
–  critical reading strategies
–  guiding questions for prompting the students to explore and infer meaning
Sentence level:
–  paraphrasing exercises for deconstructing complex sentences.
Word level:
–  a glossary of academic words, archaic words and technical terms prepared by UGE.
–  visual aids for illustration.