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A Technology-Enriched Active Learning Space for a New Gateway Education Programme in Hong Kong: a Platform for Nurturing Student Innovations

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Journal of Learning Spaces Volume 5, Number 1. 2016 ISSN 21586195 A Technology-Enriched Active Learning Space for a New Gateway Education Programme in Hong Kong: A Platform for Nurturing Student Innovations Pit Ho Patrio Chiu City University of Hong Kong A Gateway Education Programme is established in Hong Kong that aims to broaden students’ interdisciplinary knowledge and nurture student innovations under the Discovery-enriched Curriculum. To support the initiative, a novel idea was proposed for the creation of a Gateway Education Laboratory (GE Lab) with a highly configurable layout equipped with a 3D printer, a cloud-based eLearning tool and user-friendly scientific instruments. Course leaders report that the GE Lab provides a very good physical environment that enhances student attitudes and supports various instructive styles and interactive learning tasks that traditional classrooms fail to provide. Students’ creative achievements have been recognized internationally. KEY WORDS: 3D Printing, Active Learning Space, Technology-Enhanced Learning, Hong Kong Active learning classrooms (ALCs) are student-centered Studies have reported the positive effects of ALCs on interactive learning spaces that are designed to encourage improving student learning outcomes, promoting student collaboration and active engagement in learning collaboration, enhancing engagement, changing learning tasks. ALCs are intended to promote interaction, and usually attitudes and encouraging interactions between students feature round tables where students can sit together, and teachers (Alexander et al., 2008; Beichner & Saul, 2003; allowing them to participate in group discussions and Dori & Belcher, 2005; Finkelstein et al., 2010; Foulds, Bergen, conduct cooperative learning activities. The layout is & Mantilla, 2003; Taylor, 2009). carefully designed to minimize the barrier between the These positive outcomes of ALCs are well aligned with the teacher and students and to facilitate in-class participation desired characteristics of the newly established Gateway and engagement. ALCs, or similar projects, were first Education (GE) Programme at City University of Hong Kong introduced in universities and higher education institutes in (CityU) in 2012 under the advocated Discovery-enriched the United States, including the Student-Centered Active Curriculum (DEC) (Association of American Colleges and Learning Environment with Upside-down Pedagogies Universities, 2012). Under the DEC, the University seeks to (SCALE-UP) (http://scaleup.ncsu.edu/) initiated by North nurture students in making original discoveries by creating Carolina State University and the Technology Enabled an active learning atmosphere on campus and by making Active Learning (TEAL) classroom re-design project advanced technologies available to all students (including (http://web.mit.edu/edtech/casestudies/teal.html) by the educational technology and research grade facilities), while Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The concept has the new GE Programme promotes interdisciplinary since spread around the world, for instance, in the knowledge through collaborative learning and self- establishment of ALCs at McGill University, Canada, in 2009 discovery. As well-designed physical space can support and (Finkelstein, Weston, Tovar, & Ferris, 2010) and at SoongSil enact an institutional mission (Fugazzotto, 2009; Harris & University, Korea, in 2010 (Park & Choi, 2014). Holley, 2008), thus resources have been allocated to establish a Gateway Education Laboratory (GE Lab), a technology- Pit Ho Patrio Chiu, Office of Education Development and Gateway enriched interdisciplinary active learning space (ALS) with Education, City University of Hong Kong. a flexible layout to support students from all disciplines to experience active learning pedagogy, to learn and make use Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Pit of key advanced technologies and to work together to Ho Patrio Chiu, Office of Education Development and Gateway generate and realize their innovative ideas. Education, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong. E-mail: [email protected] The Gateway Education Programme 52 A TECHNOLOGY ENRICHED ACTIVE LEARNING SPACE In 2012, under the recommendation of the University to mention the special teaching and learning facilities; such Grants Committee (UGC) of Hong Kong, all eight local as 3D printer, presentation capture system and instrument, publicly funded universities/institutions expanded their to support these active learning activities (Jamieson, 2003). undergraduate curricula from 3 to 4 years (University Grants Individual academic