Diverse online teaching and learning experiences

The School has been offering different modes of online learning during months of class suspension. How to make use of information technology to provide diverse learning experiences for students and fulfil their learning expectations? Let’s review our online teaching and learning strategies and its effectiveness.

What we have done so far

Subject lecturers have been using different e-teaching platforms, such as the Blackboard Collaborate Ultra, Zoom, and MS Teams to deliver online lectures, tutorials, and lab sessions (facilitators demonstrated nursing skills in real-time), etc. These software programmes enable students to interact with their lecturers and classmates in virtual classes instantly. Teaching materials were uploaded for student revision. The clinical education team developed a set of online lectures and tutorials with topics, such as ventilator care, aerosol generating procedures and professional nursing competence assessment to allow students to continue to learn during the suspension of clinical practicum.

Teacher-student meetings and talks also go online. For example, online career talks were organised to give students more understanding of their professional development. The ICAC talk was delivered online for the first time to graduating students.

The Student Academic Advisors have also been communicating with our students regularly via Blackboard Collaborate Ultra and MS Teams to give emotional support and guidance to students throughout this special period.

Strategies & evaluation

The School’s teaching teams attended webinars given by the EDC, ITS, and our online teaching support team to enhance online teaching skills and learn ways to facilitate
E-learning. Various strategies have been using to facilitate student E-learning, such as preparing PowerPoint teaching materials with voice-overs, making short video lectures, encouraging discussion in online groups and chat boards. Web-based senior-student peer supervision was introduced in the service learning (SL) subject Mentoring Health Ambassadors for School Communities. Guided by the senior peers and the lecturers, students in small groups developed their activity plans.

To keep track of students’ progress, subject lecturers have been using the Subject
e-Engagement Reports to monitor student participation. “When lectures identified students with low participation, they will send them a reminder to encourage them to put more effort in E-learning,”said Dr Sau-fong Leung, the programme leader of the BSc (Hons) in Mental Health Nursing programme.

Apart from online quizzes/examinations or written assignments, formative assessment, such as interactive Q&A sessions, peer assessment and reflective journal, etc., have been used by subject lecturers to evaluate students’ learning and help students identify areas for improvement. Polls were conducted and student feedback was collected for refining teaching strategies. To overcome challenges of assessing online video assignments, uRewind has been used by subject lecturers for supporting students’ creation and submission of videos. The software also allows subject lecturers to give online feedback on video clips. Before assessing group projects, the subject lecturers of Mentoring Health Ambassadors for School Communities communicated regularly with students online to sustain the group dynamics and ensure that students were on the right track in their learning.

Effectiveness of online teaching & student feedback

The School’s teaching teams conducted a survey to understand the effectiveness of
on-line teaching. The results of the survey showed that majority of students participated in the online synchronised sessions (median attendance=92%) and accessed the asynchronised online teaching materials (median hit rate=0.97). In some courses, the asynchronised learning materials were access repeatedly (Hit rate max=6.9).

Students commented that they enjoyed the convenience, safety and comfort of learning in their home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shy students benefitted more as they have become more active in online learning activities. However, our teaching teams have been aware that some statistics showed that the engagement rates of small classes were lower than large classes.

For the SL subjects, student online engagement was generally high. Online senior peer supervision helped create good dynamics among student groups.

“All student work was submitted on time with good quality,” said Annie Yip, a lecturer of the subject. “Students also found it easier to ask questions online.”