Abstract

• The General Education Foundation (GEF) Programme in CUHK and the Common Intellectual Experience (CIE) Programme in Ursinus College in USA, as common-core programmes, share a similar vision to shape all undergraduates into better global citizens through studying internationally recognized classic texts.
• With notable overlap of vision, teaching philosophy, and texts in the curricula of the GEF and CIE programmes, there is a high potential for developing a long-term international partnership which benefits the teaching and learning of GE in both institutions.
• We propose a pilot project on the collaborative teaching and learning of the common-core GE courses with Ursinus by introducing to the GEF and CIE two classics from each other’s syllabus, supported by a sharing of online video-lectures on these texts and online exchanges of views on them among teachers and students of both sides.
• The project will serve two goals:
  1. Mutual development: through the collaborative teaching and learning of the culturally diverse texts selected from each other’s syllabus, faculties of both institutions will develop more teaching ideas while their students will gain richer learning experience.
  2. Internationalization at home: without leaving home, students and teachers of both institutions will gain an exchange experience through intellectual dialogues with their counterparts overseas, broaden their cultural understanding, and develop mutual respect.
• The goals will be realized in three steps:
  1. To produce micro-modules for blended-learning of the texts selected from the GEF and CIE syllabi;
  2. To develop an online discussion platform to facilitate discussion of the texts between the teachers and students in GEF and CIE.
  3. To implement collaborative teaching and learning of the texts selected by GEF and CIE in each other’s curriculum.

Brief write-up

Project objectives

The General Education Foundation (GEF) Programme in CUHK and the Common Intellectual Experience (CIE) Programme in Ursinus College in the United States, as common-core programmes, share a similar vision of core-text learning. In this pilot project, we have worked on collaborative teaching and learning between GEF and CIE Programmes by introducing texts from each other’s syllabus to achieve mutual development in pedagogy and Internationalization at Home (IaH).

Activities, process and outcomes

We selected a total of 4 core texts in both GEF and CIE syllabi for collaborative teaching and learning. We produced eLearning instruments (micro-modules) to introduce the texts to the counterpart students and created asynchronous online forums for the exchange of ideas. We also successfully organized interactive synchronous online discussion sessions via ZOOM to overcome the twelve-hour time difference. Understanding of the texts, cultural diversity, and teaching and learning experience were enriched.

Deliverables and evaluation

A total of 4 micro-modules with 9 lecture videos (10 min each), 2 KEEP (CU eLearning platform) Moodle course sites, 4 online forums (with 222 discussion posts), and 16 synchronous online discussion sessions are produced and organized. Evaluation conducted by questionnaire surveys revealed that 95.5% of students enjoyed this new learning experience.

Dissemination, diffusion, impact and sharing of good practices

The design of this project was shared in a seminar organized by the Centre for Learning Enhancement And Research (CLEAR). The whole project will be shared at the Teaching and Learning Innovation Expo in December 2022.

Impact on teaching and learning

This project has demonstrated a successful model for international collaborative teaching and learning. It supports the approaches of Internationalization at Home (IaH) and Internationalization of Curriculum (IoC).

Video Report

Please click the following link for viewing the report.
https://cuhk.ap.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=f0a5ac2e-0d45-4123-93a7-b123009c55fa