departments may have their own Committee, 2012). While the individual institutions laboratories or studios; however, these facilities only serve developed their new curricula separately, all of them students enrolled under the department programmes and adopted a general education approach (Jaffee, 2012, 2013), are not open to other students. Thus, the senior management similar to the US system, which aims to broaden students’ proposed the novel idea of a technology-enriched ALS open knowledge by exposing them to multiple disciplines and to to all students via the GE Programme. infuse them with language, communication and other generic skills. Assisted by Fulbright scholars from the Guiding Principles of the GE Lab Fulbright Hong Kong General Education Project (Gaff, Similar to all established ALCs, the GE Lab was designed for 2014)(http://www.fulbright.org.hk/main/fhkgep/), CityU active and collaborative learning. An ALC needs to provide developed a unique General Education Programme with the adequate work areas and suitable furniture for groups of distinctive characteristics of Chinese cultural awareness, students to work together, generate ideas, participate in English communication skills and exposure to hands-on activities and even conduct low-risk experiments. interdisciplinary knowledge. Starting with the 2012/13 To encourage student-teacher interaction, teachers should be cohort, all CityU students take core/required courses on able to move close to students and walk freely around the Chinese civilization and English, and select seven GE classroom to engage individual students without physical courses from three Distributional Areas (Area 1: Arts and obstacles. Furthermore, as the GE Lab was intended to Humanities; Area 2: Study of Societies, Social and Business support all GE courses, different teachers may have different Organizations; Area 3: Science and Technology) to broaden needs in terms of classroom layout for them to conduct their knowledge across disciplines. All Distributional GE active learning activities, thus a flexible, transformable, courses are designed with engaged pedagogies for students layout was highly preferred (Monahan, 2002; Taylor, 2009). with no specific background requirements or prior training, Another mandate for the GE Lab was to provide key and are required to “adopt an interdisciplinary frame of reference technologies to support student innovations. Students in to foster an appreciation of the relations among different fields of Hong Kong in general have a high level of information knowledge” (http://www.cityu.edu.hk/ge/). These criteria literacy and a culture of adopting new technology. A recent ensure that students from different disciplines can learn and study found that Hong Kong students obtained their highest work together to generate interdisciplinary knowledge and scores in information technology among the six measured ideas. The programme was renamed the ‘Gateway generic skills (Education Bureau, 2014). Their learning can Education Programme’ to reflect its uniqueness, as be motivated by integrating advanced technologies into expressed in the following statement: learning tasks. The technologies adopted in the GE Lab are “GE, in essence, augments and rounds out the specialized not common educational equipment with which students training students receive in their majors by enabling them to are already familiar - for example, personal response system, achieve a breadth of knowledge through exposure to interactive whiteboard, and lecture capture tool; rather, the multiple disciplines. GE is the glue that holds disciplines technologies were selected because they have the potential together.” (http://www.cityu.edu.hk/ge/) to inspire creative thinking and support innovative ideas. At the same time, CityU launched the DEC, an The key philosophy behind the GE Lab is to supplement the institutional-level initiative to promote student discovery, discipline-focused laboratories operating under academic innovation and creativity (Wang, 2013), with the goal of departments such as Physics, Chemistry and Engineering, “giving all students the opportunity to make an original which support knowledge transfer to a specific group of discovery” (http://www.cityu.edu.hk/provost/dec/). To students through structured lab work. The GE Lab is a align with the DEC, the teaching and learning activities of platform that provides technologies and space for all GE courses are designed to nurture student innovation and students, via the GE Programme, to discover discovery, which generally involves collaborative learning, interdisciplinary knowledge and to generate, realize and hands-on activities and project work. These active learning verify their ideas. activities require extra space, specific layouts and workshop- type equipment. Even though the regular classrooms on Design of the
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