Media coverage
1
Media coverage
Title Media Interview – PolyU Online Teaching Degree of recognition National Media name/outlet Almost every media from Hong Kong Media type Television Country/Territory Hong Kong Date 18/03/20 Description 18 March 2020 (Wednesday)
1. PolyU to resume some essential face-to-face classes on 6 April
PolyU ran a showcase of its online teaching for media yesterday with professors and teaching fellows from the School of Optometry (SO) and School of Design (SD) to demo their customised approach to engage students in their online teaching sessions. Scott Chin, the teaching fellow of SD conducted a real-time online demo with a group of Year 1 students, showing them how to draw a sophisticated object. The students followed suit and uploaded their drawings on the cloud for Scott’s comment and advice. SO also developed over 70 videos within a few weeks to demo the use of sight screening equipment and patient cases to teach the skills and knack that the students have to familiarise with in their practicum. Associate Head of the School of Optometry Dr. Andrew Lam, pointed out that 5th Year students have to participate in heavy clinical practicum schedule, but due to the pandemic situation, they could only use these videos to prepare the students for the future practicum sessions when face-to-face teaching is allowed.
PolyU’s Deputy President and Provost, Prof Alexander Wai Ping-kong said in the event that when considering the face-to-face or online teaching mode, the University has to balance different factors such as the health and safety of students and teachers, the teaching quality and learning outcome, the students’ progress and performances as well as the graduation schedule. Given the second wave of the pandemic, it’s not likely that the University could resume face-to-face classes for this semester, but the University is prepared to do so when circumstances allow. Prof Wai said the University would communicate with its stakeholders including the frontline teaching staff and the student union before making decision on the schedule change such as shortened the recess period from two weeks to one week. He added that as certain types of face-to-face activities, e.g. practicum, clinical skills training, hands-on laboratory, and studio sessions, are essential for some academic subjects to fully achieve their learning outcomes, the University has decided that limited on-campus face-to-face activities should be allowed from 6 April 2020 (or 23 March 2020 for some special cases) onwards. Such sessions will be held at a bigger classroom or laboratory to avoid close contact among students and students will be provided with masks.
Prof David Shum, Dean of Faculty of Health and Social Sciences at PolyU, also pointed out that many programmes of the Faculty including Social Work, Medical Laboratory Science, Radiology, Nursing, Optometry, Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy etc. require face-to-face teaching, clinical practice and skills training, which could not be replaced by online teaching. Some students also need to fulfil the required practicum hours before graduation in order to register for professional qualifications. Prof. Shum cited an example for nursing students, they have to fulfil over 1,000 hours for practicum, the School of Nursing will need to arrange intensive practicum sessions on weekends or night time for their students because of the suspension of face-to-face activities.
Joseph Wong, Director of PolyU’s Information Technology Services Office said that the average attendance rate of online real-time classes was similar to that of face-to-face classes. For some students without sufficient internet access or in foreign countries with time lag factor, the University have uploaded the teaching videos so that they can watch and replay the videos afterwards. Dr Rodney Chu, Vice-Chairman of PolyU Staff Association s added that the participation rate of students was pretty good and students could ask questions by instantly sending written messages to the lecturer in the lesson. Dr Julia Chen, Director of Educational Development Centre shared that the Centre has been supporting the 1,300+ teachers via different means such as website, webinars, e-learning clinics and WhatsApp enquiry services.
Meanwhile, a few media also covered the latest teaching arrangement among other universities. HKU said the remaining courses in this semester will be conducted online, however, for some final year students of undergraduate programmes who need to conduct clinical practice, practicum or other face-to-face learnings, HKU will make special arrangement for them to ensure they can complete the required training in by early June.
Lingnan University said it would change to online real-time teaching in this semester, and students would not be required to return to the school for examinations. If circumstances allow, the University will provide face-to-face classes during summer holidays.
CityU and CUHK said, they will pay close attention to the development of the pandemic, while HKBU and HKUST said that when the pandemic is under control, they may switch to mixed-mode for teaching and conduct face-to-face classes and online teaching. (All major newspapers)URL https://news.mingpao.com/pns/港聞/article/20200318/s00002/1584470285464/【emily】理大示範網上教設計繪圖 Persons Yoo-chang Chin