Overview
The Centre for Learning Enhancement And Research (CLEAR) is delighted to launch the Teaching Excellence Ambassador (TEA) Programme as a catalyst to establish and develop Communities of Practice (CoP) in CUHK. Each CoP comprises parties with the common interest of sharing and promoting good teaching and learning practices in a given domain. The primary goal of the programme is to identify good teaching practices at CUHK and to share and promote them in the wider academic community, so that they will evolve into a respected pedagogical scholarship.
In the TEA programme, CUHK teachers who have demonstrated excellent teaching qualities, or have developed innovative pedagogical approaches, are invited to be Ambassadors. These Ambassadors will reach out to other frontline teaching members, as well as responsible personnel of academic programmes, to share teaching experiences, and to both share and disseminate effective teaching practices. CLEAR is privileged to have secured the support of 23 experienced teaching members to serve as Ambassadors to launch the programme, and will continue to build the list of Ambassadors.
How the TEA programme can help you
All Academic Units (programmes, departments and faculties), are invited and urged to organise teaching development activities such as seminars, workshops and retreats to foster good teaching. The programme Ambassadors can play a leading role in such activities. Activity organisers are invited to contact CLEAR, who will liaise with the programme Ambassadors to solicit their participation. Such activities facilitate the establishment of a robust network between front-line teachers from units with specific needs and the Ambassadors who possess the expertise, interest and experiences to provide assistance. Research staff affiliated to CLEAR will, upon request, assist the Ambassadors in conducting relevant pedagogical literature reviews and with the aim of grounding the good teaching practices at CUHK in the educational literature.
CoPs would be robust and sustainable only if they were formed and developed bottom-up, based on themes of mutual interest between the Ambassadors and other teaching staff. CLEAR staff will therefore also provide follow-up services to facilitate the adoption of good practices by other teaching staff. An example of such services is to conduct classroom experiments to test the effectiveness of the teaching practices promoted, and to collect relevant data that will help develop other good teaching practices. CLEAR will help Ambassadors and other teaching staff compile any information relevant to good teaching practices systematically, disseminate them on the CoP project website, and work with stakeholders to publish their ideas and practices in education journals of good standing. The long-term objective of the programme is to further advance CUHK from excellence in teaching practices to excellence in the scholarship of teaching and learning, as part of a continuing effort in enhancing teaching and learning at the university.
