CUHK Expo 2019/20

Technology advancement makes gaming more addictive and easily to be played everywhere. It is unavoidable that today’s teacher is much more difficult to get student attention. Looking on the bright side, researchers suggest that incorporating gaming elements in teaching can stimulate interests of students and inspire them to be more engaged in learning. However, gamification are far less employed in territory education than in primary and secondary education. The popularity of Candy Crush and Pokemon Go among adults and elderly has shown that territory education should not be an exception for gamification. The study aims at providing the experience of gamification and discussing the key takeaways for teachers and researchers.

In Finance, it is important for students to understand the difficulties in making decisions under uncertainty and realize how behavioral bias affect their decisions, but it is easier said than done. To simulate the situation of making decision under uncertainty, in-class interactive activities are employed in Finance classes. An excel file and a google form are used to facilitate the in-class activities.

Based on the experience from nine classes, this study summarizes three key takeaways that are useful for teachers from all disciplines: i) Gamification significantly increases students’ sense of accomplishment, raising their interests in learning. ii) Gamification helps students to think from the participant, rather than form the view of an observer. iii) Setting with interaction element among students improves the learning experience and facilitates knowledge exchange.

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The course CSCI3250/3251 (Computers and Society/Engineering Practicum) was offered to Computer Science and Computer Engineering students in 2018–19 Term 2 to replace the ENGG2601/2602 combination in previous years. Feedback from previous years indicated students being passive in learning by attending lectures and seminars, and writing a project proposal without needing to produce any output.

In CSCI3250+3251, we experimented with the idea of “Break the Classroom” to introduce active group efforts of students to study a unique and relevant topic and share to their classmates in class presentations, and to design interactive games to engage their audience. The topics spread a wide range from technical and practical experiences to alarming social issues on computers and technologies. Students were further encouraged to write up their ideas in blog articles with online collaboration and interaction. With industrial visits, seminars were also no longer limited to be on campus.

Through the process, the teacher became a curator and a facilitator who secures the platform for the easy and efficient exchange of thoughts. In such a collaborative and experiential environment, there were issues on uniformity, consistency, and correctness in student works. Nevertheless, students had positive response, especially in understanding career possibilities, and acquiring practical skills.

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Management of critically sick, general surgical patients can be challenging. Doctors must assess the patient in a timely manner to decide on the most likely diagnosis to offer them prompt treatment to save lives. Initial choice of treatment can be crucial in the management of critically ill patients. There are a wide range of investigations available to help doctors reach the correct diagnosis, however there are pros and cons and risks with each test offered and it can be difficult to decide on which investigation is the best one for your patient at that time. There is no one correct way to manage a sick general surgical patient. However, consequence of making a wrong choice may cost patient’s life. Decision making is an important skill to master. Exposure to the variety of emergency surgical conditions during their General Surgical attachment is unpredictable and may be limited depending on the case mix availability.

The project objective was to produce an interactive learning platform to allow students to manage a critically sick e-patient to enhance student’s deeper learning and promote higher order learning. We have included relevant clinical images and video to improve their understanding of different special investigations available. It allows students to learn important elements of managing critically sick surgical patients but also allows them to appreciate the consequence of their decision without harming real patients. We chose three important classical emergency surgical scenarios: acutely painful leg, acute abdominal pain and gastrointestinal bleed.

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This project evaluates the potential of the “Reacting to the Past” (RTTP) method of game-based learning which is not well-known in Asia, and attempts to contribute to student achievement in the History Department and potentially in the broader university community. The RTTP methodology employs active role-playing, in which students assume the identities of historical figures and argue persuasively from these assumed perspectives. The Principal Project Supervisor (PPS) has trialed RTTP in her previous project, with very encouraging results: student participation and student critical and analytical capabilities were enhanced. These outcomes relate directly to History programme Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs).

The current project expands upon the PPS’s previous project and will unfold in several steps. First, History instructors and other interested Lingnan faculty will be trained in the RTTP methodology. The PPS and Co-supervisors will then pilot RTTP in selected History courses, collect data on student achievement in History ILOs. The project will culminate in a regional RTTP conference which will explore how game-based methods may contribute to history curricula and more broadly to undergraduate education at universities in Asia. At present, the project is progressing well. After fully implementing in history course(s), the useful elements have been applied to the Lingnan’s new flagship Global Liberal Arts Programme. The PPS expects to incorporate the project findings into a module and to teach this module in a broad-based teaching conference for Asia in 2020.


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We have enhanced a commercial computer game, Civilization 5, for game-based learning in our teaching of the general education foundation course as an outside class activity. We believe that playing game is an entertaining, engaging and effective way of learning about any complex and open-ended issues. We also think it is better for educators to focus on the design of the learning materials by simply adopting and enhancing an existing commercially available game.

The game itself is a popular award-winning commercial game that allows player to develop a civilization in a simulated world. The civilization will have to compete with other AI players to build cities, get hold of resources, develop science, religion, and commerce, and build up an army for defending or attacking. It allows the players to innovate their own strategy to win and enjoy the game.

We enhanced the game by making a scenario that mimic real historical setting and edited the technology tree that can be more closely related to the content that we teach. Playing this ‘mod’ allows students to reflect upon, among many interesting issues, a core question in our course, “why ancient Chinese science cannot develop into modern science, with its seemingly leading position initially?” The game offers an external assessment into this question, and act as a compliment to the course readings which explore mainly into the internal causes of scientific development.

We would like to demonstrate the game itself, how we enhanced the game, and how we use it for the teaching in our general education foundation course.

The capstone or final year project is an important piece of writing for final undergraduate students. However many UGC-funded institutions do not have the curriculum space to offer specific English language training specifically for capstone projects. To address this, our project, involving five universities, has developed an in-house mobile app that offers discipline-specific support to final year undergraduate students in the English they need to deliver their capstone or final year project. Besides providing English language learning tips, students can use the app’s two other main features to manage their project and communicate with their supervisors. This presentation reports on the latest updates on the mobile app and looks into students’ feedback and experience in using it. The presentation will conclude with the project’s challenges and future work.

In response to an increasing number of CUHK students going for overseas exchange programmes and an increasing number of non-local students joining CUHK, a series of online learning modules titled “Interacting Across Cultures: Home and Abroad (IACHA)” has been developed to improve both outgoing and incoming students’ intercultural sensitivity so that they can interact with people from different cultural backgrounds more effectively. Building on the “Interacting Across Cultures (IAC)” series by the Independent Learning Centre (ILC) which mainly focusses on preparing outgoing students to maximise their learning outcomes overseas before departure, the current expanded Home and Abroad series has included additional modules to support incoming non-local students’ transition to the academic context at CUHK, prepare them for interactions in multi-national workplaces during internships, and help them better understand the Hong Kong community in general. The IACHA series concludes with a video with voices from both students and staff on the best intercultural practices on campus and beyond. This presentation will report how the IAC series has supported outgoing students so far, and how we envision the IACHA series can be used support incoming non-local students.

Note: “Interacting Across Cultures: Home and Abroad (IACHA)” is a TDLEG project jointly developed by the Independent Learning Centre (ILC), the Office of Student Affairs (OSA), and the Office of Academic Links (OAL).

Management of critically sick, general surgical patients can be challenging. Doctors must assess the patient in a timely manner to decide on the most likely diagnosis to offer them prompt treatment to save lives. Initial choice of treatment can be crucial in the management of critically ill patients. There are a wide range of investigations available to help doctors reach the correct diagnosis, however there are pros and cons and risks with each test offered and it can be difficult to decide on which investigation is the best one for your patient at that time. There is no one correct way to manage a sick general surgical patient. However, consequence of making a wrong choice may cost patient’s life. Decision making is an important skill to master. Exposure to the variety of emergency surgical conditions during their General Surgical attachment is unpredictable and may be limited depending on the case mix availability.

The project objective was to produce an interactive learning platform to allow students to manage a critically sick e-patient to enhance student’s deeper learning and promote higher order learning. We have included relevant clinical images and video to improve their understanding of different special investigations available. It allows students to learn important elements of managing critically sick surgical patients but also allows them to appreciate the consequence of their decision without harming real patients. We chose three important classical emergency surgical scenarios: acutely painful leg, acute abdominal pain and gastrointestinal bleed.

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From 2017 to 2019, I, with my students studying Feminist Theology, and Gender and Ministry, did art exhibition yearly at the New Asia College, Ch’ien Mu Library of the University to share our theological reflection on gender, our life stories, our relationships with God, and the imagined and constructed other. It is a good pedagogical attempt to inspire students to connect academia with their everyday lives’ concern. After three years of practice, I want to address a feminist reflection on artwork for theological pedagogy. Particularly, it can nurture a deeper reflective wisdom for everyday life struggles of theological students. Besides, the exhibition of students’ artwork is a good means for knowledge transfer to the students and staff from other departments in the university. This talk presentation will be conducted with Leo F.H. Ma, Head of Upper-campus Libraries, to share his experience to support teaching and learning activities using library’s facilities and space.